Sanity check: Am I a dumbass or is boss unreasonable?

Left IB for a real estate investment analyst role. Currently 5 months in. Work with a small team of 4 (me/analyst, senior analyst, director, and Chief Investment Officer), so my work goes directly to the director and CIO. Senior Analyst is too busy to review and I was told the culture is to work independently.

Have a grasp of how long some tasks take to complete, i.e., market research, putting together Info Memo pages, etc. from my experience in IB.

Was asked to do desktop research, putting together the portfolios of other RE operators and info about the assets, i.e., info on ~100 hotels in the portfolio. CIO wanted it within an hour.

I pushed back on the deadline since I needed more time to review the work given that 1 hour was already a stretch given the number of data points I had to compile manually. CIO said he needed it to prep for a meeting an hour later.

I did the work rushed anyway and sent it after an hour. Was told a day later that 1 data point was wrong and I got scolded. The material was 98% accurate (calculated it after based on errors made/inputs). CIO said he expects error-free work etc., which I understand and believe I could've done with more time.

I'm burnt out, can't think clearly, and need a sanity check. Am I a dumbass/slow for not being able to produce error-free market research in an hour or was the time given unreasonable?

I understand the task was basic copy-pasting research BS. Would appreciate the feedback so that I know if this is reasonable and that I should dedicate more time to improving my working pace. Currently treated like I'm some low-performing retard. Sorry to use the word, but was quite literally called retarded when I got scolded.

Already tried reasoning with the CIO about the time it takes to complete these tasks and was told to just not fuck up such a basic task, which I genuinely understand if I am objectively slow.

Additional context, did well in IB and got promoted early. CIO shits on bankers and brokers when we talk about it and told me that I'm in the buy-side now, I have to be better etc. So I'm not sure if he's unreasonable or the standards are really just higher for buy-side roles.

3 Comments
 
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As someone who worked in REIB real estate runs very lean. As an investment analyst they expect you to perform like an associate with 5 years of experience. Based off of my experience, as well as friends, your CIO is right in a sense that they don’t really team collaborative work. It’s not like IB where you’re working on a team and you collaborate together on pitches/mandates. It’s more independent work with a top down approach. Also from my experience they don’t really like to train you or give you the best direction. They just hand you work expect you to just “get it” and if you don’t you’re not a fit.

Does this experience seem to line up with what you’re going through?

 

Yes, this is exactly how it it is.

Aside from the BS I deal with, I was told that I was doing pretty well and that I did way better than the current analyst when he first started.

Was even given a raise 3 months into the role (team has high turnover, 3 analysts and 1 manager/associate quit since I've joined).

Just worried about my performance dropping and having a bad image in the team since I want to get them on my side for MBA applications. I guess that's just how they let out steam, i.e., give me shit over the smallest things. Thanks for the feedback.

 

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