How to tell a VP to chill????

Are you my second year analyst? Lol have the same dynamic in my group

Say that we could be efficient if we aligned with the senior team before putting pen to paper. You shouldn’t be killing hours on something w/ a high chance of being killed 

Talk to the staffer first, be nice but to the point. As a senior analyst your word matters a bit more

Not in exactly the same position you're in, but an associate with less experience just kept dumping pointless shit on me that I knew for a fact we didn't need. During the time I was managing 3 different deals and was going through hell, so I just kept telling him that I was tied up on the other two deals. He stopped after a couple of weeks lol

If your staffer can't/won't do anything you don't really have any option unless you've got a good "off the record" relationship with some Ds or MDs. These days everyone is worried about analyst attrition so they should be very receptive. And if they're not you are out of luck for sure

I am in this situation. It gets to a larger conversation on pushing back, that is uncomfortable, but necessary. Let’s be clear also—a good VP will never put you in a position you need to push back. They are screwing up the process or not appropriately carrying the load if you feel you need to say something. A good VP either will plan accordingly and pushback to the MD on unrealistic timelines or if it’s just a crazy process they will recognize you are getting crushed and will say—“hey log off and sleep tonight, I know you have been going hard the last few days. I can take all changes post 11pm.” If you have a VP that is creating unnecessary work (mismanaging)  Personally, I advocate doing 3 things:

1) Talk to your staffer/ manager and explain the dynamic. It’s important they are aware of the dynamic and it also might lead to a conversation of: “yeah, that VP does suck, we are aware they do this to analysts.” This then gives you a pretty strong signal that you are able to pushback since people in the org know that person sucks. It also allows them to mentally form an opinion should that VP go back to your staffer and say you the analyst are doing a bad job or something.

2) Talk to your VP ahead of a deadline or deliverable and provide an opinion. Then stick to that opinion/ plan.
 

3) Hold firm on your opinion/ plan. Then, stop asking them, begin stating what will happen. It’s not a negotiation, you are drawing a line in the sand. Let’s be honest, it’s not like they will fire you. Maybe that one person gives a poor review to you, but the others should balance their skewed view. Also, the staffer will comment on the dynamic with reviews or won’t need to because everyone knows.

Examples:

She/he ask you to do an absurd page that will require you staying up excessively late

“Given where the deck is and the number of changes requested, I will be logging off at 1am to push this forward tomorrow.”

”It needs to be done tonight”

”understood it isn’t ideal, but I will be logging off at 1am because I need to be able to serve my teams and can’t do it without sleep” 

You then don’t respond until the next morning. If it is actually urgent they will do the task. 
 

“Hey, just wanted to give heads up, I have a personal obligation at 6pm and will be logging off at that time. It is very important to me”

You then log off at 6.

Pushing back comes to an important realization: a smart, reliable employee that communicates will never get fired for setting reasonable boundaries. Also, as mentioned—a good manager will never put an employee in a situation where they need to draw a line in the sand. Good analysts should tell managers to kick rocks every so often if it is unreasonable. Being a doormat isn’t going to cause you to end up in a different bucket, you just will be a silent martyr with a shittier life.