Favorite qualities of people you disliked?

One of the worst people I’ve encountered in the industry was unbearably loud, unnecessarily bold, obnoxiously opinionated, and had zero hesitation speaking his mind in front of everyone

I see the shoe is now on the other foot...

Also thanks for tagging me Staley, real classy

For me it's a list of things below:

• They are vague with what scenarios or outcomes they want to see in an analysis or model. It's frustrating because no matter what I model they wanted to see something else.
• Unorganized
• Unaccountable for their actions
• Late
• Messy
• Fail to start meetings on time or end on time, also have an agenda to run the meeting or don't invite me
• Always trying to steal minutes of your time
• -Blowhards or long winded in meetings saying things that are obvious or already known. Yes I know lean manufacturing is something to strive for in this industry on this deal we are evaluating
• Use sentences of clichés. "net-net of that number" "let's take that offline" "Boil the ocean"
• Don't have a plan for their life or career
• Wear crocs with socks
• Gossip at the office

It's funny you mention two categories of people: good and bad. I do the same, I associate with the high performers (good) and avoid the low performers (bad) when possible.

I think realizing the idea that everyone has good and bad qualities is more important than the actual examples, as they typically aren't that interesting. That said here are some examples:

Con: Can be duplicitous when taking responsibility for mistakes or credit for accomplishments Pro: Very knowledgeable of the industry and detail-oreinted

Con: Is really boring to shoot the shit with; talks about his kids and wife to people fresh out of college too much Pro: Hard working and humble

Con: So slow at modeling you wonder what they're doing all day Pro: Very willing to learn and a good team player

That said this doesn't really answer your question because I don't strongly dislike any of these people. The key idea is not thinking "fuck that guy", but thinking "fuck that guy, but damn he's good at XYZ".

Some people are dicks / mean to others, which I hate, but I admire the fact that they are straight to the point and there is no confusion as to how they feel.

While at one of my jobs post-undergrad, there was an employee I learned a lot from for two reasons: his heart was in the right place to become a high-performing employee, but his approach was terrible.

He reminded me of Jake Gyllenhall in the movie Nightcrawler - a socially awkward guy who read a shit load of self help books or "7-habits of highly effective people" type stuff before he took the job. His intentions, which I learned a lot from, were as follows:

• Keep your network up to date & consistently be getting face time with those that you hope to establish mutual-beneficial relationships with
• Look for ways to create efficiencies with internal processes
• Develop relationships internally with those on separate teams/functions

However, with each of these lessons, he also provided an additional lesson:

• As a junior level employee, your job is to get physical work done and not to spend time networking with anyone who will take a lunch with you. Your first priority should be to get your actual job done first - then network on the side if you have time (again, this is at the junior level). There were often times he was late to something or we had to work around his schedule so he could have a two hour lunch or an early morning breakfast on the other side of town. Not the type of value-add our manager was looking for.
• Don't annoy the shit out of everyone when trying to make the model template more dynamic. He would constantly be asking people for ways we thought would help improve the model, only to tell us he either already thought of that or it couldn't be done. Being the go-to guy for a new model or project management app the team is using can be extremely valuable. Just don't be a pain in the ass to gain adoption of it so it makes you look good.
• This was the first time I realized the importance of having senior level people on other teams know you and like you. It is these people who often provide unsolicited feedback about you to the person that you report to. Good opinions here go a long way to helping your higher-up have a sanity check about you. The problem here with my example is he would go out of his way to own these relationships over other people. A director on anther team reached out to the both of us clearly asking us both to help on a new project. This guy went out of his way to tell me he could handle it solo, only to not relay that to the director. I followed up with the director to let him know that the other going to handle it solo (knowing that this guy was trying to force me out) and the director was more annoyed than I was because he specifically asked for the both of us to work on it - it didn't take long for him to catch onto what game the other guy was trying to play. It was a great example of someone overplaying their hand when it was totally unnecessary and leaving a bad impression on someone he would not have many more chances to make good ones with.

Keep in mind all of this was going on within his first year with the firm.....

Good lessons: from idea, to execution.