My Associates Hate Me

We need more details. Are you in banking/S&T/ER? what are you in? We also need to know why they hate you. if you're being honest, do you miss details they give you? Are you not communicating enough? team dynamic? 

Im in the same boat (AN1). The day before holiday break one of my “work friends” sent me screenshots of a private group chat where both of my Associates were saying my “work was pathetic” and “waste of time” but the same deliverable went to the MD who said it was perfect.

I feel physically ill going into work now, never received any negative feedback on any work I have produced so far from either associate, and thought my associates were somewhat decent. I feel you and hopefully a better opportunity will come down the pipeline for you.

First of all: Take it easy. Don’t talk crazy.

Are their comments discriminatory in nature? Or are they in relation to your work? Have you asked them for any feedback on your work?

Are you weird? And be honest with yourself, please. Do you fit into typical American social norms - talk sports, grab a beer with coworkers, say jokes that aren’t cringy, etc.?

Don’t take this the wrong way but I know some first gens who are just objectively weird because they never got the typical American social norms.

Happens to me within the first month of hitting the desk. My assoc talking shit about me to literally everyone in the bullpen.

Same exact dread feeling, this eventually turns to be a nonchalant attitude. Like who gives a fuck about what my associate or anyone think, I'll just do my best in this job and fuck right off when it's time.

It's all about perspective. I've worked at 3 different companies. Company 1 had no training program and it was a toxic atmosphere for learning. Most questions were considered dumb. Firm 2, worked in a really toxic group. It had a reputation for being the hardest group to work in. People would not even last a whole year here, and would constantly get negative feedback. For the first 7 months, I spent time learning their quirks, and more importantly my job. If employee A liked Blue charts, I would use blue charts. New people joined around this time and would get horrible feedback. However, my performance improved significantly and was much better than theirs. Now I was this "great employee" turnaround story, which was BS. Not saying I was perfect but these people were just awful to work under. 

The point of my anecdote is to focus on your job performance. Compare the associates changes with yours. If indeed these guys are assholes and bitching, remember banking is short and these guys may be gone in 1-2 years. Or there'll be new analysts who will perform worse. If they just don't like you due to lack of fit, I would look into lateralling.

I don't blend very well within my team. My group does something very specialized and does not work as much with other teams, making it even more challenging. Wouldn't say I'm autistic, just have different hobbies/interests. Fortunately, I have a good reputation at work.

i think you need to chill out, keep your head down, be honest and sincere, ask for feedback consistently from everyone and do the good work. 

i got the same treatment as you. lean team, a Senior Assoc/VP above me. he gave me shit instructions and threw me under the bus when discussing with the director (i.e. i show him materials and he says "looks good" and when the director asked us "where is this" he will turn to me and say "didn't i ask you to do this?"). eventually got a 0 for my rating because he was the main grader, to which the MD and Director apologizes to me and revised my rating to below average, but not 0. he also wrote an "apology" over instant message (which i took a picture of) and we "bantered" (dont' want to have any bad blood because why make more enemies) because truly he is an okay friend, but perhaps he was going through some difficult moments in his life (i.e. relationships).

All in all, just do the good work if you genuinely believe that you're pulling your weight in terms of quality of work. stay in the office if your senior is in the office even if you have nothing to do. ask him if there's anything, ask to shadow him so you can learn. even if it's an all nighter. i did that for 6 months (the hell lasted for 2+ months) and eventually got to another team so trust the process. MDs / Directors aren't blind and if the situation won't change for you, it's time to leave after like 2 months. 

You need to do some jiujitsu and turn an enemy into a friend.  You should proactively bring gifts such as coffee / cookies / breakfast sandwiches for the team. After you've softened them up a bit, then invite them to lunch.

If this fails straight up say "Hey Jenny / James, I think we got off on the wrong foot. I get the sense I could be doing my job better - and I really want to. I want to be the guy you can lean on to make your job easier, but I acknowledge I'm not there yet. I'm doing my best to remedy the situation on my own time, on weekends and evenings, and I hope you can be patient with me. You can also give me direct feedback and tell me ways I can improve, because I really want to." 

Be humble, be helpful, be team-oriented. They are wanting to shine. If they felt you could help them shine they wouldn't be talking smack. The fact that they ARE means you're under-peforming. Nothing wrong with that -we were all beginners once. The key is to own it, be humble ,and fix it.  

Whether they are cunty behind your back is irrelevant. You can only change you, and bring out your best every day. That's literally all you can do - and it's all on you.

How you gonna call yourself a "Finance Guru" and then make this post because your coworkers hate you lmaooooo

Having people talk shit about your work is what pushes many to prove themselves and eventually end up being top performers.

This hate can be a source of greatness or a source of failure, the decision on what will be depends solely on you.

1. How many associates are there in total?

2. How many other analysts are there? Or are you the only one?

best of luck

You sound like a classic MD in the making. I've been in banking going on 7-9 years now. I've lost count. I can tell you that you never lose the feeling that someone below or above you is out to get you. The best advise at the analyst level is to accept the mistake (even if you didn't make it), apologies (even though you have nothing to apologies for), say it will never happen again (even though it will definitely happen again - I would even suggest going to confession), and recognize that your associate has likely been in your shoes before but replaced all memories of sympathy with the names of their MDs seven teenage children.

For Associates that are A2A, they are literally the meanest individuals in banking. They still haven't completely developed their soft skills, but are still in their 20s with money so they drink a lot. They have enough experience to make decisions but do not have the authority to do so. They have the ego of the smartest people in the room but are not in the room to demonstrate their intellect. You don't need to sympathize with them, but you do need to understand what you future looks like.

I have both worked with shitty analysts and at some points been a shitty associate so hopefully I can shed some light. 
 

The first thing I would keep in mind is that associates aren’t usually experienced at managing people and may be struggling at their jobs too, unrelated from you. It can be tough to transition from producing the work to checking someone’s work and giving feedback, so that may be why they don’t give you feedback and take over tasks. I got that feedback my first year as an associate and have really worked on it since to be a better teacher. They also may be stressed, burned out, having mental health issues, etc. and not be in the best place to interact with an eager analyst. They also may just be dicks. I had one VP I used to work for that would constantly treat me like shit and talk shot about me to other people openly. His peers came to me and said to ignore it and that’s just how he is. It didn’t impact my performance reviews and I’ve had a much better experience working with others. Try to gauge how they interact with other analysts and their peers to compare. TLDR: the issue may be them, not you. In that case, I’d try to not let it bother you too much and just keep trying your best. 
 

If the issue is you - try to figure out if it’s a social issue or a work product issue. 
 

Social issue: this is hard to assess without knowing you, so try to really reflect and think back on your interactions with them and if you’ve done anything that may cause them to be annoyed by you. Are you arrogant? Do you complain? Do you monopolize their time? Are you too much of a hairdo?Do you push back on work? I’ve worked with two analysts that I’ve written off that fall in this category. One was a walking WSO meme and would ask constant off-topic questions that was really distracting. For example: “what was the biggest deal you worked on?” “When do I get to build an LBO?” “Have I earned removing my F1 key yet?”  The other produced good work when he did work, but had a very poor work ethic and was clearly in the wrong industry. I’d be getting 2-4 hours of sleep and ask him to turn comments at 6 pm and he said he needed to sign off to prioritize work life balance. These are very different and extreme examples, but illustrate different archetypes of annoying analyst. 
 

Work Product Issue: if it is a work product issue, it likely falls into one of two scenarios: 

lack of attention to detail: this is self explanatory and in your control to improve. 
Not following directions: this is the primary reason I will sour on analyst / associate and is much more annoying than the first category imo. Do you carefully review the instructions you were given before submitting work to make sure you followed them? For new analysts/associates, I try to write out directions in detail so they have them for reference to learn from and call them to walk through any questions. I am surprised by how often people will just ignore the instructions and do something else (e.g., use different rev / expense mapping or different model drivers than requested). This may be harder for you to pick up on because your work may technically be correct, but if you don’t go back to reread the instructions you may miss where you screwed up. I try to call out when this happens the first time or two but if it becomes a habit I will stop wasting my time. To see if this is you, go back to old assignments and review the draft you submitted vs. what the associate ended up submitting vs. the instructions they gave you. If you get instructions verbally, make sure to write down everything you are asked, don’t feel bad asking them to slow down / repeat what they said, and read it back to them at the end to make sure you got everything. 
 

Overall though, all of this stuff is either not your fault or pretty fixable so don’t get too stressed about it. It’s great that you even care enough to want to get to the bottom of it and improve, so I’m sure you’ll figure it out. I hope at least some of this is helpful! 

"Being a first gen kid, I would never be able to handle being fired, and I would probably find ways to end my time on here as well. Please help, my associates are making me spiral."

=

I'll kill myself if I get canned b/c my associates are allegedly talking behind my back, because I'm firstgen....what a great attitude 

As someone who is just starting to manage people, it took me a while to recognize that my output isn't necessarily the "best" and that just because I don't like my analyst's style doesn't mean his work has no merit (although id be lying if I didn't send every single assignment back with comments-still working on that).

Secure people are able to see past that, recognize that good workers make mistakes but also provide new and helpful ideas, insecure people (which finance is full of) are unable to recognize the merit of others and choose instead to constantly come up with reasons why another person is lesser than them in an effort to protect themselves and their jobs.

All in all, don't be too hard on yourself, bad managers do exist but they are just that - bad managers. If you are not receiving any feedback you cannot possibly improve and that is a short coming of the managers, not you.

I would definitely suggest looking into lateraling ASAP though, for your own mental health. Don't let this affect you once you walk out the door (whether it be everyday or for good) because it will only drive you crazy. At my first job, my boss hated me from day one because I came in and acted like a cocky a-hole and she never dropped that first impression, once I left to a new bank, everything changed: my work product was better because they wanted me to learn and improve, my deals were more rewarding because I came out better than I went in, and my new boss appreciated the work that was done versus using me as a scapegoat. If it wasn't for my fiancé's insistence on moving out of the city I would have never left. 

Understand the frustration, I have been working at a boutique for several years, and will say one of the considerations of working in a small group is that everyone you work with has to like your output and work ethic. Since your associates or VPs only have a handful of people they can choose to give work to, they must know you can hold your own weight consistently on every task. Culture fit is important as well, but it sounds like team dynamic is non-existent in your group, so it would be better to focus on having good outputs.

Alternatively, it is possible you may give the impression that you have no interest in working at a boutique, or that some of your tasks are beneath you - this is common. I have noticed that this lack of enthusiasm is apparent when people do not learn or understand fundamental metrics or trends in the sector that our group specializes in, and that shows in their work, or having sloppy attention to detail despite how the vast majority of deal work is administrative. If this pertains to you, try to not exhibit this mentality and instead try to always take more ownership of your work.

What makes you want to stay at this platform given your two sr assos do not like working with you?