What’s the worst you’ve seen an analyst/associate level employee (0-4 years) screw themselves in the office or from something they’ve done outside of it?

Pretty much the title, what happened in an office/work drinks/networking event where they did something that ruined their career with the firm and where are they now?

 
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We had an intern try to sell us pro hormones. He was a college baseball player. 

He only got the internship to begin with because he was dating one of the owners' best friends' daughter. Said owner's best friend died a decade ago and the owner had been taking care of the daughter like his own since, paying for her college, inviting her and her mom over for holidays, etc. 

He openly talked about cheating on the daughter and then dumped her mid internship. 

He does not work in the industry. 

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

Ironically enough, this happened involving an online chatroom similar to this one - different platform. I was active in a similar financially-oriented Discord server for a while, and there were plenty of undergrad folks who would occasionally attempt to solicit referrals or something else if they discovered the firm we worked at. While I've always kept my real name and other personal information private, you'd occasionally get someone who'd spend a bit too much time compiling messages and figuring out who you were. 

Long story short, a particularly strange individual in the chatroom who was known for his less-than-professional rapport figured out my LinkedIn. Big yikes. To this day, I still can't figure out how he did it. I combed every message I'd ever sent, trying to figure out if I somehow slipped up and gave him enough pieces of the puzzle, but to no avail. Thankfully, I remained professional on that place (as I do every time I put something in writing - too risky in this day and age!) and there was nothing of substance that could come back to me, but boy - did it backfire on him. He sent me a connection request on LI and included a note that said something to the effect of "hey haha, wanna sice me a job? glad to know what you look like IRL" and I gotta say - spooked the HELL out of me. I do NOT fuck with that, total invasion of privacy and with the limited information he had, really meant he had to DIG HARD to figure out who I was. 

Thankfully, by virtue of sending him sending me his real LI, I also figured out his real name and face. I didn't know exactly what to do - on one hand, I didn't want to be a dick and ruin this entire kids career (not that I'd know how to do that), but also that's just crossing the line when I have been nothing but helpful on my internet endeavors and have only attempted to guide folks in the right direction. I figured eh, what the hell - sent a note to HR about it, just to be safe. I did not realize the impact that would have, and they told me he is blacklisted from every office and department that we have, should he apply here in the future. Won't be seeing him around. 

It's kind of sad in a way - the kid was a genius. Totally the type that could end up at my firm if he really tried. However, you can't just be good with numbers, gotta figure out the social side of these things too, and it's certainly not the way to go about it. I'm not sure if this is specifically on-topic for your question, but figured hey - what the hell. Don't stalk people, folks! There's an easier way to get a job. Honestly, if I fucked up and he blackmailed me to get a gig I may respect him more, but didn't give him that option!

 

My man - no. "Try to get him blacklisted"... not my intention, as I said. I talked to HR about it by sending them an informal note and a heads-up. I do these things since I'm thorough in my job, and like getting a paper trail to avoid situations that could cause me sticky issues in the future. You also gotta understand the amount of work this dude had to do in order to find me. Like, with the amount of personal information he had on the specifics of my gig (little to none) the only way he could have got that is if the man studied and analyzed every comment I've ever made with great detail, trying to connect passions, hobbies, and general tidbits of information to string-wire them together in order to find me. 

Shit is totally creepy on all ends of the spectrum. Like I said - I didn't go into HR w/ arms swinging and DEMAND HE BE FOREVER BARRED FROM THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY GUNG-HO, it was literally a three-sentence note. There are plenty of other PE groups he could find his footing at, I had no idea that would be their response. 

 

Can't lie - the one I was in was very well-run and centralized. I avoided Discord for a long time since I had only heard stories of weirdos roleplaying as their favorite anime characters and that's not really my cup of tea. Just saw the tidbit for a "professional" one, and thought it'd be cool. I was pleasantly surprised with how well it was run, set up, and enforced. Learn something new every day!

 
Most Helpful

I think this hits on a really important point, +1 SB. Just because you can figure out who someone is, that doesn't mean you should. Also, if you want to reach someone personally, DM them and be like, "hey I've read through a lot of your posts and found them informative, I would really appreciate the chance to connect to learn more about how you became so successful in your field. Would you be open to a phone chat or would it be acceptable for me to DM you a couple of questions?" I did this a few times on this website and people either said yes or no (more often yes than no). You don't ever want to snoop or invade privacy, and it is something no one working FT has the time to do. Also, if anyone does connect with you, absolutely respect their anonymity on websites like this or via the discord server and do not tell a soul their username. They did you a solid and made time for you, so the least you can do is respect their privacy. I have spoken to some pretty senior folks through this method and I would never disclose their username to anyone. They also gave me some great career advice in situations where I needed advice but didn't have the right mentor to ask the question to. 

 

I think this provides a very important life lesson for all junior employees, watch your alcohol intake when going out with your team. When I was an intern at an IB, we went out as an office after closing a deal. I was so sleep deprived (averaging 5 hours a night that entire week), I knew I would get sauced extremely quickly. But I was just an intern, so nbd right? Usually I would just hang with the other interns and analysts and try and stay below radar for all the senior folks who had worked 10x harder than me to get the deal done. Im three jack and cokes deep but feel borderline hammered due to sleep deprivation (and overly strong drinks) and suddenly two MDs decide this is the perfect time to do a deep dive on my internship experience. They want to know all about my happiness, learning opportunities, feelings about culture etc. I hadnt eaten all day and I did my best to give short positive answers, but they kept prodding for more information. It quickly became clear that they wanted to use this as our first real heart to heart. I really liked the bank and team and so it was easy to answer honestly, but again due to being 3-4x as intoxicated as I normally wouldve been from a few drinks in under an hour, it felt like I was trying to pass a sobriety test. Eventually I gave them answers that the MDs deemed sufficient, but it was a scary moment. I had VPs and Associates in extremely close proximity, who could definitely hear every word. The MDs were laid back and good guys who meant no harm, but this is just one example of why you should watch your liquor intake, at least until you're only out with Analysts and Interns. 

 

Oof, reminds me of my many intern fuck-up stories. Similar to fraternity life, everyone knows that you're not supposed to wear your letters when you are in any situation that has the potential for stupid shit. Going to a bar? Take your letters off. The last thing you wanna do is end up in some viral video slapping some chick's ass while your letter is front-and-center... bad rep for the fraternity, bad rep for you. 

Same thing w/ your firm, obviously. I made an uh-oh moment when I was twenty, was working for a general contractor doing RED internship work. My first finance-related gig, I was so pumped for it. Nearly fucked up my entire internship (and if we're playing butterfly effect here, quite possibly my career) by not thinking about taking my company-branded quarter-zip off. Imagine this photo: twenty-year-old underage kid using a fake ID, posing w/ fours up while being absolutely plastered at a bar. Company logo is right front and center of the whole thing. 

Asked my friend to delete that photo. He was a good homie, so he did. Last time I ever wore ANY corporate merch out again. I was a stupid kid, hard to believe I made it this far! Damn I should have made my original comment this story hahahahah

 

actually curious about how you'd explain that mistake well, seems pretty tough to break down

 

Haven't read all of the posts here, so it's possible that there might be some redundant comments.  At my bank, which is a bulge bracket, not every action had similar repercussions. Some that come to mind: 

1. Analyst and a couple of his friends send an email about a half-baked, drunk idea to a book publisher. Idea dropped. Two of them leave for different opportunities a few months later. The remaining analyst get fired 12 months later, supposedly compliance found the email 8 to 9 months later. 

2. Another analyst was sending herself deal materials. Not sure how many times she did it, but she was fired. She was very good from what I heard.

3.  An Associate used to use the bank's taxi policy to get his pet at home fed (cat), when he'd be working late night.  Supposedly he'd pay the driver some amount and ask him to go to his apartment, feed the cat. Fired. 

4. Summer analyst delivers the book for a deal to the wrong house, when there are clear instructions. He didn't get the return offer, but a year or two later, ended up at a mega or upper middle market fund, after a brief stint at another BB. He was quiet, reserved, but that was such a silly mistake to make. Really thought that was the end of his time in the industry    

5. A third year analyst, on a sell-side deal, instead of blind-copying, copies all the interested parties still in the process on the email. Very stupid. Fucked it up. Supposedly head of M&A was so pissed he wanted to fire her on spot. She wasn't fired though. She is now at a top mutual fund. 

6.  Bank hires someone as a summer analyst, whose dad is a mafia boss. It was known by everyone in that team. No idea why they decided to hire him. There was even a video of him on the internet of crashing a BMW/Merc into someone. He was extremely bad. He didn't get the offer. But how he passed the due diligence/background check in the beginning is beyond me. 

That's what comes to my mind right now.     

 

On #4, while undoubtedly stupid, doubt delivering the book to the wrong house would end someone's time in the industry, especially an intern. To do something that bad as an intern, would think it would need to be something on the level of expense-violation, actual law-breaking, actual malice in actions. Otherwise most people just accept it as intern idiocy and move on...

 

Our office had a couple of conference call lines that we used, we'd all look at the calendar and make sure the one we were planning to use wasn't already spoken for. Analyst didnt check the calendar and scheduled a call with their buddies to discuss their next business venture. MD had a call scheduled for the same time with investors. Chaos ensued. 

 

Knew of a girl who got hired through a family connection and was extremely unqualified and in over her head.  Apparently she would send stuff she was working on to her brothers (at other banks) to help review her work bc she had no idea wtf she was doing.  Emails got flagged for constantly sending a bunch of documents out to external accounts and she got canned.

 

Internship going into junior year in college at a very large HF. Intern program head had everyone keep journals over the course of the program to document who we met with, what we learned, summaries of meetings, what interested us etc. Last week of the program we turned them in.

One of the interns was a year younger than everyone and did not belong with the group at all. Had no aptitude for finance, was clearly out of his element and too immature, got the internship through his father who did some work for the firm. Turns out he filled his journal with fantasies about our intern program coordinator, general insults and comments about senior level people and altering the recording of meetings to incorporate explicit behavior lol. The kid thought it would be funny and give everyone a laugh. Well turns out nobody thought it was funny. Pretty much the opposite. Our program head let him go on the spot. Last week of the program. Said he can’t use anyone there as a reference and said he’s lucky he’s not blacklisted from the industry. Had him to shred his journal before leaving and had IT wipe his computer.

 

Had a guy on our team who outsourced all of his work to India. He would basically outsource all the PowerPoints/modeling, etc to a couple people there. We started figuring something was off when we would send simple tasks and it would take him a day to respond. We then noticed differences in his writing and his modeling skills when he did it in front of us compared to what he presented to us. An analyst who had a cubicle beside him saw him constantly communicating with some guy over messages. He then got a glimpse of it and send us all pictures of it. Anyways we found out but didn't want to be dicks about it and tell our management. The quality of the deliverables wasn't bad just not great. He would literally pay money to outsource his work and do nothing in the office. One day our MD gets a call from that outsourced employee in India claiming that the company owes him money. My MD thought it was a scam. Next day we all get an email from that outsourced employee with screenshots of chat messages and email chains between him and our analyst. Literally the analyst must have had some payment dispute with the outsourced employee. That guy in India knew all our contact info as it was on multiple deal pitchbooks. Funny thing is the guy in India literally thought our company contracted with him. He was owed like a $150 or something. Needless to say the analyst was immediately escorted from the building.

 

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