Lateraling Advice

How soon is too soon to lateral? I understand the year minimum, but within the first month of my job, I had been told due to my background it would take over 9 months to train me, and I wouldn’t be able to do any work until then.

Its been over 3 months, and lo and behold, I’ve done absolutely nothing. I’ve not been assigned to a deal, and its been indicated that I’m not going to be for a few more months. I’ve tried to chase down more work, but my staffer hasn’t put me on anything at all despite my requests. Most of the work I’ve done has come from other analysts but they ultimately have me do admin work as well. I have yet to even do anything in Excel or Ppt, if that tells you anything.

I don’t want to reach out to other shops this soon for fear it would look bad. I also am unsure what to say in a future interview when they ask what I’ve been doing the last few months. I’ve done nothing but admin work (and hardly any of that), and frankly had more responsibility in my internship.

I’m unsure why they hired me at all to pay me to do nothing. Its a smaller shop without much deal flow.

Edit: I interned (twice) with a larger shop in a T1 city, but ultimately had to stay in my hometown for a while due to a health issue that came up. During the interview process they seemed to be excited to have me on the team and when I joined the team I was excited as well since we seemed to like each other during the interview process