Interns' downtime etiquette
What are your views on what interns should do when they have downtime or when they're done for the day?
Let me give you some background as to why I am curious about this. At my last internship, all interns had significant downtime. Hours between tasks. At most, I had almost two entire days in a row of nothing to do. Not because I/we sucked (got return offers).
The staffing was indeed poorly organized, but the main thing I could not stand was that interns were not allowed, under any circumstances, to leave before analysts. That way, it was standard to be done with work at say 9-11pm, flag to the staffer that you're available, then have to wait around till 1 am to receive a minor task in a project you know nothing about and fiddle around with that till 3 am, only to learn it was an almost fictive task the next day. I get that the intern should do what it can to make life is easier for the analysts, but I thought this was completely retarded. Zero value add.
Now, I'll do another SA next year, and I am wondering whether this is standard? Do some analysts think it is OK for the intern to not wait around for more work from 9-12 pm or whatever? Can you as an intern draw a line on what you think is reasonable?
During normal hour downtime, I would like for my interns to be reading up on things relevant to live mandates/pitches, looking through old decks and models, just getting smart.
Outside normal hours, I don't expect them to be on call but at least have the awareness to see an email and understand or even ask about urgency and deadline.
I despise face time, fuck every loser who encourages it.
If there's nothing critical to do, I send them home by 9-10pm.
This is silly, and honestly a cultural red flag. While interns shouldn't be leaving at 7pm everyday, and you should check with your analyst to make sure your deal is done for the night, it's actually annoying for us FTs to be jammed on something else and watching interns be forced to hang out when you know they won't be getting work that night. Also, what kind of psycho intern staffer makes you tell them you're free at 11pm...?
I wouldn't "draw a line" as an intern, but please don't stay until 3am just because I'm there. If you know you're done, around 9-10pm make a lap to visit your deal teams and ask if there's anything you can help with on X deal. More than likely they'll send you home.
As for the time during the day between tasks, I'd recommend looking at old books/models - maybe save a model on your desktop and try to change it from Company X&Y deal to Company A&B deal (so roll both companies - harder than it sounds). Try to build out a simple acc/dil in a fresh model. If you've done that, just go hang in the bullpen with the other interns for a bit. As long as you're not missing for hours or clearly never working, you don't have to seem busy at every single minute, because interns aren't always that busy.
Thanks for the responses. Comforting to hear your reason. My intuition told me that this place was exceptionally bad.
Hope to land in a non-exceptional group now ;)
Check wsj. Open factset. Close factset. Open up a eandom excel model. Close the excel model. Open bbg. Close bbg. Rinse and repeat 20-30 times. That’s what I do lol
Amen. Though you’d like to apply to an asylum after a while
Buy a Rubik's cube, master said Rubik's cube, show your boss how you can now solve a Rubik's cube in under a minute. They always appreciate this level of mental agility.
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