Feeling a bad pattern forming. I need some help
I joined a LevFin team at a BB as an intern last Feb and thankfully I got my full time offer. There’s something that’s happening and idk what to make of it. Coming from a project finance background, I have decent modelling skills and my team is just relying on me too much for fixing the models in every little thing. It’s become so recurrent that someone gets me the deformed version of what they want via AI and ask me to do it flawlessly. Sometimes not even bothering to explain wtf they want. It’s a great thing to be acknowledged for my skills especially because I too rely on associates and above to explain many things to me. But this arrangement of being the team’s dedicated modeller is starting to be a problem. I’m spending way too much time handling models for projects I’m not even on. Out of this analyst class, I’m by far leaving the last every night. I didn’t really mind it until a departing associate gave me some creepy advice that being in this position for too long would actually be detrimental to my development on the team and told me to be careful because some people are taking advantage of it.
This is just messing with my head. Normally I’d keep my head down and do what I’m asked to do and there’s this guy telling me I’m missing out on important stuff by debugging models all night.
Any advice how to navigate this with a good balance?
Next time someone tries to push a model on you, tell them you’re going to be tied up with one of your current deals you’re actually staffed on but will try to eventually get to it. Frame it like “I’ll try to take a look at some point, but I’m pretty tied up on my actual staffing man, so sorry.” Start with the weakest associates / VPs who have the least leverage first. Keep doing that until they stop asking, and keep working through the rest of the associates / VPs to the best of your ability (might have to keep helping one or two which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). If they keep pushing, tell them to talk to your staffer. If your staffer is cool / supports you, you can preempt it and have a conversation with them first so they hopefully will be on your side.
Ask whoever staffed you to rank the requests: "I have X due tonight and Y tomorrow. Which should move if this model is the priority?" That makes the trade-off visible without sounding defensive.
Also separate work that develops you from work that exists because you're the reliable debugger. If you keep getting the same cleanup task, ask for a defined piece of higher-value work next time. Keep being dependable, but don't let dependable become invisible.
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