Advice on Whether to Leave

I want to commend you for your honest and thorough self-reflection; that's a wonderful trait that you should continue to practice.

The prior comments have been spot-on with literal and direct feedback.

I want to go a different route with higher-level advice that I think will be beneficial for someone like you very early in their career. I remember how challenging it was to practice perspective in situations like this without the benefit of much experience to draw on.

In jobs like these, it is imperative to always think about the macro. Regardless of your role (analyst, associate, vice president...), you don't have to do everything: you simply have to do what is asked of you.

You are a first-year analyst at a competive bank in a competitive group. What is asked of you as an analyst? To do a high volume of low-level, often mind-numbing grunt work in Excel, Powerpoint, and administrative or clerical type workstreams well. To sum it up succinctly, it's 'eat shit with a smile'. It sucks. (There's no hiding that fact, and anyone who takes the job and then is surprised about it is someone who is intellectually dishonest.)

What was in your review? Minor developmental feedback about (i) balancing the shit that rolls downhill to you and (ii) producing crisp, error-free work.

Ever heard the phrase "Control what you can control"? At this stage in your career, you have zero influence on what deals the group does, what base pay for your title is, who gets hired above you, or any of the other big things that affect your work environment. You do have control over how communicative you are with the people feeding things your direction, and also how pristine your output product on those things is. 

If you combine these two things ("What is asked of me" and "Control what I can control"), you'll be surprised at how simple things become.

Let's find some examples. In no way am I attacking you here: I am using your own story to point out the object lesson.

You mention knowing the complexities of EBITDAR, incremental NWC, and operating leases. Wonderful. Is that the job? Nope. Producing error-free slides is, even if those errors are in formatting rather than financials. 

You mention poor communicators assigning you work. That comes part and parcel with the territory, unfortunately. It's rare to find people who are both clear and considerate communicators. What's the job? Balancing (juggling) the shit that rolls downhill to you. This means communicating well. In some instances this might be just being prompt to acknowledge. In others it might be working to pull the info you need out of someone who is too short or sloppy with their inputs. In others it might mean going to a different source to get the right inputs. It sounds like you have already identified ways to adjust your style to these difficult individuals. That's awesome.

In short, your job today is to make life easier for people who may do nothing to help (or worse, actively impair) you in that goal. Remember these two pillars: constantly ask "what matters here" and "what can I control".

It will help power you through the suck, and at each successive rung you unlock on the career ladder, you'll find that although the prompts are different (private equity associate is different than banking analyst, and private equity vice president very different from private equity associate, and so on), these pillars remain powerful.

Overall, you are in fine shape. This is the most generic developmental feedback an analyst can get. Most 22-year-olds don't walk in the door perfectly equipped to deal with all the different communication styles in a demanding work environment. And what analyst couldn't stand to gain a bit more technical knowledge?

Don't treat this like the end of the world. I know it may be hard for someone who has spent the recent half of their life advancing through a successive step-ladder of high performance in fairly objective environments like high school and college. You aren't failing. 

Go sit with each of the people on your teams you feel may have seen less than your 100% best. Tell them you are digesting your mid-year review, share a scenario with them and your proposed solution (like one of the communications ones I outlined above), and ask them if they have any suggestions on whether that's better or how else you could do it better. Listen to whatever they say, then thank them for it. Reiterate how this matters to you, you value the opportunity to grow and improve, and that you appreciate this job and team. 

This sounds basic, but it will go a long way. Couple that with the fact that people also view you as having a great attitude and work ethic and you are golden. 

Said differently, do not let this in any way start to color your headspace. I did that in one role early on and it was a mistake, I basically allowed a sliver to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Everything I am sharing with you above is something I learned the hard way.

Keep up the good work, don't get rattled, and remember how fortunate you are to have the seat you do. Good stuff, man.