How to deal with summer analyst
Currently a summer associate at a BB, had to endure a summer analyst who likes to play his little game. For example, after full-time assigned the work, I’d normally get together with the SA and divide and conquer. But the thing is that the SA is pretty secretive in terms of his work (don’t tell me anything about his work) and one thing that just pissed me off is that he will leverage on my work that I cced the associate and redo the modeling and then send an “updated” version of my work (tweeking minor font/border) to the team at 3 am to show off how late he worked while taking all the credit and at the same time making me look like I did not complete the work or he is reviewing my work. What a dick.
I realize since both of us are interns, complication will just not do any good for both of us in front of the team. But i guess as an associate, I also have to look after him with him being extremely secretive and a-hole. How would you deal with this little monkey?
Bump
Why don’t you just speak to him and say exactly what is on your mind / what you’ve posted here? I can guarantee you that if you do communicate this and even hint that you’re not happy with it / would mention it to the team, he will stop immediately and do nothing of the sort the rest of the summer, and probably buy you lunch too and do anything else to ensure he gets his return offer.
The way it should be is that he does the basic tasks and you review them. Your work should never end up in his hands in other forms than PDF. You should consolidate the slides. Nothing should go to the rest of the team without you having reviewed the product.
So give him the task, review his work, add yours to the deck and send it off. Even better, with the final version, send it to the VP with your summer analyst CC’d, saying ‘Hi John, last version attached, any comments? If not Monkey Summer analyst can send it to the wider team’ I’m sure he’ll be happy to send it to the MDs, you’ve shown the VP you’re driving the process and can delegate. Win-win
Unless summer associate is saving files onto his desktop, pretty sure they will mostly he using share drives that are accessible to all.
And in case he is saving to his desktop, good luck explaining to FT Associate when he asks why the latest version isn’t in the folder.
Yes but my point is that given that he should be the one consolidating everything, the analyst should be ‘kept in the dark’ about his tasks, thus cannot cut the grass below his feet as he doesn’t know what should and will be included. Kinda sucks for the analyst development but if he’s a dick gotta be a dick too. It’s a dog eat dog game when two people are fighting each other and don’t know how to play in a team. But agreed that he shoud mention to the SA that 1) they are not in competition 2) both of them are getting hurt by such behavior.
Jesus that kid is a piece of shit. But yeah, I think talking to him about it might be reasonable because he’s probably the type that when faced with confrontation will back down and freak out like a bitch.
If that doesn’t work, would it not be possible for you to just take the work on your own, not divide it with him, and exclude him from all communications? This is more annoying for you obviously because you would have to take on more work, but if he continues to do that and it reflects poorly on you, this might be the only way to go.
It could be possible that the intern has good intentions and just doesn't know better. He just wants to impress the team and work hard to get the return. Many college kids haven't been in a professional setting before, so they lack some common etiquette that others would think of as common sense.
Agreeing with above comments, you should just confront him. You are still technically his senior at work and in life, so help him out a little instead of calling him a dick or a-hole on WSO. If he ignores you after you talk to him...then he is a dick.
I think the biggest problem with SA is they have no idea of the default dynamics with summer associates and instead kind of view them as competitors/interns. But at the end of the day, if they screw up, it will still reflect pretty bad on us which they don’t know or simply don’t care. i guess the trick is we are still monkeys trying to get the FT gig. If I were a FT associate, I would just tell him straight that you shouldn’t do this but seeing that I’m also an intern and my power is limited, and that just doesn’t scare/work with him. Also need to think about the immature SA crying to buddies/VP in the team which will screw both of us.
You make good points. The lack of authority in this situation makes it tricky as it could be self-harmful. I think best thing to do is try to be-friend the SA and have them on your side.
Reply to his email at 4 AM and thank him for changing the font color but mention he could've done it the following day ;)
Think the funniest thing about this is, usually associates end up doing this to analysts where their only value add is minor formatting or commenting for the sake of commenting.
Would agree though that no matter who it happens to, it’s frustrating and inexcusable.
I usually just loop out layers of the deal team that I feel are frustrating and it’s worked for me. VPs above see the work, I don’t get hounded for pointless shit, and the associate (in your case SA) gets to twiddle their thumbs. Everyone’s happy!
I would ask other associates in the group that you have an existing relationship for advise. Don’t complain just ask how they would handle it.
expose him publicly online duh
your boss (presumably either an associate or VP) doesn't care who does the work...just that the work gets done, correctly...and you yourself will soon be that boss. So, what would you want the younger version of yourself to do?
Stop overthinking this. All the seniors care about is the work is done and correct. Stop getting jealous OP. I love having an analyst below me that does all the work and sends all the emails trying to look good in front of everyone. Saves me time.
Agree. But I would tell the intern (via e-mail so you have a record) that he should run everything by you first, no matter how small. Will prevent a problem down the road if the intern decides to up the ante and make more substantive changes without your review.
I don't think it's about having analyst do all the work or not, but about some shitty analysts sleeps at 10 pm and wake up at 3 to quickly change some color in the work others have put in hours and “update” it so he can get a pad on the shoulder by MD (and that never happens). I personally don’t mind staying with analysts no matter how late it gets because we are kind of in the boat together. But I don’t like wasting energy on some crappy college kid games. BTW I’m sure your analyst love you
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