Stupidest thing an Analyst has done

Associates, VPs, EDs and MDs (and An2/3s)  What are some of the stupidest things you've seen an analyst do? Moments in your career where you had to sit down, reflect, and be baffled by what just happened and how could an analyst even do this. 

Any and all helpful or funny stories would be appreciated.

 

thats nice to see lol. I feel like everyone always says its hell with some lube instead of raw dogging the analyst

 

Deleted an entire data room during a live deal. Received emails from counterparties asking where the files went. The mistake was fixed pretty easily but it was panic inducing momentarily.

The analyst who managed to accomplish this feat of stupidity did it at the beginning of his stint but ended up getting a top bucket rating.

 

Asked a summer analyst to hit F2 to see a formula, she hits the F key twice 

 

Have a good one. We told an intern to replicate a graph that we found from an online source.

Totally unaware that you can create a graph in PowerPoint, they measured out the bar graph using shapes (Like insert shape!). And then inserted text boxes to add data labels and the line shape for each axis. They measured each bar with a ruler to get the right proportions.

They somehow used the internship at our boutique to get a FT job at a Bulge Bracket. I think she was a decent worker, but jeeeze how do you get through school without making a PowerPoint graph?

 

vast majority of college students don't make ppt graphs in school. i went to an ivy and certainly didn't

 

I’ll own up to something dumb (yet harmless) I did as an analyst. Had never used the redline feature before, which was how my associate would give comments in word doc deliverables. I’d go through and manually make the changes, occasionally missing one or two, and he’d be like wtf why did you reject my change? I didn’t realize I could just hit “accept all.” Felt incredibly dumb but had never used the feature in undergrad and nobody told me how it worked.

 

In my first year I didn’t know how to make a table in PPT. Rather than clicking insert table (didn’t know where it was) or asking an analyst or associate who sat 2 seats away on how to create one, I tried to manually draw lines to mimic / resemble the shape of a table. This was fine but when I sent the deck to the client the table showed up all weirdly shaped on the PDF. 

 
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Last year had a new analyst take over a client model that we periodically needed to update. The ask among other things was to consolidate the 20 tabs into 5 so most of the work was cut and pasting which should have taken 1-2 hours to do. I got caught up on other deal work and came back to her 2 days later to talk through the changes. See that she’s not even halfway through consolidating the tabs but know she’s been in the model the entire time so I’m confused at the hold up. Then I watch her copying and pasting every line and then manually fixing each formula. She had never heard of Control X + Control V. Happy to report she now knows and can use that excel shortcut. 

 

Called my associate right after I muted myself, and they said they couldn’t really hear anything. I emailed the team and apologized, but MD was furious and refused to let me apologize to him directly. Locked an upper middle bucket rating since the call was after reviews and all that, but got put on a PIP not long afterwards. 

 

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