Life is miserable because of one particular associate. What are the options?
First year at a BB IB team. Love the team in general and I love my job. I don’t mind the long hours as such (but I know I want a stable and much shorter hours after my analyst years for sure). Now I’ve been wirh the team for a year and I don’t have problems with anyone except for this one associate. He’s the typical corporate guy who dies for his job and very political. He is good at checking your work but never does his fair share. He would prefer to spend 10 mins writing comments instead of spending 2 mins fixing it himself. He personally would do 2-3 turns of comments .. he also pushes extremely hard for even an internal deck and pitches and always push for weekend work. I always feel very burnt out by him alone.
I went about 2 months without being staffed with him and that was the best 2 months I ever had. Now I’m staffed on a pitch with him and I am depressed again. Like so much so that I actually hate my job and want to quit.
I have thought about a few options which might or might not help:
-
Sit down with him and be honest with him that I haven’t been happy and that he pushes way too hard and help out too little (but in a more polite way)
-
Avoid being staffed with him at all cost.
-
Suck it up and do a good job but at the same time seek a therapist, mediation and all other tools before I finish my analyst years and move on.
-
All of above together?
5.?
Would appreciate some help. Obviously I want to do a good job and enjoy my work NOT at the expense of my mental health so that I can get through my analyst years.
If it helps, I actually worked full time before in a different industry so this is not my first gig after university. I know that my misery is not because the reality of joining the real world is hitting me now.
damn thats tough man. fair to say a lot of us have been in a similar situation like this.
as much as i want to answer with one of those options above, i think for personal growth, you should first try to understand what makes him the way he is - is the VP/D/MD looking over his work and is even harder on him resulting in him just projecting on you? is it his personal life? is it just his terrible ego getting in the way?
whatever the case may be, in the long run its better to figure out how to diffuse situations and find a way to work with difficult people. im sure this is easier said than done.
have you talked to other analysts that have worked with him?
What are your short-term career plans? If this guy is as political as you suggest, I would not raise/confront the issue with him. While that is weak and a sad way to live the next few months, I can almost guarantee you that the type of Associate you are describing would love to have an excuse to "commiserate" with your D/VPs by talking about how weak the current crop of Analysts are "these days". I've been in IB/PE approaching two decades and I've never heard a MD/D/VP not complain about Analysts "these days".
Suck it up, maintain the good reference you want, and move on to another career where you can make him build pitch decks for you.
Yes! Thank you. That’s why I think suck it up but avoid being staffed with him as much as possible while trying to maintain decent mental and physical health before I can move onto my next gig.
I just cannot foresee how the conversation can go well as he’s really the typical corporate and political guy. He’s a really decent guy outside of work and we get along well but my stress level goes up significantly when I work with him and I always end up feeling depressed
Thanks for your reply!
So I think he cares about his job a lot and he mentioned to me that work is number 1 and if anything we should always suck it up (all his own words). He is the typical corporate guy who is eager to perform well, get the best rating and do a good job in front of the seniors. So he pushes super hard but his style is to dump loads of comments instead of fixing part of them himself which leads to inefficiency and us both doing long hours.
I don’t think option 1 will go well with him...
to be fair, i also provide basic comments to analysts even though it’ll take a few mins to fix it myself - unless s/hes tied up on something else. i was a tutor in college and thats how i was taught to tutor - minimalist teaching where you guide more than actually fixing.
in any case, this guy seems to a be a tool. i suggest speaking to see if other analysts feel that hes being too extreme. you could always try have a casual conversation to mention that you’re trying to keep up but sometimes it’s too extreme and it takes away time from other deals youre staffed on. hope that works
This is how many of the associates I've worked with think about it. Know a few people who recently became associates who now spend a lot more time giving comments than fixing things themselves when a few months before they were promoted, they were fixing it themselves.
The ultimate goal in doing all of this is to teach the analyst to be aware of the mistakes he / she is making to avoid them in the future. Obviously, some comments will be things that you can't learn from per se.
This sounds like every associate ever.
Exactly what I thought
Ever seen what Patrick Bateman does to Paul Allen?
This post resonates with me because I also went through very similar feelings after working with a very difficult associate (for reasons different than yours, but still the same result on my mental health).
One option could be to talk to your staffer, depending on your relationship with him/her. It's very likely that these traits are not completely unseen and that others may have taken notice. I'm not saying that you should air all your complaints, but maybe just note a couple pieces of constructive criticism or say maybe that you haven't had the chance to work with other associates and that you'd like to vary your experience? I'm at a EB so my experiences might not translate directly to your office structure at a BB, but I was able to have a private talk with my staffer, who understood where I was coming from and acknowledged that he had seen those issues as well, and helped me get on staffings with other teams. Having to work with my tough associate on 100% of my projects was miserable and draining, but was notably more tolerable when it was more like 30-40%.
I personally chose not to confront my associate directly, as it would cause more trouble than it would be worth. I wasn't going to stay at the bank for more than 2 years and had an exit, so I knew it would end eventually. Also, while my associate was extremely difficult to work with, I knew at the end of the day, they had good intentions. If someone is verbally abusing you or just being a straight up asshole for absolutely no reason, then that might be different, but that wasn't the case for me (and think that might not be the case for you) so it wasn't worth bringing up and causing any office drama / tension. I've seen prior analysts be very vocal about their opinions (although, I will admit that they could have gone about it in a classier way) and create divide while also leaving a bad taste in senior bankers' mouths. I'm not saying that this will happen, especially if you are mindful and delicate about how you approach it, but there was just a lot of risk involved and knowing that I would leave in
Thank you so much for the encouragement.
What’s your advice on how to cope mentally better to get me through the rest of my analyst years?
I’d say 50% of my time are pure depression and other 50% is semi tolerable, due to being staffed with this associate or being overworked for something purely internal or pitches. I have about 8-12 months left before I can actually quit. If by the end of my second bonus I don’t find a new job, I will quit anyways as it’s really taking a toll on me mentally.
I am leaning towards sucking it up and just avoiding staffing that I know will kill me and affect me mentally.
I’m also experiencing some quite serious family issues atm and am stressed and sad about it all day. Plus being quarantined with no one to talk to in person, I’m jus going crazy and full on depressed.
I 100% get that -- I've also been alone throughout this quarantine and know how other life factors can take a toll. I would recommend one of your original options of maybe getting a therapist? It may be expensive, but I'm sure you realize by now that money really doesn't mean much if you're miserable all day, and I've heard from others that therapists are worth the investment and they had seen noticeable change.
A cheaper option could just be to start writing your thoughts? I've done that before when I just had a lot on my mind and things were weighing down on me. Even just getting the words out on paper helped release a lot of the stress.
And lastly, if you don't have this already, try to make sure you have something you can look forward to outside of work, even if it's small. For me, it was lifting weights. I was really dedicated to this part of my routine and made sure I went 4-5x a week, even during busier weeks, because it gave me that mental break I needed from work. Obviously this is harder now with COVID, but still possible (I go on runs now instead, which does the same job).
I've always been hesitant to talk about these things because there's a strong mentality (especially in my office) that analysts "these days" are not as tough as "back in the day" and showing any mental / emotional exhaustion exhibits weakness, but honestly at the end of the day your mental health should be a priority and you should take the steps you need to take in your personal life to feel better, as that will also overlap with your work experience. Best of luck!
I don't know the culture of your firm or group, but presumably there is something you enjoy about investment banking and the group you joined? Again, I don't know if this applies to you, but if there is an Associate or VP or anyone you do like, think about a way to create a project with them so you'll reduce capacity that could result being staffed with the Associate you dislike.
When I was an Analyst, there was a MD I really enjoyed working with. I tried to get smart on the subsector he covered and would shoot him ideas for the companies he covered. Eventually, he asked me to create a pitchbook around one of the ideas and the two of us went to go meet the CEO of the company.
Try to find the parts of your job that you do enjoy and be proactive about ways to spend more time doing those activities or working with those people.
deal with it. i'm serious! do your job and stop making mistakes for them to fix.
You clearly don't work in banking if you think you can just stop making any mistakes.
Had a similar situation with a MBA Assoc. I did such a shit job working with them that they preferred not to work with me. My ranking with others outweighed theirs, so it didn't matter at the end of the day. They were eventually fired and I'm on track to be promoted.
Why were they fired?
An axe blow right in the middle of the skull should do the trick. Don't forget to put newspapers on the floor. Maybe put on some music too - I would suggest Huey Lewis and The News - Hip To Be Square, a song so catchy most people don't listen to the lyrics. But they should.
I had a very similar position when I was an associate in PE working with a VP. We actually got along really well outside of work but he was just miserable to work for--complete micro manager, unreasonable deadlines, very political, low value add comments, etc. Just terrible. What made it all worse though was that the MDs/Partners seemed completely oblivious to how bad he was.
My general advice is to just avoid him when possible and grit your teeth and work through it when you can't. Maybe it's the bitch way out vs. confronting him directly but things like this tend to work themselves out. In my case, the VP was a known terror among the associate class and he received universally terrible feedback during his annual review process. That seemed to wake up the people above him and he was eventually marginalized to the point where he was relegated to BS portco work and shitty low probability deals. He left on his own accord a couple of months later.
Go tell the staffer its really difficult being staffed with this associate, and you'd prefer working with others. Be honest. Likely you are not the only one that feels that way. I've seen associates get absolutely burned because enough analysts spoke up that they hated working for him.
Other options are to tactically get this associate out of the loop on workflows and fight back politically. I had a VP/associate I hated working for. I had good rapport with the MD and he would often directly come to me about work. I'd just send stuff directly to him without doing checks with my associate and would hardly ever cc him on emails. Slowly my associate started getting left off email chains from seniors and he started feeling really insecure about his value add. I had more political power on the deal team as result.
I knew an associate that was the exact same way, and loved working with him. Seems like A-A associates are always better at splitting work vs. delegating. This is an investment bank - you are paid to churn out deliverables, not to tutor analysts... The focus should always be on getting the work done ASAP with max efficiency and focus on "teaching" and explaining why you did what you did after. Instead of typing out "change revenue growth rate to 25% vs. 24%," just go in the model and change it yourself as the associate - takes 3 seconds vs. having to go through another round of comments. Trust me, analysts will love you for this.
Dolor necessitatibus maxime repudiandae veniam. Quasi occaecati id eos maiores. Culpa consequatur incidunt eos consequatur alias enim. Minima ad doloribus animi. Aut labore velit ut et omnis rerum mollitia.
Aperiam aut provident maiores omnis modi provident. Magni velit non ut id perspiciatis at non. Fugit placeat error vel eaque. Eos eaque totam aspernatur vel distinctio et laborum. Non inventore ea dicta.
Debitis voluptatum esse impedit vel odio nobis. Expedita corporis aut esse ut nostrum commodi. Est culpa optio ea et quisquam magni iure.
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...
Provident est modi dolores sunt. Velit aut sit voluptatem aspernatur laboriosam. Perspiciatis dicta in dolores quaerat voluptatem et.