Analyst's rant on another Analyst
So I'm a senior analyst, and my company just hired another Analyst at the same position as me. The kid came in through his father's reference who is a close friend of the firm's founder, and the founder told us that he "has to take the son in because he owes the father a favour". So this boy struts his way in, his interview question being "How is your father?", and given what I've seen of his performance so far, he probably fucked up that as well.
He's a very unfortunate combination of lack of talents coupled with an unpleasant personality. He manages to fuck up every single task given to him, and upon being told where he's made a mistake (in the hopes that he will recognise and improve), he asks the senior person (my seniors) to fix the mistake themselves. He also has this frustrating habit of saying "Yeah yeah, I know I know" everytime you try to teach him something, and guess what, I am trying to teach him something exactly because he's fucked up something. So apparently, he knows everything but also screws up everything. It's incredibly annoying because I'm told by my seniors to help him come up the curve, and my workload increases because they assume I have an extra working mind to help me through my work, when it's the exact opposite. Basically, I spend a couple of hours a day being forced to teach this snotty bastard ways to do this job, and drill a simple as fuck concept through his magnificently thick skull.
We have staff to print docs, otherwise I could have atleast given him that to keep him busy and off my back, but he would have probably managed to set the printer on fire. Feel like I'd have better luck teaching excel to a drunken monkey.
Maybe I'm just a bit numb to this because it seems that half of the people in real estate are dumb little shits who got their job through nepotism, but my advice is to suck it up, help the guy as you're paid to do, and try to do what you can to make an ally out of him.
I work with some absolute morons, but what are you going to do? Lead some campaign to undermine him and get him fired? It will take so much of your time and energy and probably fail anyhow. At best you may be able to convince your superior that he's a moron and get your superior to go to bat for you when it comes to raises or comp increases due to the extra time you have, but that totally depends on your superiors. They too might have gotten the job because their dad played golf with the CEO, in which case they won't care.
Feel free to make fun of him over beers with like-minded coworkers and, if it gets too bad, feel free to leave for a company that values competence over family ties, but in the meantime I'm sure you have enough to keep up with. Don't drag yourself down over something you can't control.
Unfortunately, this happens a fair amount in finance and you just kind of have to deal with. We've had kids get a job at the bank I work at through this and it's not worth my time to do anything but roll with it and look forward to the day they decide that they don't want to do this anymore (that day will come eventually).
Try to generally be nice to this dude, aim to squeeze some level of productivity out of him and move on with your day. If it gets too bad, i'd consider chatting with some of your superiors (maybe mid-level guys, not partners) about it. Depending on your firm, those guys can normally tell when this is happening and they have likely been in your shoes before.
Hey, at my old place I had someone at a VP level who also landed on a favor. He didn't know shit, looked desperate, I had to teach him how to make basic tables and charts on Excel.
He calculated dividends based on a par value of a stock and was telling like "wow cool it has 120% dividend". The par value and the market value difference was 20 times.
He couldn't do DCF analysis, he just calculated some comps and called it "fundamental analysis".
Long story short, my senior left the firm, then I left it, then my former intern who got an FT position left the firm, then the last analyst left. The firm is desperate for analysts now.
My advise: if you really can't stand it, start looking for a job at other places.
Had to deal with a situation like this. Give him stupid stuff to do like formatting a slide and then format it yourself and then it will look like he contributed and you just fixed stuff upl.
Fugit nemo ea officia eaque ex consectetur. Voluptatem molestiae ea eum sit nihil. Officia itaque voluptatem itaque facere laborum sunt perferendis. Ea corrupti dolores laudantium nisi. Nesciunt voluptatem aut provident repudiandae perferendis. Quos tempore officiis aut corporis consectetur dolores fuga.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...