Fair to get Chewed Out Bad for This?
Working on a chemicals m&a deal and our client produces this super super niche rare chemical.
We hired a consultant who pulled together around 5-6 different PDFs (450+ pages total) of a bunch of research and reports on this chemical.
For the CIM for market industry slides, my VP said to go onto our drive and folder with all those 450 pages, and he told me he thinks he remembers seeing a page with a map that has in the U.S. where that chemical is produced nationwide, and put that map on a page.
I quickly go through the 450 pages and did not find a map. I did the rest of the industry pages and sent to him and just let him know there was no map included on the research pack I went through. I did not send that page blank to the client, or even our MD. Just to him first. Also to note its not like because of this, we missed a deadline. The MD wanted to see the industry pages Friday and my VP made me have them done to him Tuesday morning.
He was furious and berated me and let me know that Instead, what I missed, was a page in the 450 stack detailing in TEXT the specific locations. (For example, one in Little Rock, AK, one in Oklahoma, etc). I was then supposed to create a map on my own with all the locations and put it on the slide.
The thing is, it is 1 A.M, I had a 3:30 A.M night ahead of me, working on 3 other live deals. I made the mistake yes, but I think in my opinion it was fair for me to not spend 4 hours reading every single page of the 450 stack at that hour when I have SO much work ahead of me on top of that. I admittedly just flipped through the 450 pages just pressing "down arrow" on each page and scanning to see if there was a map, and just was honed in on finding said MAP of it as he mentioned.
Just want opinions on if I am a shit analyst, if it was unreasonable for my VP to get super angry, if people see where I am coming from, etc.
Honestly if I was an associate and this exact same scenario happened with my analyst I would say something like this:
Hey thanks for sending the pages and digging through that huge pack late at night I know that was a pain. That was my bad, the page was actually text with the locations and not just a map like I told you it was. Do you mind just creating a map instead? See page 75 with the locations.
Something like that. Maybe I am a pussy and too soft and need to realize this is wallstreet but this one had me kind of shook.
You are not a shit analyst. Just one who missed something when they were jammed. Ideally, you should have picked it up BUT also shit slips through the cracks when you're jammed up with multiple things late into the night.
The "furiously berating" part is small pp energy for a deck that went to nobody other than your VP. There aren't many scenarios in my mind that entail a "furious berating" of a junior and this most certainly is not one.
Not like you made a critical mistake If your small pp VP can't work around that, bro has bigger problems than a missing map.
Appreciate the input.
Minor “mistake” and your VP is a dick.
More importantly, please put me on the buyers list. Really want to do another chems deal this year.
Hey, I was curious why you're interested in doing chemicals deals this year. Appreciate any insights!
Can tell your VP is a direct A2A promote. What a clown
What’s wrong with A2A VP’s?
Know-it-alls
Guys who expect you to be able to retain every single piece of knowledge that they've picked up over the last 7 years at the firm despite the fact that you literally started last month. Also tons of "Are you sure this is how we show this know - when I used to do this..." type of comments.
We’re really hating on A2A’s now??
circle of life
Dick VP.
If it makes you feel any better I just made a similar error.
My VP - “these numbers don’t match the table.”
I go and check the numbers in every table in the document. Have no idea which numbers he’s talking about I can’t find any that don’t match our source.
Turns out he was talking about a paragraph where someone else had written old figures in a paragraph that we didn’t update. Jokes on me for not reading every paragraph in a 200 page word doc…
Happens
Wow he sure is a high caliber performer!
mate, absolutely not your fault. unreasonable request.
Thanks man
If he said map, you're keeping your eye out for a map. Not a text description. And those two things aren't similar enough that you should've assumed "map" to include related content like a text description. Because obviously a map would lend itself to a page in the way that the text description might not.
The long hours and 3 other live deals aren't really the issue. It's a communication failure. VP who is looking for XYZ content needs to properly describe the content i.e. "maybe it was a map, maybe it was a description, we need to know where the chemical is produced".
I've received a lot of MS for usually siding against analysts in these types of scenarios, but this time I think it's a lazy VP hurting the team with a lazy description.
Thanks, Doctor ;)
Yeah if I knew my search was either a page of map for the chemical, or if it was in text, I would have scanned for paragraphs of text regarding its location, would have control + f'd location stuff, etc. He berated me and essentially said I wasn't resourceful and was doing bare minimum and that any good analyst would have caught the location in TEXT and then would have taken it upon themselves to create the map with the given locations and thats what I was expected to do.
He's taking a good concept and mis-applying it to make up for his own failure.
It's true that analysts should "own" requests by thinking of the overall goal of the request and expanding the request as needed to further the goal.
But a VP above all else, needs to be a sharp project manager. A key skill is for the VP is to know how to communicate requests in a way that utilizes resources efficiently. He should've anticipated that someone looking through 450 pages will need to focus more narrowly than someone looking through 20 pages. And saying "map" instead of saying "info on where the chemical is produced" is guaranteed to direct that focus away from the text.
When I was a VP I would take a while to fully explain the purpose behind almost everything. I'd occasionally get analysts rolling their eyes, telling me I'm taking too long etc. I'm sure sometimes they were right. But I also avoided situations like this one.
Agreed on the above comments - unreasonable response by the VP (and crap guidance)
Thank you!
You're okay, i won't call that a mistake, maybe some miscommunication or lack of communication.
Also, hope you understand that some VPs face certain personal problems and they tend to release it on juniors if they can't control it (i.e. Wife pressuring him to get kids, balding, mortgage, GF cheating etc.)
Thank you!
This...
If I get told to look for a map, I’m looking for a fucking map.
Literally man I scanned through 500 pages for a MAP. I am not gonna look into each paragraph thru 500 pages at 2 in the morning when I went to bed at 4 am the night before.. what a joke
You're more than fine and not shit, whether runny or solid, at all.
This is mainly on the VP.
Bro. Tell him to fuck off. And it’s not that deep. No need to feel scared for other people’s incompetency
Fully agree with the above. This is a very small issue. Some VPs are bad managers, and this definitely sounds like one of them.
I once dealt with a similar a-hole VP who berated me for missing a number in text after a PE fund pointed out that their annual report showed EBIT as MUSD 110, while our IM had MUSD 130. PE wanted to understand how the numbers tied. She called me on a Sunday morning and gave me a hairdryer treatment. Turns out the Big4 audit team of the client had made an error, writing 110 in text in the annual report, which is where the PE fund picked it up, and 130 in all the tables and accounts. Client had to send out updated annual reports and Big4 issued an apology to them. However, I never got an apology from the VP and she was still mad at me for not catching it, because "it was in the reports"...
Not a huge mistake and doesn’t warrant his reaction. Nothing in this job does. I will say that a ctrl + f of keywords would have probably been a better start before scrolling through 450 pages. He was probably made because your approach screams “monkey processing work” as opposed to someone who thinks critically about requests. Fine as a first year but definitely think about how you approach tasks going forward. Unfortunately this is an industry where people project their perfectionism and not everyone can operate at that level with limited sleep.
Absolutely his fault for not communicating instructions well.
I've learnt to think this is just a job instead of the "holy investment banking job" so I would think of requests from a normal person perspective. If he shouts at you for a mistake he made, there's no reason not to tell him to go fuck himself. (note that I left IB cuz i can't stand it)
I wouldn’t say communication is the issue here per say. The analyst knew what the goal was which is create a map of locations. The issue is the VP misremembered that it was in fact text versus a map and then chewed analyst out for that. I think both sides should take some level of ownership over their mistake. The reason VP is fuming is because he probably did what he would have expected analyst to do which is ctrl + f as a sanity check a found that it was in fact not a map.
I’m not justifying his reaction by any means and as the analyst I would have a candid conversation with the associate or VP directly to communicate this. It’s happened to me before with an MD when I was an associate and I told the Director above me that I did not appreciate the MDs communication style towards me and to let him know that it was inappropriate. I went indirect because as an inner city New York City kid I wanted to curse the MD out which is what all of the junior people are recommending here but definitely not the right move from a professionalism standpoint.
The chewing out over nothing thing is very odd. Everyone is too high strung in this industry (I am a VP who has hit my limit). I’m very excited to move on with life and not be around these kinds of people anymore. Only gets worse as you move up as an FYI.
Definitely does not require that reaction, but I would flag that stuff earlier vs waiting and turning in the other pages. I’m not a yeller or berater, as personally don’t have the energy and feel like it’s abuse. But I expect and my juniors know to communicate that stuff to me sooner than later. Just my two cents.
Understand that absolutely no one gives a fuck about this on the other side of the transaction. Most of the content bankers create is vanity and isn't actionable from an investing standpoint
This is giving
Energy
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