Describe the biggest clown you ever worked with
I graduated from a semi-target with mehhh grades because I took frat life too seriously like a dickhead. Thus my first job took me a few months after graduation to find and it was for a no-name boutique IB shop with three borderline senile MDs, only one of which had legitimate experience working for a real IB.
A few months into the gig we get a new, younger Indian MD, we'll call him "Rajib", who didn't have any prior experience in finance whatsoever. He worked for roughly 25 years for a variety of small start-upy tech firms as a cold-call salesman but was PHENOMENAL at sucking the Managing Partner's dick. Because the MP was old and clueless I guess Rajib was able to convince him that he was some sort of successful Tech entrepreneur with tons of hands on experience "creating successful business exits for tech start ups". Except it was all bullshit, like 100% bullshit. The dude drove a beat-to-shit early 2000s vintage BMW and lived in a two-floor town home but wore Prada glasses, Gammo loafers and Gucci belts every day. He dressed like he spent every weekend scavenger hunting across every thrift store in town for designer objects no matter how stained, smelly and wrinkled they were.
The worst part was actually having to manage a deal with this guy. He would play the bullshit "I know what it's like to be in your shoes card" with these young Tech start-up CEOs during pitches and would occasionally win them because nobody else wanted to sign an EL with the shitty clients he would onboard. Think sub-$5M in recurring revenue from one or two large customers and zero growth outside of that. Then once we'd engage for the deal things would get even worse because this dude knew fuck all but wanted the Managing Partner and other MDs think he actually understood the work that was being done on the CIM or financial model. This motherfucker really got asked about EBITDA on a buyer call one day and said "E?? EBADA???? I cannot hear you, I think you are breaking up" in a thick Indian accent because he didn't know what EBITDA was and only pretended to actually look through and/or understand the model the Associate and I put together. Moreover the dude never knew who the fuck he was talking to or was able to successfully answer a question outside of vague, bullshit, buzzword answers. He'd have the analysts scour pitchbook and try to find every PE firm in the world that would entertain small deals, without having any actual working relationship with any of them. When asked for valuation guidance he would make sure to use the buzz-phrases "high-margin", "revenue multiple", "recurring revenue", "SaaS", "synergies" and "high-growth" somehow then ultimately just say "the market determines the price, as you know."
Long-story short the firm finally died a year or two after I left and he's back to being unemployed and a full-time LinkedIn Psuedo-Entrepreneur who speaks to VC clubs at non-target universities on the week days.
Fuck you, Rajib, you fucking dunce.
hating this guy sounds like religious experience! spill more stories/hints man, i wanna see his linkedin
My personal favorite was him not inviting the Associate or myself to travel with him to meet with a PE group in Miami. He always wanted to take calls alone without looping in anyone else, presumably so nobody could hear how bad he was on them.
So we dial-in and one of the guys at the PE group asks him "How do you arrive at this number for ARR?" referencing a number in an excel model they're sharing on the screen. Could I have jumped in and answered it? Yes. Did I? Fuck no, eat shit Rajib. He stutters and stammers something to the effect of "Well, see, you take a formula in the spreadsheet...and so...you add.... well, you run it through a few calculations....and then you get that number"
Fucking retard. But nah seriously man, by all means go to Miami alone for three days and fuck around without at least inviting the junior team members who you expect to cover for your ass.
Doesn't compare to your story of Rajib, but I worked with a clown on one of my FLDP rotations. The guy started a few weeks after me and would use me as his guidepost for if he was getting up to speed at an appropriate rate. His only goal was to appear slightly ahead of me at all times. He would do stupid shit like purposely wait to send emails on nights or weekends to make it seem like he was working to the bone for the company.. when we definitely didnt have enough work to fill 40 hours. He would make posts on social about how he was always on that grind. He would find obscure useless topics to become well versed on so that he could ask me a random question about it and bask in how I didn't know what he was talking about.
Best part was that we were supposed to get certified in the company cost accounting practices- it was a long process with multiple modules and tests, so he just made sure to be ever so slightly ahead of me in order to look good. I caught on and secretly finished the process and got my certification. A few days later at a staff meeting, our boss asks for an update on our progress and he mentions how he is 47% done, and I then say I finished it a few days before. The look on this dude's face was priceless. Eat shit, buddy.
Gold! Every adventure with "successfully facilitated startup exits" bros is hilarious from the outside.
More Rajib stories please!
Well there was the time he deadass drowned while snorkeling...in shallow water...with floaties on. Dude went to St. John in the Virgin Islands and literally had to be resuscitated because he swam too far out, panicked and inhaled too much water. All while in less than five feet of water and wearing flotation devices, per his recollection of it. After setting off a panic in the office (senile Managing Partner is weeping like he just lost his only son despite the fact that he was fine by the time we heard of what happened) he just shows up mid-week the next week and breaks the ice in his thick Indian accent "Ah Ha! I am Aquaman now!" Then goes back to work bombing on sub $20M sell-side engagements.
Fucking Rajib man.
Lmaoooooo...I think you might have just kickstarted a legend.
Had a lady VP at a prior firm. Every stereotype of poor female communication habits (passive-aggressive, non-confrontational to a fault, reading crazy shit into every benign interaction, etc.), she fulfilled to the highest possible degree. Was shockingly incompetent, didn't know how to do anything, yet insisted that everything be done exactly as she wanted (which was typically incorrectly). Came to a boiling point where she insisted that I spend a day making a quality deliverable incorrect to her specifications. After her failure to understand why it would be a waste of time to do so and that what she wanted was incorrect, I conceded that she had rank and could make me do it, but it was wrong and would wind up being thrown away.
Two days after that interaction, she tells me that she has a "communication plan" that will help get us on the same page and avoid confusion. She winds up emailing me a performance improvement plan that cites my poor communication and insubordination. I checked completely at this point and started looking at exits. She was in our office several weeks later, I decided it was a good time to bail. Called her and the managing partner into the conference room, told them I was resigning because she was impossible to work with, and laid out receipts of her fucking up deliverables, fucking up deliverables and trying to blame it on me, miscommunicating to an other-worldly degree, and generally being an unprofessional, pissy little cunt. I didn't address her once, just laid everything out to the partner, and she didn't say a word as I detailed how bad she was at her job to her boss for ~20 minutes. Partner stared daggers at her several times during the meeting and apologized to me for her conduct.
I am back to making ~$100k more than cunty now, so all is right with the world again, but the moral of the story is not to take a job with a female supervisor.
You had me until the last line bro
IDK why this comment has me on stitches
Nice! So, we should not work with male colleagues and supervisors too since all the other examples are male. Gotcha, thanks.
I mean, female/make aside, well-handled.
I worked with a guy who was kinda a clown but not egregiously so - think he barely qualifies, but he was 6'4 / 250 lbs so was undoubtedly the biggest one.
I worked at a credit rating agency. This analyst was a great talker but that was really the extent of her abilities. She was really lazy, a kiss ass, and a really good politician. Anyone that had rank on her would be treated differently. She would put on this act and her personality would do a 180. It was amusing to see. Also, she delegated all of her work to those under her and would throw you under the bus whenever possible. I would never ever trust a transaction rated by her because I know she does jack shit on her deals and she has neither the knowledge nor work ethic required for rating a deal Can't wait for her transactions to blow up one day and I will gladly throw her under the bus in Congress/SEC if that day comes.
Another pet peeve of mine is she would randomly delete columns or move cells/columns around in excel, without telling you. Imagine being in a group meeting with her throwing you under the bus for a malfunctioning spreadsheet that was caused by her manually moving a column that overwrote another column.
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