Story time.
What prompted me to start this post: I was interviewed today for a PE Role. Interview went great. Was scheduled to be 30 minutes, lasted an hour. Answered every question he threw at me as if I was Amazon's Alexa. Note: this interview took place on the second floor. Side note: this place was also a fucking labyrinth.
We made small talk as he was walking me out. Shook his hand, and he told me the exit was through the door and to the right. So being the obedient, soon-to-be PE guy I was, I went through the door, and to the right. I saw another door. Instinctively, I figured this was the exit. I opened the heavy metal door and hear it slam shut as I walked through it.
I look around and see nothing but staircases, leading up and down. I noticed that there were significantly more sets of stairs leading down, especially when I'm supposed to be on the second floor. I start walking down the stairs to the first floor and try to open the door. Locked. huh, that's strange. I walk back up to the second floor and pull on the door I originally came out of. Locked. I knock on the door for twenty seconds. No response. I walk up to the third floor and pull on the door. Locked. I start knocking. No response. Fourth Floor, locked. No response. Fifth floor, locked. No response. I walk all the way up to the sixth floor and see a push-bar on the door. Finally.
Exiting this door will sound an alarm. Please only use this exit if there is an emergency.
I'm in the fucking fire escape.
Jesus fucking christ. How the fuck do I get out?
I walk down each flight of stairs without knocking on any more doors as I realize I would only face heavy embarrassment when they ask what the fuck I was doing in there.
I walked past floor three again, and noticed the door was slightly hinged and I could see some light going through the crack. I try yanking the door open but it wouldn't budge. I walk back down to the first floor, and then continue going down the steps. I shit you not there was 5 more flights of stairs down past the first floor. WTF?
I walk all the way down to what's probably some sex-dungeon and notice another push-bar exit. This time with two massive doors that look like a loading dock for trucks. No emergency alarms on these ones. I pushed on the bar and it didn't budge an inch. I backed up and ran full force into it, falling from the momentum. This door was the exit to the street, and thank god no one saw me eat shit onto the pavement.
This whole ordeal lasted twenty minutes.
Lol, funny story.
When I was a first-year analyst the floor I worked on had a really symmetric layout. There were conference rooms on either side of the floor that looked, again, symmetrical. So after training, once I actually start working on some vaguely relevant tasks I get an invite via email to a meeting in one of the conference rooms. It was sort of a last-second meeting, in the next two hours with minimal description, so I accepted it and thought nothing of it.
I walked to the conference room where the meeting was and see a bunch of people I don't know. I was kind of weirded out as to why I was the only member of my group at the meeting, so I went around the room and shook everyone's hand and introduced myself to the room because I figured there was a reason that I was the only IBD analyst in the room. The meeting turns out to be something about Market Data cutting costs and we're looking at all of these spreadsheets and powerpoints and I occasionally try to chime in something relevant because I feel like they singled me out and brought me in because they wanted the input of an IBD guy. Every time I give input it seems like they're sort of all side-eyeing me like they think what I'm saying is stupid but don't want to kill my vibe.
50 minutes into the meeting, I see the associate (in IBD group) that invited me to the meeting in the kitchen, grabbing himself a LaCroix. He gives me a weird sort of look and I give him that modest face/nod that white people give each other when we acknowledge one another but don't want to say anything. After the conclusion of the meeting I was at, I go back to my desk and the Associate is like "Sorry man, I didn't know you already had a meeting planned, but here's the run-down...."
TL;DR I showed up to the wrong meeting room and made an ass out of myself at a meeting that I wasn't invited to because I forgot to double check which conference room the meeting was in. I decided it'd be better to not admit to my Associate that I showed up to the wrong room and instead just pretended like I was hashing out some deep shit with the Market Data/Accounting team at the meeting I uninvitedly showed up to.
I'm so shocked that no one asked you why you were invited to the meeting. After the meeting, someone probably tried to figure out who you actually were and why you were invited in the first place.
Did you ever end up bumping into any of those people again?
I think had I not came in hot and introduced myself so enthusiastically someone probably would have asked me who tf I was. I guess they thought I just really wanted to learn more about Market Data.
Occasionally I would walk past one of them down the hall but their office is partitioned on the opposite side of the floor that my group was on so I never went through the additional embarrassment of explaining myself. They had to have shit talked me at some point or another among themselves.
thank you for this. phenomenal
If I could give you two SB's, I would
OP, the security guards viewing the footage must have had a great time that day.
Also, finding a way out of the building was probably the final test. If you didn't get the offer still, it was probably because you couldn't escape fast enough.
Well trading was definitely an "oh shit" for me today.
Intraday swing of -$33,000 (was up $18k at open, -$15k at close). For me that's not a small amout of money. My top 3 "oh shit" days ever.
Oh well, that's life.
as a quick follow up, WSO should allow people to throw monkeyshit at themselves. I deserve dozens for my stupidity. Keep them coming, since I cannot shit myself.
Thank you
Pretty sure you've done just that.
Not huge, but still a moment that had me go 'oh shit'.
Boutique strategy firm of around 15 people. We're doing this pan-European project which required conducting primary interviews with experts in the industry we were looking at and asking pretty complex question...in the local language. Now I told them that I spoke 'business proficient' Spanish which is pretty true when I've had enough time to practice but I hadn't spoken Spanish for about 10 months by then so I lost some of it.
An analyst comes to me (an intern at the time) and says 'we have to conduct some interviews with these clinics in Spain to get an idea of their operations and staff composition. Ah and [Spanish analyst] isn't here today - you can handle this right?'. My brain instantly goes 'OH SHIT'. To add to the awkwardness of the situation, the conference room was booked for another call and I'm conducting these calls with the analyst who handed to task to me sitting next to me and the MD and a VP both sitting at their desks about 1m away (and both speak conversational Spanish).
I get through 2 calls sounding like a dock worker from Spain with the analyst, MD and VP occasionally chuckling for my constant use of 'puedes repetir por favor'? [can you repeat please?].
Note to self: if you don't want to downgrade your languages on your CV, make sure you practice beforehand
See the movie "Bright Lights Big City" on nearly the same situation different industry
"Well? What did he say???"
"He says you have kind eyes"
I don’t know why but I actually lol’d at “dock worker” and the “can you repeat please” part. Great story
This came to my mind for some reason.
I was at a party and I pissed in a bottle of gingerale and just put it back on the counter because I was drunk or whatever. Later in the night we were all in the kitchen and some chick picked it up and took a swig. I was frozen in an 'Oh shit' moment so I didn't react at all. I simply walked out of the room and pretended like nothing happened. I guess she just hung her head in the sink pouring water in her mouth for a while. Makes me laugh out loud to this day.
I think I just got a hernia laughing too hard at this
Working on a buyside deal for a huge sovereign wealth fund, worst stretch in banking I've ever had. 2+ weeks straight of 2-4am nights and pretty much just suicidal throughout. 1/2 their team was in NYC and 1/2 was based internationally so there wasn't ever a break turning comments / fulfilling new requests for yet another iteration or sensitivity :(
Right before the fund can submit an offer we realize that the idiot Big 4 firm that pulled the Company model together buried a royalty % split (who the fuck does that come on) on the bottom left of the spreadsheet for three of the Company's biggest sites due to some tech that they were using which would accelerate those sites specifically. Each site had its own spreadsheet and we were running analyses that pulled from each site's respective tab then ran different scenarios throughout before throwing it all in multiple LBO cases. Seriously though this was one of the worst models I've ever seen - each site's tab (15+ sites) had line items on different rows / columns with non-identical labels even though they were all pretty much the same. Royalty split wasn't indicated on their roll-up at all. Probably should've caught it earlier but sleep deprivation was a real issue.
This single modifier that was the same for all three sites ended up bringing the value down by ~$40M and bid ended up being ~$125M, so a pretty significant chunk. The call to break the news to my MD (woke him up since it was past midnight) was one of the most stressful in my life - me and the first year working with me on it were holed up in an office just waiting to fucking die. Second most stressful call was probably when we all then called the buyside firm and had to break the news to them.
Thankfully that MD is a real human being and was just glad we found the error and told him immediately (helpful we made sure to have all the answers on how that impacted IRR, how that changed in each of the respective scenarios, etc.). Sovereign wealth fund ended up being ok with it too since they had originally wanted to drive the value lower. Later we find out we didn't make it into the next stage of the process, RIP.
First day as an intern. We had training at one of the company's multiple offices and after the last day of training we were supposed to begin working at our assigned offices.
The recruiter at the training office had a fucking HAND DRAWN map directing us to the parking lot we were supposed to park at. Apparently either she is a bad cartographer or I can't read maps for my life but I couldn't find the lot. Ended up parking in the back of a small family owned grocery store, ran in and gave them a $20 to not have my car towed, and ran like 2 miles dodging traffic to get to the office on time for day 1.
After the fact I learned that the lot was like a half mile further down the road from the store I parked at and they had a shuttle service that ran every 5 minutes to the office.
When I decided to be a banker.
Was at the superday for a F500 company. After all of the interviews were over for the day, they had a cocktail networking session for candidates to mingle with finance managers and directors from the company.
There was a table at the back of the room with glasses of cocktails and wine and bottles of beer, and people were to go to the table and just grab their drinks. When I went back to the table to get a second drink, there were none left. Some old bald guy wearing a polo and jeans (quite odd attire I thought because everyone else in the room was wearing a suit) goes behind the table and pulls out a bottle of wine from underneath the table and pours three glasses full. I assumed from his attire and action that he was with the catering company and asked him to pour me a glass as well. He looked at me kinda side-eyed but then proceeded to pour me a glass. He hands me the drink and I walk away from the table and continue to network.
The event wraps up and I head out to walk back to my hotel room. I run into another interview candidate who's an acquaintance from my school: "Dude, I can't believe you had the balls to ask [insert his name] to pour you a drink."
The old bald guy wasn't with the catering company... he was the CFO of a F500 company. Didn't receive an offer.
Damn... that was a rough one! This is the updated version of the "didn't hold the elevator for the weird guy, to later learn he's the MD" story. At least you didn't yell after to the CEO "Get out of my face, you waiter" or something like that, I have witnessed some individuals do shit like this. It’s disgusting.
My most recent story
Two months ago, I handed to the junior analyst a commented valuation presentation for a Client's board meeting, at 4 am, for him to correct the ppt and print the books. Needless to say, the dummy forgot to correct some crucial information on various pages, especially the football field page. For instance, The WACC range was a figure in one note, and different in another text, in the same slide. Dude printed the books for the meeting that was later at 9am.
10 minutes in meeting, the clients goes "Why did you use a different WACC range for the different scenarios, does this make any sense?". I paralyzed, the VP paralyzed, the MD was furious and the junior analyst, that was operating the laptop connected to the projector shouts: "mmm... sirs, i think we made a mistake on the ranges... the correct range to consider is x.xx%-y.yy%", and so the meeting continues and it went alright, not awesome, but ok.
When we arrived at our offices, MD goes crazy with the Jr analyst; "Hey jr analyst, why didn't you keep quiet about that stupid mistake? I was just going to bullshit my way with the client about the variable WACC on the 2nd company production scenario, blaming whatever to justify the change and you had to open your mouth! Next time, let me do my shit and save the meeting!" Ouch. Eventually MD praised the presentation (not the FField obviously) and we got the approvals we needed from the client.
In conclusion, I was mad at the analyst for not making the corrections I marked up, but mostly furious at myself for not checking the book a fourth time before printing. Honestly, it was almost 4 in the morning and I just wanted my bed and fuck IB and these meetings.
Bro tip: Even if you are the intern or Jr analyst, quadruple check your shit! Because in a fuck up, everyone will blame you, not the associate and definitely not the VP (In my experience).
Had a phone call with the CEO of a company raising capital and the global heads of my commodity desk. The CEO guy comes off as a complete charlatan, but the other two guys seems to be playing along.
A few weeks later I see a newsstory about said charlatan CEO making a pretty incredible mistake on something and I forward it to the heads of my group saying something like "I don't even know what to make of this."
The next day my boss calls me into his office and he's on the line with the two desk heads who ask me what I think of the CEO guy. I try to diplomatically say he's got a good sales pitch but that's about it. The head of my desk goes, "yeah I agree, I forwarded your email to him, verbatim."
I look at my boss trying to remember what exactly I wrote and he just goes "oooohhh." My heart stops.
(I pulled up the e-mail and breathed a sigh of relief at the fact I didn't expressly go off on the guy in the e-mail. This would later turn into some next level e-mail battles between said CEO and some big hitters in my industry, I'm glad I got into the fight on the ground floor.)
Last week when driving from Copper Mountain to Frisco, CO, I slid 70 feet down the mountain, narrowly avoided a 5 car collision (in the ice) and drove away like nothing happened - definitely an 'oh shit' moment. I think I said 'fuuuuuuuckkkkk' for like 15 seconds like that Spanish goalkeeper, but I wasn't really worried about any injury or damage, I was thinking of how much of a pain it would be to report it and switch cars...
Taking mirror selfies in the rearview mirror while driving again?
haha you know it
Biggest lmao/oh shit moment for me?
Making it into HBS but not into Wharton LOL. Wharton probably thought I was out of their league or something, haha!
based on this comment and the thread you made, I can already tell you're gunning for worst troll of the year
August to December 2008. I had tried to start a HF way back in 2004. I wrote strangles on QQQ. I knew what I was doing (had worked for an equity option Market Making firm for 5 years prior before it went all electronic and destroyed my company's strictly floor based trading model). The arguments for the strategy: Using an ETF got rid of company specific risk; the tightness of the strikes (every dollar or 2% at that time because QQQ was below $50) meant we could roll spreads and tightly manage risk, yada, yada....Earned about 18% avg per year from 04-08 in a an account that was mostly my money while trying to figure out how to get my first investors. Flew out from NYC to Phoenix in Sep 2008 on my own dime to try and land my first real client (multi millions) and....that was the day Lehman brothers went under.
I knew there was a housing bubble (screamed about it actually) but I didn't understand that when it popped liquid assets would be driven into the ground to raise liquidity. I rode my short strangles down until I was forced out in December, and lost all 5 years of return, and any shot of becoming a PM.... and lost my day job two weeks later :-(
BTW this is my first post.
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