Surfing the net during downtime?
I am the only intern at a mid market boutique bank. It is a decent bank that has completed many high profile deals.
During this week there has been a lot of downtime. We were not on the midst of a deal but the senior bankers have been busy and I have been told it is the sort of work only they can do.
I have made myself fully available for any work and always offer to help. Any work that has come my way , I have completed as soon as possible and to a high standard.
During downtime I have repeatedly gone over models and done a lot of background reading etc...
The problem is that after I did this , I got bored as there still wasnt any work and so I started to surf the net.
The other problem is that I sit next to the director and we can see each others screen.
Is it bad to be seen to surf the net? I only look at newspapers and the sports section.
He knows that there is not a lot of work for me and mentioned that he will try to involve me more on the work next week.
So does surfing the net reflect badly on me?
I faced the same situation when I interned; I stuck to the WSJ homepage, I never checked sports. Besides that, if I had downtime, I would grab some Starbucks with other interns if they were free or I would organize my filing cabinet and my physical / digital folders of diff assignments. It's a good time to re-up on staying organized. Oh yeah, and I would organize my Outlook as well.
I'd keep modeling, maybe making some templates in Excel. I think the WSJ and other financial news sites are fine to browse, too. If you have periods of free time that are pretty long, I'd even try asking your boss if you could dip out and hit the gym.
What did YOU do during WSO downtime? (and a thank you to everyone!) (Originally Posted: 05/29/2013)
I think the site was down for a bit. Patrick and Co sure get on the issue quickly! But alas, it happened during my usual lunchtime, when I bring back food from the cafeteria into my cube to consume, along with the many awesome threads on WSO.
I twiddled my thumbs, went on several different forums/websites, including but not limited to: reddit, quora, a competitor website, deadline, google finance. Thankfully the site wasn't down for too long, or else I might have ventured into 4chan...
I am grateful for this community. I think the quality per content is up there in terms of the sites I visit (up there with Quora) but even more specific/targeted to me. (the infusion of India-related content is somewhat diluting the quality on Quora a bit in my humble opinion). I am glad to see CompBanker's post revived back from the dead. That is honestly one of the best threads I've ever seen on the interwebs ever. The interviews lend special insights to professions I've never considered before (traders, mostly) or teach me things that I thought I knew (businesses in China, mostly, from NiuShi's Chinese PE threads to the guy that started Rickshaw).
I started here as a college student, from a semi-target with a bad GPA. WSO was instrumental in helping me break in. Then it helped me during my transition to F500. Now I'm thinking about going back to school and bam! More awesome content.
Sorry this turned into a praise to WSO! I just want to thank everyone for being part of an awesome community.
I worked.
I pretended to work.
I'd be too scared to go onto Reddit from work. I stick to WSO, Drudge and my e-mail for my goofing off sites. I'm still trying to test the waters to see if I can get away with going on BB Misc. My "breaks" would increase by 50% if I find out it's cool.
lol, I've been going on the Misc for the past couple days at work. Seems okay so far, inb4 I get dragged out of the back door by IT
I talk to the pantry lady
mirin ur gains
inb4 you trying to explain to IT and your boss why you were commenting "no thanxs Jeff" or "that's groce Andy!" in a 8/10 cubby girls/hnnnggg/no fap thread
I mostly just check twitter and a few news sites. I am 99% sure that IT doesn't monitor my internet use. At least I hope not.
Forever mirin brah. Zyzz will strike down IT with bolts of lightening from mount olympus if they interfere with your Misc. consumption.
what is this Misc. everyone speaks about?!
Check your PM brah.
pls respond
when were we down?
I got some "503 Error" around noon Pacific and server offline messages while browsing around 12:30 Pacific on Wednesday...so for a duration of about 30-45 minutes I couldn't see anything. Other websites were working fine so not sure what happened.
Tired of wasting time on Facebook, any more productive suggestions? (Originally Posted: 04/17/2016)
Like the majority of under-30's, I have been sucked into the soul-destroying abyss that is social media. Anytime I want a break from working/studying I automatically check my FB/Instagram newsfeed and before I realise what I'm doing 20 wasted minutes have passed. I wouldn't mind it if I was actually gaining some enjoyment from this, but I generally feel less happy after scrolling through some ex-classmates holiday photos or whatever.
Any suggestions on alternative websites that might actually be of benefit to me, but are still are still good for a break from excel?
TED talks and The Atlantic.
Twitter, Instragram, Snapchat.
Maybe Duolingo if you're interested in learning a language. Especially if you're already at an intermediate or advanced level, 20 minutes a day would go a long way to picking up some new vocab.
Set up your own website with RSS feeds of news articles, website links, etc. I use http://www.protopage.com/ which is super easy and I love it. Some tabs I have:
World News: FT, WSJ, BBC, Reuters, AP etc.
Companies & Markets: WSJ MoneyBeat, Reuters Markets, CNBC Business, etc.
Blogs/Forums: WSO, Dealbreaker, Reformed Broker, Analyst Forum, Seeking Alpha, etc.
Misc: Barstool Sports, NHL.com, etc
Alternatively, set up a Twitter account and follow only news organizations or other legit sources. I was extremely anti-Twitter (and still am as it relates to dumb fucks sharing their opinions . . . here is an idea for anyone entrepreneurial: Twitter but with an IQ test >110 or something in order to join) but I did this and it is a great source for links to articles.
Just read as much as possible. After a while you will realize how much information your brain accumulates even if you are not reading the articles with the intention of having to recall the details later.
Blogs on slow days (Originally Posted: 04/10/2009)
Not sure if this has been discussed before (although I'm probably sure it has).
What blogs do you read on your slow days/down time?
Here are mine -
Footnoted.org The Icahn Report AndyKessler.com WSJ.com Dealbook WSO
Any reco's?
I assume you left off Dealbreaker.com because it's assumed that everyone reads that?
I also like Zero Hedge, Information Arbitrage and Clusterstock/Business Insider (though I can't stand Blodget, I read it for Carney).
Total opposite. I think Blodget is very sharp.
I follow:
Dealbreaker (duh) Longorshortcapital Techcrunch Silicon Alley Venturebeat Redherring.com Technorati Tech Ticker HowtoChangetheWorld Infectious Greed (Kedrosky) IcahnReport
Among others. More of a tech guy, myself.
I'm not saying Blodget doesn't write some good stuff occasionally, it's more his style that I take offense to. He's often overly alarmist, sensationalist, and vindictive. I get the sense he's "writing for ratings" - penning controversial pieces to get pageviews and whip the unwashed masses into a frenzy in the comments section.
Sadly I'm afraid it's beginning to run off on Carney, who I considered my favorite reporter while he was DealBreaker.
If you like technology news I highly recommend subscribing via email (or RSS) to Ray Kurzweil's "Accelerated Technology News", a concise biweekly update on the newest nanotech, biotech, computer, life extension, etc breakthroughs: http://www.kurzweilai.net/index.html?flash=1
FT.com Lex TheDeal.com blogs
Exactly, DealBreaker is a no brainer. Entertaining.
I really like reading the comments on dealbook. Hilarious.
Does it have to be business related?
I checked out mymomisafob.com
Pretty funny.The world has changed. And we must change with it.
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