What your managing director says and what he actually means?

My managing director always tells me, "Keyser, have a good weekend."

What my managing director actually means is, "Keyser, Bend over."

...and I fall for it every time.

Curious to hear what fallacious things your MD tells you?

Mod Note (Andy): One of the posts of 2017 that have the most views .

 

Actually it was said to my colleague ...."Please Try To Understand You are Like my family here".

Translation-- He was fired in an hour

"Never Drive Faster Than Your Guardian Angel Can Fly"
 

“Can you pull together a shell of the presentation and then let’s discuss it tomorrow”

Really means: there better be a solid first draft of this pitch on my desk by the time you leave tomorrow morning...and none of that under 30 page bullshit.

 

"maybe it makes sense to show a slide where"

Translation: one more heavily footnoted slide that is in the appendix that will take the night to turn through and have ready that never gets looked at :P

There's a closer meaning to my user name. Try reading it quickly. Perhaps you will then understand ;P
 

"After lunch just start on this, let's get this done by tomorrow night. Take your time."

You don't eat lunch now and get started. Or dinner or ever again if you don't have this done 7PM tonight cause you're gonna be tossed into the fireplace.

 

My Supervising MD: You will start being paid and transitioned to FT after your next project

Translation: Take that copy of the emancipation proclamation down from your desk and stop daydreaming about a salary. That full-time workload you've been doing for free isn't gonna take care of itself!


MD(2): This submission needs a few tweaks. See me. Translation: Fire breathing fury

MD(2): Says nothing to you for a day after you hand something in Translation: Great Work!!

 

MD: Thx

Translation: Jackass

GoldenCinderblock: "I keep spending all my money on exotic fish so my armor sucks. Is it possible to romance multiple females? I got with the blue chick so far but I am also interested in the electronic chick and the face mask chick."
 

MD: Hey, Goldmonkey, I'm leaving. Shoot me an email when you're done with the project. See you on Monday!

Translation: You little fuckboy better not leave this office all weekend or you'll be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.

 

MD: Why don't you take a first crack at this and kick the tires a bit on the deck?

Reality: lol I don't know what the fuck this is about so why don't you take a first chance of fucking it up so I can scream about how it needs to be better later you little shit

 

I'll add the reverse side of this from the analysts perspective:

MD: "How was your weekend?" Analyst: "Nothing too serious, just took it easy"

Translation: "Blacked out hard both nights and lost my credit card"

 

"Swing by when you have a second" = "Come to my office immediately so I can ruin your weekend with work"

"Can you walk me through these outputs?" = "I'm pretty sure you did something wrong and will crucify you if you miscalculated any of these numbers."

"Any plans for the weekend?" = "If you're not that busy, I haven't given you enough work and will have to increase your workload."

 

VP here. Have been the Staffer at the office. A few things that I would like to point out on how Associates and Analysts are fucking up my life. I am not the evil person at the office. There are Directors and MDs above me, whom I need to turn in quality work to win clients so that all of us get paid. There are areas that we can all work together to improve upon:

  • If you have questions, come to my desk and ask immediately. Don't wait until the next day or a week later. And don't turn in work that I cannot use for client meeting. And if there were a lot of mistakes, I am really going to hate you for this. My job is win clients and supervise you. I actually don't enjoy assigning you work. I had been an Associate before. What I had asked you to do, I could have done in 2 hours but I am expected to mentor you and bring you up to speed.

  • Don't say stupid shit in front of the clients. I have seen a few times Associates try to mange the clients directly. But they haven't built relationship with the client long enough to understand what they want. If you say stupid shit in front of clients that make me do extra work, I am going to hate you for this. Like suggesting the client to look for financial investors, when we are almost signing a term sheet with a strategic buyer. You know who will be doing 100+ company profiles of potential financial buyers? Yes you.

  • Taking unscheduled leaves. I am going to be pissed off, if I see you go drinking on your Facebook and the next day, you call in sick. You are not sick, you are just hangover drunk. If you always take a day off without letting me know, there is no way that I can manage the workload and to assign meaningful work to you. Don't blame me if you don't have meaningful deal experience on your resume. And worst, don't lie about this on your resume, the buy-side guy is going to call me to check and you know exactly what I am going to tell him.

  • Do not complain about the work load. Been there. Done that. It is a part of the job. The client have their own BOD to answer to. And they are going to ask for everything to cover their asses. Our job is to make it easier for client to convince their BOD to get things done.

  • Do not have too many dentist appointments. We all know that once after getting bonus or after one year, you will be actively looking for buy-side opportunities. Don't try to hide from us. Let us know and we are supportive of your decision. Plus, we do have relationship with the buy-side. And if you had already decided to leave, don't clog the desk. We would happily show you the door and hire your replacement.

 

"I am the Vice President Robot here to tell you how to be more compliant (Beep, Bop, Boop) (Scan noises)"

I'm kidding, that was actually a very level headed response and all great points to keep in mind (+SB). I've seen new Associates fly to close to the sun in meetings and get canned because (with their new promotion) they feel a little more important than they actually are to the process. Stay in your lane homies!

"A man can convince anyone he's somebody else, but never himself."
 
Keyser Söze 123:
"I am the Vice President Robot here to tell you how to be more compliant (Beep, Bop, Boop) (Scan noises)"

I'm kidding, that was actually a very level headed response and all great points to keep in mind (+SB). I've seen new Associates fly to close to the sun in meetings and get canned because (with their new promotion) they feel a little more important than they actually are to the process. Stay in your lane homies!

Lmao someone's butt hurt. Still threw him an SB tho for sound words of wisdom.

 

Boss: "Let's circle back on this later"

Translation: "I don't want to deal with any of this bullshit. Figure out what it all means and then summarize it for me, preferably printed out on legal size paper in size 64 font with some type of color coordinated, footnoted map involved, because, fuck it, everyone loves maps."

"Who am I? I'm the guy that does his job. You must be the other guy."
 

Dude that shit happens to me all the time. I ask them for their name first, then say, "oh could you just wait one second" while I go and look up where they work and then proceed to go into the pitch. YOUR mistake was doing the pitch FIRST and THEN asking who they were.

It's like this: So, the car's great, smooth transmission, low mileage, great paint job, ac/heater, power windows, power seats. Everything that you could ask for in a car plus more. So, what's your name again?

Of course they never call back repeatedly, but still. His anger is justified. He prolly thinks your some silly geek.

********"Babies don't cost money, they MAKE money." - Jerri Blank********

********"Babies don't cost money, they MAKE money." - Jerri Blank********
 

Haha good one JBS. I can totally sympathize. Except that my calls went the other way. I called a BB research analyst the other day (think GS/MS/Leh) for recent exit multiples of VC-backed semiconductor companies because we wanted to decide whether to sell a company in our portfolio or potentially do another round.

This BB research analyst is just an associate and a pretty cool guy, as in we hang out sometimes after work. Anyway, so he's not available and his admin forwards my message to the investment banking team. Then this MD from this BB left me like 2 messages in 25 minutes (I was stuck in a boring meeting) telling me:

"Let me know whatever information you need, I can produce anything for you guys. You guys are a great client and I've worked with Mr. XXX and Ms. XXX in the past so I know you are great people. I have a team of analysts who will be happy to assist you with any data requests your fund generates. Don't feel bad to ask, in fact, I'd like to take you out for lunch the next time you're in the neighborhood...blablabla"

I was sitting in my office thinking...jeez, if only this guy knew he was talking to some semi-useless VC analyst who is basically responsible for all the due-dili that no one else senior in the fund wants to do...LOL! (Read: financing modelling, returns analysis, mapping out the entire industry based on product offerings...zzz)

Yeah, sometimes I've founds ibankers over-sell their product. It's not a big secret that all banks are pretty similar, so I don't get why they have to act the way they do.

Well JBS, all I can say is that I'm happy I'm not on the sell-side..haha, VCMonkey

 

Atropolation, Your analogy is completely wrong. I am the car buyer and he is the salesman. I am putting a potential deal in his lap and fees in his bank's pocket (and he didnt even have to solicit the business). The guy was a complete douchebag even after I apologized for an honest mistake. The (buyside)client is always right and you never yell at a customer. Didnt you learn anything during training?

 

I could somewhat understand the MD's initial reaction, particularly if he had some idea that you were younger, since some folks think more in terms of age than the fact that you're a potential client (I also work in PE - in general, I tend to communicate more formally with an MD than I would with a VP or Associate).

However, his follow-up calls just sound fucking insane. Maybe he thought you were a nobody - or worse, maybe he though you were a fundless sponsor.

 

Didn't YOU learn anything about customer service? YOU approached HIM with something and then FORGOT HIS NAME! And I agree with smugguy, he's prolly older than you! THAT'S why he was angry with you. It's just common courtesy, NOT whose better than who in whichever hierarchy.

BUT his multiple phone calls leave something to be desired.

********"Babies don't cost money, they MAKE money." - Jerri Blank********

********"Babies don't cost money, they MAKE money." - Jerri Blank********
 

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