Guess WFH hours aren't so great
Saw this on IG. I previously had hope my hours would be down a bit but I guess banking is banking.
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PJT the new Moelis?
This is a live deal. All bets are off the table for a live deal. If this were an internal project, then sure you're in the right.
Let me know how I can be helpful.
I guess it depends on the team. I have 25+ live deals closed and I've worked past 3 AM like 5 times. If you know it's one of those times, you know, it won't be ambiguous, and the Associate should be there as well right next to you. It should never become a habit on live deals. Nothing around this email should ever have happened.
Exactly! If the team was in sync the junior guys would have known comments were coming and have been ready for them. Senior guy does seem like a bit of a prick.
What type of senior brags about getting 5 hrs of sleep and expects his junior team to have less. How pathetic. Not a good look for PJT.
Yes exactly. Also, with the rare exception of some MDs, he is lieing. I don't know pushing analyst hours. Total BS. Maybe, he's up because he's snorting coke and banging hookers while everyone else works at the office.
LMAO the junior team is about to get reamed on this. I can't believe they let the firm name be public. Like it's only 2-3 junior people it's clear who sent it?? Is that the name next to the comma "Fo..."
Ive totally been there. Bet this md was randomly hard to reach all day and early night and not responding to emails, then decided to dump comments to his junior team middle of the night at 3am and expects immediate responses from them. Cant blame them for being angry and leaking this.
How do you know it was an MD providing the comments? From the tone, I think it's a VP that's trying to assert his authroity over the associate and analyst.
Sorry saw the misspellings and typos and it screamed md to me. Really could be any rank to be honest.
This email was sent by a mediocre and extremely self important mid-level VP that is uniformly despised and has a terrible rep.
Not a nice way to talk about VPs
I personally think the response from the senior (vp/md/whoever this person is) to be a pretty bad response, although it is tough to have a confident read without the full message.
The response seems a bit over the top, but who knows what kind of day they were having and what else was going on.
My personal view is that you have to set clear expectations, that’s pretty important in this situation. You should be clear on what is important and what timeframe you need to manage to, if that was done then I understand being upset, but too often people leave it open ended which makes it tough to manage. I also think that as a senior employee you shouldn’t let sh*t roll downhill. If something is actually important, you can also do it yourself. That isn’t to say that’s how it should always be, but if important, do it, you are a capable person (and you’ve done it before). The message seems getting mad to just flex your authority and less so about anything important actually going wrong.
Anyway, I think this culture leads to a pretty toxic workplace, but this is low confidence as it is one exchange and so much else could be going on. You want to hold people to a high standard but not crush them, that’s a part of IB that I’ve never agreed with.
Completely disagree. HARD disagree.
Worked at an EB with a ton of dealflow, and this type of stuff is completely avoidable. I've witnessed top-ranked mid-level bankers be able to manage their teams and announce multiple live deals at once while always engendering a positivity among the group (even in the midst of multiple all-nighters.)
There is a way to do it, and it's not that hard. But when things get tight, people are just used to thinking that respect and consideration for your juniors is the first thing you can sacrifice. It's completely lazy. And also, in my view, immoral.
Newsflash: You can treat people well and still succeed at this job if you just put your mind to it. Think as hard about how you motivate your team as you think about how to motivate your managers and clients. It will even pay immense dividends in the form of project success, reputation, friendship, camaraderie, loyalty and, yes, exit opps.
Also, it feels fucking good to not be a dick.
I couldn't agree more with Mentalmomentum's comments. As an MD at a global bank, I have been on all sides of this transaction, on the receiving end and distributing end in various roles. You have to proactively manage the workflow on your deal team or project team to avoid these late night pile-ups. Thinking your deal team is expendable and their lives don't matter leads to this arrogant, narcissistic attitude. We are not savings lives here. Additionally the quality of work and efficiency seriously declines after midnight. You are better off cutting it off at 12, getting up at 6 or 7 and starting fresh. This is coming from someone who has spent many all-nighters and/or resting under my desk at 5am. This VP/Director guy at PJT is likely on the cutting block soon, given this market environment. I hope he enjoys his 5 hours or less of sleep when he doesn't have a job. Should serve him well. -SB
A good VP probably would've asked if he could help with any of the comments given the time crunch. At the very least he could've asked what was the holdup and whether he could help clarify any comments. Instead he has to act like a complete a-hole and brag about his 5 hours of sleep (not even that special, wtf).
My guess is this wasn't an A-A and probably a hardo finance guy out of Wharton who joined as an associate and now thinks he's on top of the world as a VP at PJT.
Disgusting all around and just poor people management. One of the reasons I left banking for PE.
Email confirms why I was so particular of the platforms to which I was applying.
eMaIL CoNfIRmS wHy i WaS sO pArTiCuLaR oF ThE pLaTfOrMs tO WhIcH i wAs ApPlYiNg.
Me and the VP bois carrying a fallen Analyst after they die of exhaustion /s:
On a serious note it is absolutely unacceptable to require Analysts to wait until 3 AM for comments. We need to know more context, though. Was there already rapid communication back and forth (emails at midnight, 1, 2, 2:30 etc.? Did the junior team send out a deck at 2:30 and bounce immediately? Was this deck absolutely due the next day and it was an "all hands" situation?
When working many late nights myself, I really found it better, if possible, to just cut off at some point and wake up early to pick it up again fresh. There is nothing "efficient" about going to bed at 3, o r 4 and rolling into work at 10 or 11. Would be much better to go to bed at 12-1 and get to work at 7-8. Screwing up your sleep cycle results in a vicious cycle where the nights keep getting later, then the mornings keep getting later, and everyone is tired and pissed off.
I do hate the VPs, Ds, and MDs who have no life and expect everyone else to be their indentured servants. Then ask why there are mistakes on the page, why didn't people think this through creatively... are you serious?
This screams of a VP (or newly promoted Director) who joined banking after non M-7 MBA
Lots of Fuqua / Yale energy with this one
I was thinking Fuqua / Johnson. Yale guys usually quite chill
Genuine question. If you're one of the few Analysts working unreal hours for a small minority of asshole Associates, what happens if you ghost them after a certain hour? Say you actually stop answering after 1am and pick it up the next day. Would this force your Associate to complain about you by saying something like "he/she doesn't want to work past 1am when he/she has been online since 9am"? And would seniors actually get on board with that and give you shit?
If you produce quality work / are a well-known hard worker and the Associate (or even VP) has a bad reputation - senior guys will go to bat for you.
I had a VP that was notorious for “boiling the ocean” and grinding analysts for no reason. Flipped out at him one day and refused to work with him. Never got staffed with him again and continued to receive great reviews
I know who this VP is as someone sent me the unedited snip
Whoever said he’s a Wharton MBA Associate hit the nail on the head
As a rule, I don’t expect my teams to be up waiting for my comments past midnightish unless it’s crunch time and I’ve made it clear they’re coming. And I’m probably writing exec sum / strategic rationale bullets etc so they can do the heavy lifting. This is just shitty communication and workflow management.
Did he actually write the part about not stepping out to get dinner? I didn't see that in the original source, just added by the instameme accounts. If so, that's laughable. And stupid.
My point is twofold 1) My analyst friends at PJT literally go home at 10pm most nights and their BOTTOM bucket bonus is like 90k. Everyone who knows anything about banking knows it's a great place to work.
2) We have no context. For all we know the junior team could have logged off at 9pm and the VP was on phone calls for another project and then realizes his comments were never turned for a morning call and freaks out. Obviously, his tone is snarky and obnoxious and the junior team may well have been busting their ass and the VP is just a loser. But my point is just that I don't think we have enough time stamps to really put together a story here and assign blame and at the end of the day it's just one person. It's not the staffer. It's not a firmwide policy, so who really cares.