Never hire your friends...got burned

Just let Darwinism do the rest…

Not sure if I would tell my MD that you made a bad decision, but definitely don’t tell him to not fire him. You don’t owe this guy anything, in fact he fucked you over.

probably not the kind of friend you want if he treats your favours and help with such disrespect. 

The thesis (never hire your friends) you craft based on one terrible data point (your idiot friend) is as terrible as your logic. 

Your boy sounds like a trust fund brat who couldn't be trusted to keep a goldfish alive, idk wtf you were thinking recommending him for a serious job

I think the lesson here is don't mix business and pleasure. I have a lot of degenerate friends that I love to death, but I would absolutely HATE to have to work on anything serious with. Also have coworkers that I can barely find common ground with, who are truly a pleasure to work with. If you're hiring someone who you're friends with, on the basis of how great it is to work with them, then it's a win win. But if you're hiring someone you're friends with, having no idea of their actual work ethic and competence, solely because you enjoy spending leisure time with them, that's liable to go left quick. 

Side note: Your friend is an idiot but that's funny af. Exactly the type of shit my buddies would do to me if I gave them the chance. 

Jokes aside - this really sucks and not a good place to be put in but even referred employees are not your responsibility. The responsibility is his and you can’t foresee someone melting down.

On the meltdown- the guy must have been on a roll, hope he has that fu money hahah good for him, doesn’t seem like he’ll be collecting for long. Don’t lose sleep over it and just keep as is, why muddy yourself even more. You stuck out for him, thought differently of him and were wrong. No need for any heroics or to impact anyone even more. Let him self destruct and focus on your end, think how nuts would it be to hold you responsible for something like that.

Are you at least on the west coast? Extra funny if he goes straight to Vegas from New York

Business and your outside friendships don’t mix. Just let the guy burn, things happen. Write him off. 

Let him know he needs to prioritize his job and projects. It’s possible you may have misjudged or not known about his work ethic before, but now you know so you can deal with it. 
 

He’s making you look bad if he continues to be this way. Either figure it out as friends or just cut him out. Hopefully you can work it out. It can really suck when people let you down again and again despite you being good to them and having their back.

Just talk with him, be direct and tell him the issue and let him know he needs to change. It should not be a hard fix from his end since it takes more effort to make a trip to vegas than to the office. 

Someone should make a troll post from the other guys perspective "Ayooooooo I'm big breaded up in Vegas keyed up off that mf Henny right now! My bitch ass MBA tutor wont stop calling me so fuck him! Chips in the middle boys!" 

It blows my mind Banking is just a “gig” for some people. The fact that he has no issue making you look bad makes him a POS. It’s even worse he thinks he can pull this off in this economic environment.

No, just let things take place naturally. If your MD asks you wtf, you can say I'm shocked, I know my friend from xyz and was a great performer/student and can't believe his attitude changed so much. I would cut this guy out of your life, probably.

Not much importance to be given. This is life and you will have both good and bad experiences. Just act rationally without any agenda and move on. Too many great and big things to be explored and achieved.

Obv didn't fit the bill. I would tell the MD you fucked it and axe him. His ass is a dead weight and your MD is going to think you have poor judgment as time goes on, which make its difficult for you in client facing shit.

By coming clean, you can save face. You will also be perceived as a ruthless SOB, which will make you very promotable as a career banker.

If he’s smart but lazy then he has potential if he gets off his ass and contributes. Had a coworker who was similar, highly competent but prioritized his social life and sleep a bit too much, and this annoyed people who worked with him. I think some senior guy talked some sense into him, because he one day got his act together out of the blue and stopped slacking. Also had another coworker who did not, and was eventually pushed out. Motivation is up to the individual. 

I think a lot of people are missing the point commenting "why didn't you know your friend was a bad worker?"

That's not really the problem with hiring friends. The real problem is that you let friends get away with things that you wouldn't for regular co-workers. And that applies to both friends who are good workers and those who are bad. Even the good workers will get a little more leeway sometimes when they shouldn't.

Take this situation as an example. You have a friend who is a really really good worker. And he just played hooky by going to Vegas while you're in the middle of a big deal. What are the chances that you will bring it up to your boss? Zero.

Now, you might also cover for a really good worker who messed up big once but the chances that you say something to the boss are definitely greater than zero.

I've learnt to separate personal persona and professional persona within my friends.

I only referred a personal friend (friends from school/Uni) once during my career, i knew firsthand that his technicals are fine (my VP somehow tricked me into reviewing his model test). But during the interview, he displayed less than ideal characteristics for the job (lack of humility/over-opinionated). I felt ashamed and actually apologized to the interviewer regarding my referral. You might be comfortable working alongside him, but it is a different story having them as your subordinates where expectations are different than your peers.

Best advice i could give OP is to assess their professional qualities first and personal second, THEN refer them. You'd be doing a massive favor for yourself by pre-screening them so that you'll never be at fault if something does goes wrong. Remember it's still a job with responsibility, make sure that the person that you're trying to hire is actually capable of fulfilling what is expected of them.

If it were me in your shoes I would tell my MD I made a mistake vouching for the guy and just tell my MD the truth as to what the guy is actually doing. To me it shows ones ability to be accountable for their mistakes, MD may or may not respect that, but the risk with waiting is the guy keeps slacking off increasing your loss of credibility.

Unless he's your subordinate and working directly for you on one of your deals then just stay quiet. It will work itself out and you're too junior to have really "stuck your neck" out for someone. Your career won't be cratered because you referred someone in and vouched for them but it might if you pound the table to fire the guy you referred in and get a reputation for being a snitch/striver/suckup.

If you’re gambling and on a hot streak, you cannot leave the table. He is making the right financial decision and showing financial acumen. Just explain to your MD that he’s on a heater at the craps table and can’t leave, your MD will totally understand.

moral of the story: don't mix business with anything else.... and make friends with decent people

He just finished his MBA… How tf does he have money to gamble in Vegas??

Depends - if he wins big in Vegas, take the cut.

If not, telling your boss to fire him will make you look weird. Only reasonable course of action in that scenario is to kill him, just my 2 cents from a risk perspective. 

Also depends on the power dynamic between you and your friend coming in.

I recommended and pushed hard to hire a friend for an An 1 role where he reported directly to me for some of the deals we worked on together and it was a mixed bag. It was great having him around but he was often too comfortable around the team, his work quality was meh, and he just assumed he'd take on less grunt work than my other analysts because of our relationship. I also found it hard to really coach him hard because of our relationship, which honestly probably didn't help him in the long-run.

Ultimately, he ended up lateralling to another bank. No hard feelings between us but the experience definitely made me realize there should be a lot of thought before making a friend recommendation.

I think vouching hard for someone that you have not worked with in the past, in general, is a bad idea, regardless if it's your best friend. I'll happily throw someone's name into the mix, and get them facetime with whoever they need facetime with, in order to get a shot... as I'm sure many have done for me in the past. However, if it's a non-unanimous agreement in my group to hire a friend, especially one I haven't worked with in the past, I'm not sticking my neck out to push through a decision. They stand on their own merit.

As for your situation, I wouldn't interfere now. You got him through the door, but you shouldn't be the one sending him out. You'll burn the friendship to ashes, and if you're in the same group of friends, you might even burn the whole group. Internally, it also doesn't look great. I would certainly keep you at an arm's length if you were one to push your buddy in front of the bus. I also think that your reputation has already gotten a small scratch, but it's not the end of the world. Everyone makes mistakes, and one bad hire will not define your competence with your MD. This guy will either crash and burn, or get his act together, but he should do so on his own. 

I'm confused. The only issue here is that you know he's actually partying in Vegas while everyone else thinks he's sick? Has your MD even commented anything like where the hell is this guy? I think you just feel disrespected because you actually know what he's up to. If you hadn't vouched for him, and this was just a random employee, you'd never know they were in Vegas. I doubt the team blindly hired him based on your recommendation, so he probably knows something about banking and was able to actually get the position. I think you should just get over it and worry about yourself. This is like getting upset your sibling faked sick to get out of school while you know the truth. 

I am sorry to hear man and that sucks. I am annoyed that he would put you in this situation after you recommended... do these people learn nothing in an MBA? Professionalism for one and decency for a friend.

My advice would be to be honest with him about how you helped him get hired and how it's a bad look. Also tell him if he doesn't want to stick around to please leave ASAP and save you from his half-ass work. If he refuses then for sure tell your MD that this friend of yours changed his passion and you are unsure if he can perform as well as the rest of the team. 

If it makes you feel better, I once recommended my sister to an MD in a prior team and she ended up getting fired. I have not recommended her since then... sucked for me but it will work out. You tried to help and bro needs to be humble and work.

Shoot him with a Desert Eagle