My analyst went AWOL

Monkeys,

I jumped companies ~6 months ago to work in corp dev. It was a promotion, different city, etc. Overall a good opportunity to get out of my comfort zone have an analyst working under me.

Said analyst was at the company before I joined. It was a weird situation - they didn't have an previous banking/finance experience and had parlayed an internship into a FT offer (the head of the group had a soft spot for them). It became very apparent that he/she wasn't up to many of the tasks that the job required.

Fast forward to the past few weeks - the analyst fully capitalized on 4th of July holidays and everyone being out of the office and flat out stopped showing up to work. Nobody has heard from them in weeks and they won't return any calls/emails (or their company laptop).

At first I thought it was an extremely dumb move - torch the only professional reference that you have by going AWOL. After a couple of weeks though I'm honestly worried about the kid. I'm sure this is more common in banking, but still an insane thing to do unless something has gone awry (stress, family issues, etc).

Has anyone else experienced anything similar before?

 
nickcageisnotabadactor:
To be clear, I didn't say I believed it to be a common occurrence in banking - it was simply an acknowledgement that the stresses of banking are more closely aligned with someone ghosting on the job than CD. Thanks for your insight though.

I'm sure you were just as inconsistent on the job too where you were not subjected to public opinion. Perhaps you were the one with no experience? It's difficult to work under someone that doesn't know what they're doing.

 

I think the possibilities at this point are:

1) They just ghosted their job. Possible, but unlikely unless they are socially maladjusted. Most people will just quit like a normal human being. But, crazier things have happened.

2) They are dead and family hasn’t had a chance to notify work yet. (Murder, drug overdose, sudden health crisis etc..)

3) They have been kidnapped, imprisoned in a foreign country or are otherwise unable to reach the outside world.

4) They had a serious mental break or other incapacitating health issue (Psychosis, schizophrenia, coma etc.)

I would notify the authorities.

 

I've seen this happen before when someone couldn't take their IB job anymore. They had been recruiting for buy-side opportunities while also on some live deals. They just didn't show up for two or three days and were non-responsive to emails, leading some people to be really concerned. He did email after a few days at least, never heard of anyone going fully dark for a month.

After like a month or two, he recruited for a lower profile job (and even got some help from senior bankers)

 

Are you sure they are still alive? I am asking this question legitimately. We had a guy no one could get ahold of (e-mail, phone, etc.), finally someone called his wife (emergency contact). The guy had died of a heart attack and she was too distraught taking care of arrangements to call his work.

Call the emergency contact first. If there isn't one you should probably call the authorities. Normal people dont just stop showing up to work.

 

I’ve never understood dumb people posting RIP on a dead person’s fb wall. They post it as if the dead guy is going to come back to life to like their posts.

In some cases relatives quickly disable all the deceased person’s social media accounts so may not always work

 
monty09:
I had an issue like this with a young trader on my desk... turns out on the way to work he got into a wreck with a cop... then got an attitude and hit the female officer, arrested etc etc.. we couldnt get a hold of him cause he was in jail and we heard from him a week later and fired.

weird shit but happens

Sounds like bullshit esp. coming from you..

 
Butterbean:
monty09:
I had an issue like this with a young trader on my desk... turns out on the way to work he got into a wreck with a cop... then got an attitude and hit the female officer, arrested etc etc.. we couldnt get a hold of him cause he was in jail and we heard from him a week later and fired.

weird shit but happens

Sounds like bullshit esp. coming from you..

wish it was but true story.. think guy ended up going to grad school or something...

 

To relate this to personal experience- I had to take a leave of absence for personal health reasons. I immediately notified HR (I was genuinely surprised at the level of support provided). I told my MD and manager, but in the flurry of fighting my pressing health issue, honestly forgot to tell some of my colleagues... even the fellow associate on my engagement. Fast forward 8 weeks, and my peers were dumbfounded at my return, as if I had arisen from the dead.

Lesson learned on my end, but I was fortunate that the "critical" components of my team knew, so I still had a job. How big or bureaucratic is your company? When you say "nobody", does that include HR?

"I'm at a loss, he was part of that whole Yale thing... Well, I think, for one, that he was probably a closet homosexual who did a lot of cocaine... You know, that Yale thing."
 
Most Helpful

UPDATE -

The kid is alive. Found them on the gram and new pics had been posted at the bars from this past weekend. HR has been dealing with it but still no returned calls/texts.

I really hope I'm listed as a reference one day.

Thanks for all of the input monkeys - will update when I know more details.

 
nickcageisnotabadactor:
UPDATE -

The kid is alive. Found them on the gram and new pics had been posted at the bars from this past weekend. HR has been dealing with it but still no returned calls/texts.

I really hope I'm listed as a reference one day.

Thanks for all of the input monkeys - will update when I know more details.

I wonder what part of the job pushed him over the ledge. More like launched based on his disappearance.

 
 
nickcageisnotabadactor:
UPDATE -

The kid is alive. Found them on the gram and new pics had been posted at the bars from this past weekend. HR has been dealing with it but still no returned calls/texts.

I really hope I'm listed as a reference one day.

Thanks for all of the input monkeys - will update when I know more details.

Careful what you say on record. You could lose your own job, too.

 

A few years back I was a Director at a company that also a had a large military base. We needed a new admin and one applicant was this drop-dead gorgeous blonde, I mean stunning. Said her husband was on a SEAL team and was away a lot so she wanted a job to keep her hours busy.

I hired her and she was generally doing OK. The admins just kind of trained each other and I was getting decent reports back about her performance for the first 3 weeks or so.

About 4 weeks in, she stopped showing up, out of blue. We emailed her, called her, texted, for about 3 days. Totally friendly like, "hey, can we count on you to come in today, you ok?" kind of stuff. Late into day 3 we started to get genuinely concerned - the only other info I had on the admin was the phone number for Mr. Navy SEAL.

So I called him up.

ME: "Hey is your wife OK? I'm her Director and we haven't seen her".

SEAL: "I'm on deployment right now. But I spoke with her 3 times this week and said she had been to work every single day. I spoke with her 20 minutes ago and said she was on lunch break".

ME: "I don't know what to tell you other than its Thursday and she hasn't been here once this week"

Long silence . . .

SEAL: "Let me call her"

About 5 minutes later, I get an email from the admin and the WHOLE email is "I wont be coming in any more"

Weirdest admin we ever had. Never heard from her or SEAL again

 

Jesus. I didn't do anything nearly as hardcore as those team guys when I was on deployment but if I had to deal with something like that it would have sent me through the roof that my wife was making me deal with this nonsense while overseas.

"That was basically college for me, just ya know, fuckin' tourin' with Widespread Panic over the USA."
 

Yeah, the Mr SEAL sounded plenty pissed. I think he was a little surprised that I had his number.

 
GoingToBeAnMD:
A few years back I was a Director at a company that also a had a large military base. We needed a new admin and one applicant was this drop-dead gorgeous blonde, I mean stunning. Said her husband was on a SEAL team and was away a lot so she wanted a job to keep her hours busy.

I hired her and she was generally doing OK. The admins just kind of trained each other and I was getting decent reports back about her performance for the first 3 weeks or so.

About 4 weeks in, she stopped showing up, out of blue. We emailed her, called her, texted, for about 3 days. Totally friendly like, "hey, can we count on you to come in today, you ok?" kind of stuff. Late into day 3 we started to get genuinely concerned - the only other info I had on the admin was the phone number for Mr. Navy SEAL.

So I called him up.

ME: "Hey is your wife OK? I'm her Director and we haven't seen her".

SEAL: "I'm on deployment right now. But I spoke with her 3 times this week and said she had been to work every single day. I spoke with her 20 minutes ago and said she was on lunch break".

ME: "I don't know what to tell you other than its Thursday and she hasn't been here once this week"

Long silence . . .

SEAL: "Let me call her"

About 5 minutes later, I get an email from the admin and the WHOLE email is "I wont be coming in any more"

Weirdest admin we ever had. Never heard from her or SEAL again

Hey maybe she was kidnapped. Don't know why but as I was reading this I thought I was in r/nosleep

 

Yes, we had considered that. But we had relatively little information on her and I guess the other admins just thought she was being dramatic or something?

The thing that I didn't really emphasize in my story is that the email I got from her was literally within 5 minutes of hanging up with Mr Navy SEAL. She was near her phone/notebook and had clearly been getting our messages, she had just been ghosting us the whole time.

 

Here’s a story for you.

A particular analyst hit the desk his first week and finished his first two days no problem. The 3rd day, he goes out to grab a coffee and comes back with a glazed donut. He eats part of the donut and leaves the office. A few hours pass by and his coworkers start to wonder where he is...but they still see his half eaten donut so assume he’ll be back. He doesn’t show up the next day or the day after and his team is really getting pissed off. The next week, they contact HR to see where he’s at and learn that he’s left the firm without telling anybody! A few weeks go by and the team begins to notice a disgusting smell....apparently the cleaning staff didn’t want to throw away the analyst’s half eaten donut for fear it was someone’s snack and was just left there. Till this day, the half eaten donut is a legend told from analyst to analyst

 

A few years ago I started an analyst job, and was supposed to begin the same day as another kid who I knew through friends and school.

This kid just didn't show up on his first day and didn't respond to emails and phone calls for about a week. Finally the director of the office got in touch with him; apparently he had moved to the other side of the country and took another job.

I have no idea why he didn't just notify the company that he wouldn't be showing up. All the other analysts I worked with at the time probably still remember his name because he was known as that guy that just didn't show up to work, so he ended up burning bridges with people he never even had a chance to meet.

 
Brio:
Some dude just did that at my firm today. Most unprofessional shit I've ever seen.

And it could have been easily resolved with a 30 second phone call or email. "Hey I'm really sorry to let you know, but I found a job that I think is a much better fit for my professional aspirations/family/whatever and won't be joining." That's really all he had to do.

 

Had someone on my team not show up to work for 2-3 days without a word during the busiest time of the year. We started out being worried, reached out asking where she was, etc.

When 2-3 days turned into 7, 8, 9 we were starting to get really pissed off....until we were told by my boss her house burned down and she lost everything.

Metal. Music. Life. www.headofmetal.com
 

someone on my colleague's team once started disappearing like 4 days per week and everyone started to gossip and since one day he was completely vanished his boss called him the department head called him the HR called him but they receive no reply It turned out that his mother passed away in his hometown and he was basically collapsed Yet, he ruined his career for being remembered as an irresponsible person as well, even for this tragic reason in this industry being tough and responsible is a must even when you are quitting your job it's a people business

 

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“Elections are a futures market for stolen property”
 

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