PE might be getting the best of me

I am almost a year in as a PE analyst (ignore my dumb title). I’m not totally incompetent (I don’t think / I hope not) but I can rarely seem to put together a perfect piece of work. I’ll miss things here and there (could be small formatting stuff but also have had some wrong numbers on pages which is bad I know) and I have no visibility or apples to apples comparison to whether others are making the same magnitude mistakes or it’s just me. It really does seem like everyone kills it on the daily. Although I am the most junior on the team by a year (that may be some slight solace), I feel I’ve been there too long for “oh they’re just learning” to be a valid excuse or something my teammates think when I do something dumb. Maybe a few months ago they would have reacted this way but now I feel it’s just going to result in no one trusting me and talking about how shit I am behind closed doors. Got me feeling low key trash at my job some days. I’m learning a lot day to day but fear that people think I’m underperforming expectations. Looking for a shoulder to cry on or for someone to share stories of being dumb (for longer than the allotted grace period) and it being fine in PE career trajectory…or roast me idc

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Listen, I am currently struggling with the same exact feeling, I'm only two years further down the road. Us young folks really tend to overestimate how long 6 months or 1 year is. I guarantee you that everyone makes many mistakes early in their first few months at any place - doesn't matter how much attention to detail you have, you are still adjusting to a lot of different new things - people, place, firm, processes, list goes up. We are human and parts of our lives bleed into each other more than we think. The only difference between you and me is that I've been through this ramp period once before and I know that it gets better, based on that experience. You actually get better just by being more comfortable.

Moreover, this is presumably your first job ever. You have a much longer ramp than you think. Just keep your head up and you will be just fine. If you are looking for practical advice - slow down, finish your task and come back to it an hour later with fresh eyes, print it out, pretend that you are reading it for the first time and ask yourself questions, etc. There are lots of things to try.

 

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