Quit Peacefully or Call HR
So I have been in banking for about 6 months now and every aspect of it has been miserable. To top it off, my staffer chose to say bad things about me as soon as I left the office one day resulting in multiple people coming up to me the following morning to report it. The staffer then pulled me and several other first year’s into separate meetings to try to find out who told me. Then they proceeded to destaff me off the pitch and only put me on board meetings since.
I have decided it’s time to move on, and I can either just put in my two weeks or escalate the situation to HR with the hopes of trying to retain my signing bonus. It feels like I should at least attempt to stand up for myself, but the horror stories on here have made me think otherwise. However, the fratty culture at this bank, coupled with the constant shit talking of first years and fear tactics ingrained in first years makes me think I should speak up.
I should also mention that one of my mentors (high-up in PE) planted this idea in my mind to stand up for myself instead of just quitting.
Over time, I’ve come to realize that your ability to retaliate/stand up for yourself is really dependent on your personal situation (specifically your personal financial* situation).
If you come from an upper middle class+ family, have lots of savings, family connections to the industry, etc., then you’re able to speak up more. In the worst case if you get fired or if you’re unemployed for an extended amount of time, you still have a strong financial safety net to fall back on.
If you are not in a financially stable position, then it’s much harder to do all this. You can’t afford to lose your job and you need that paycheck. Perhaps you have a lot of student loans, a sick parent with high medical bills, or perhaps you’re an immigrant who needs the money to support family overseas. All these factors complicate your ability to speak up.
There will be people who say “Fuck it, I’ll die on my feet rather than live on my knees” and tell you to push back. While that passion is admirable, reality is much more complicated for many people.
Thank you for your note. Finances aren’t much of an issue, as I already have another offer lined up at a startup. But the main focus is fighting the clawback, as I will be taking a major pay cut with my new role and still have to pay for the apartment I only got because of its proximity to the office of the bank I’m currently at.
If you already have an offer lined up to leave, I’d absolutely mention it to HR on your way out. One thing I’ve learned as an old man is that life is too short to work with total pricks. To echo some sentiments of the other reply, don’t necessarily fuck yourself over, but the behavior you’re describing sounds like a miserable asshole who needs to be corrected.
I've been in similar (if not worse) team environment and know how it feels. I suggest you start by securing something else while still employed and at the same time keep paper trail of everything that's happening, even the simple stuff. When you have another job lined up, you can then go to HR and submit a formal complaint, not just casually mention it but ask them to open an official grievance process. After that you can just quit anytime. If you complain about this and then immediately take off then chances are this will get buried by HR quickly. Remember, HR are not there to protect the employees but to protect the firm.
In a somewhat similar situation. Would advise working on making an exit to somewhere better culture wise and this experience will teach you how to diligent that as best you can.
Agree with what the person above said about making a paper trail - try to get time stamps on stuff and write-down who could be of witness. These are things that give HR no choice but to side with you I found if there’s an accumulation of hard evidence. Of course, whether to go through with a grievance process is down to you and your mental capacity, it can be very draining.
People will say stuff like “this industry is small” etc. when weighing up on whether you should stand up for yourself, but at the end of the day, these are people you clearly don’t want to work for or with ever again anyway.
What bank? Sounds like lower middle-market behavior lmao. But also, do you suck? Normally if your supervisor shits on you and takes you off a bunch of deals it's because you stink, and this is not something that HR is going to factor into the situation in a positive way for you. Quite the opposite.
What type of things are they saying?
If it's performance related, isn't that pretty normal course? I.e., if there are items the staffer wants you to work on/feedback you need to work on, how are your deal teams supposed to help if they don't know what the issues are?
Don’t quit. That’s what the loser staffer wants. Stay, give ‘em hell and make them fire you. Might as well stress them out and taint their record with HR before you leave.
When I was laid off from a meme tier bank (think Tobin & Co.) last year, they generously gave us two weeks severance and let us keep the signing bonus (about 10 grand in total).
Given you have another offer lined up already I think you should just resign cordially and consider losing the signing bonus as the cost of never dealing with these people again.
What were the bad things the staffer said? Bad treatment of juniors is not unusual or noteworthy to HR unfortunately, but if the staffer said some truly bad things I would mention to HR and try to get a small settlement (i.e. you leave quietly in exchange for 4 weeks pay + forgiven signing bonus; obviously don't mention the other offer). but they would have to be very bad, not just "Analyst 1 is so lazy, he sucks"
Nah don't quit
Don’t quit - milk the $ while you can. Be a little selfish while you line up your next spot / interview, or if you already have one, take a paid vacation.
Separately - You lose nothing by reporting this to HR. They’ll launch an investigation, and even if nothing comes out of it, it goes on record against your staffer and could help someone else in the future. Best bet is he gets in trouble for harassment (which sounds like a real issue) or fired given the layoff environment we are in.
If you’re 1 foot out the door anyway, do what’s best for you. Stay and keep your bonus / avoid the claw back. In the meantime you’ll be paid well and you can take vacation / push back on work. If you can (or care), then document the harassment and keep it for record. Who knows, if you get enough you could sue for a lot of money…. And if you get fired, you get 3-5 months pay with severance and vacation pay out (plus keeping your bonus)
Fuck that loser staffer.
Sit back and collect a cheque. You play it cool and just start looking for a different role. Find a senior (associate or VP) who can vouch for you if you're asked for a reference check.
Feel this, almost exact same thing is happening to me but I’ve decided to stick around for a year. Pretty miserable, but half way to the finish line. Hearing good amount of other first years will be leaving as well.
Glad for you! Literally same position… miserable and need to take med for it…could I ask what exits ops did you find? And how? Really keen to find a way out so very appreciate the help
I think the worst part is the rat hunt the staffer went on. If you're going to make a statement to a group of people, don't be a little bitch about it when it starts to spread. That also tells me that the bad things that the staffer said about you were probably not related to performance and were uncalled for. If that's the case, I'd politely tell the staffer to go fuck themselves and continue working hard. I'd get more satisfaction out of that than reporting him to HR and it is much less likely to have negative career consequences. It shows you have some balls but are still willing to be the bigger man.
Burn it all down...
What type of bank? LMM boutique or MM and above? If it's LMM boutique and you already have an offer lined up, then yeah, I'd quit. If MM or above, I'd at least stay another 6 months and here's why:
1. if you leave before a year then you can't really say you worked for your firm / in banking. Sometimes you can get by with it, but it can ruin your outplacement opportunities and even opportunities lateraling to other banks (assuming you're finra licensed and you'd get a U5 showing you voluntarily left after 6 months). 2. it's general practice to stay at a firm for a year, especially when you're just starting out. You can say you worked in banking and even if you don't want to do banking / PE long term, that carries a lot of weight. 3. If you got taken off your pitches and only doing ad hoc work, then shouldn't your work life balance be really relaxed RN? A lot of bankers would kill for a good work life balance. Sure, you won't get the txn experience for the resume, but you can fluff a lot of that. 4. You're getting paid a great salary now for a recent graduate relative to other careers.
You're already half way through, I'd just stick it out for another 6 months and start recruiting for something else in the meantime
If you hate the job and have something else lined up, I would quit and just let it go. Not because standing up for yourself isn't the right thing, but it's simply not worth the energy. I had a similar situation once. You will end up walking around constantly being angry about the situation and honestly, things will most likely not go your way. HR is not your friend and they do not give a fuck about anything that happens to you unless it could cause a scandal that would hurt the firm (which is why they most often only intervene if it's a racial / sexual issue). I would say this is especially the case when you're an analyst with 6 months of experience because you are extremely replaceable. Would be a different question if a rockstar VP had an issue with something.
As such, my recommendation would be to move on. Fuck that place. Let it go and never look back. Believe me, you will end up happier this way.
Internal reflection is needed here. Ask yourself:
Are you the type of person that lets things go, moves on, and doesn’t look back? Or are you the type of person that second-guesses past decisions, dwells on what-ifs, and self-doubts.
If the the latter, down the road you’ll be regretful that you didn’t go to HR / stand up for yourself.
Embracing the “living well is the best revenge” philosophy is often easier said than done.
If you already have an offer for another role — then fuck that motherfucker. Karma is a bitch and justice needs to be served. Go to HR and light your staffer up. Even if nothing significant happens, it will hurt the staffer’s reputation.
my situation is even worse. my supervisor is having talks with me every now and then, explicitly saying my stock picks are underperforming. it's better to go find other jobs. To be fair, some winning ideas are not turning into actual trade. Otherwise, I would be up slightly. at my firm, there are no transparent performance tracking rules. I have no idea what to do next.
do you guys have similar experiences in the past? what should i do ?
Whatever you do keep in mind -
Through personal experience: Always keep in mind that HR is NOT your friend. Their sole purpose is to protect the bank NOT you. Won’t take them a second to score you over a fee generating senior if it suits the bank
Think you should just say fuck you to the staffer and go on
“The second they ask you to sell your soul Don’t you do it, don’t you fold, say “Fuck that shit” and be bold”- J Cole
@OP did you have to payback signing bonus when leaving?
Two alternate perspectives.
First, I don't understand the situation well enough to say that you have a real case here. Why did you leave the office? I don't think anyone would react that way on a one-off basis, so my suspicion is that there's more we don't know. Not to imply it's your fault or your staffer's fault, but just that the story feels incomplete somehow.
Second, to the extent you can, create friends out of conflicts, not enemies. I've been in your situation but a step ahead where I was on my way out and had a mountain of things to say about 1-2 people who ruined my experience at my bank. I decided to not say anything. In the moment it would've felt great, but something felt wrong and I trusted my gut. Over time I realized that when conflicts arise with people, I can either resolve them through 1-on-1 conversations, or cut off ties because they aren't worth it. Burning people and calling them out has never quite worked out the way it did - I get a short-term high but a long-term hangover. Now if he did something egregious that is way past the line, not in the grey zone but is clearly black-and-white wrong, then yes you should call him out...but this is certainly in the grey zone, from what I am seeing. I would talk to folks to try to figure out what perspective you're missing. And go from there.
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