[Simeon_Strangelight]

To be honest, when I read the list it reminded me of some of the stuff that I experienced myself or heard from others.

Actually the list is pretty accurate, but that they would panic so much over it is s a sign of our stupid times.

Many men don't care if they have to work like crazy if they can make 500.000$/year or more in their 30s. Investment banking was a boy culture and the frat/military analogy is fitting.

Another point is whether the whole industry is in any way ethical or useful, but those decisions are beyond the scope of those young men.

It's sad if you can't make a fart joke / joke about blondes and not get reprimanded by HR bitches or even fired. 99% of PR and HR departments are staffed with hysterical power-crazy bitches and Barclays is no exception I am sure.

[The Beast1]

What I find hilarious is that both "wannabe gekko" incidents posted in this thread were from Asian guys.

Nothing like skewered finance bros to brighten the morning!

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

The mail is so obviously a joke that I just can't understand why anyone would get fired over it. Its worst flaw might be that it's not very funny, but it's obvious that it's all it's trying to be.

[markygras]

I've worked in these sort of corporate environments before (I fled for the oil fields). After reading his email, and Barclays' response, I can tell you the likely scenario - situations where someone gets fired for something innocuous usually means one thing:

The company probably WANTED to get rid of him for awhile and was looking for an excuse to do so without lawsuits/paying him unemployment.

I've seen it with cops, doctors, engineers, etc. Management was waiting for them to screw up, and rather than the slap on the wrist their peers might receive, this is taken as a means of finally ridding themselves of a problem employee. His coworkers are breathing a sigh of relief.

[Suits]

Regardless of the morality, ethics or facts of the situation, I think it's hilarious.

If this guy hadn't screwed up, he would spent the rest of his life believing that he was superior to others because he worked hard.

There's lots of people out there who are one screw up away from being just like all the little people. Yet, it doesn't stop them from developing a big ego.

If you're really hot stuff, getting fired from a finance job shouldn't make any difference. You'll make good money no matter what.

[dads]

(06-07-2015 06:00 PM)bacan Wrote:  

I need to bookmark this to remember that my fuckups are pretty minor in comparison to other people's mistakes..

Guy is an asshole and an idiot. Showed poor judgment and made his employer look bad. Of course they should have fired him. There are hundreds of guys who could do his job.

True fact. He's not in some frat anymore, he's representing a multibillion dollar corporation. Be professional.

Also, there's no way he could've been some amazing worker. Money > everything, he wasn't worth the headache.

[Saweeep]

First rule of Fight Club...

[SteveMcMahon]

(06-08-2015 12:01 AM)Fortis Wrote:  

Wouldn't have sent this email out. I hate being spoken down to by sniveling sycophants who make their living staring at screens and crunching "numbers." Some dudes are just on a power trip.

I can understand why they talk like this in tough professions like police, military and fire department: if you can't take some dude talking trash to your face then you aren't cut out for the stress that these jobs entail, but I don't get why banking culture is like this.

I think finance has a similar culture to sales, i.e. it's a masculine, results-driven and highly competitive business where your success or failure is always immediately visible because it can be represented by simple numbers. Which means the pressure never stops, and there's nowhere for weak performers to hide.



How are you doing against target? How much profit and revenue are you making? What's in your pipeline? That's pretty much all they want to know when you're in sales. If your numbers are good, nobody really gives a shit about anything else. If your numbers are bad, they start looking for ways to pull up your performance or reasons to get rid of you - there's always plenty of willing candidates to take your place.

Sales and finance are the guys who bring in money to the business, and reap huge rewards if they're successful, so the expectations and pressures on them are much higher than in normal 9-5 jobs. In the more lucrative sales jobs, a 20-something account manager could easily be carrying a multi-million pound annual target. Some finance guys deal in billions.

It's not uncommon for young men trying to make it to work 60 hour weeks - or longer. You have to be competitive to beat all the other firms trying to win your clients' business, and competitive against all the other guys in your own company too. If you don't have that hunger for money and recognition, employers don't want you. If you're not greedy and driven, you won't make as much money for them.

And it only gets tougher the further up the tree you go. You become a manager and suddenly you're expected to be answering emails from the directors on Sunday evenings. You become a director and suddenly you're personally responsible for your sales force's $500 million annual target, and there are no excuses for failing to hit it.

Your kids have the flu? Too bad - where's the latest forecast? Your wife left you? That's a shame - how's the $10m deal with Microsoft/Tesco/Shell shaping up? You have cancer? Sorry to hear that, when do you expect to be back at work?

It's not that people in sales and finance are heartless bastards, it's just the nature of the job. Big businesses are vast, impersonal machines that need to keep delivering for shareholders. Every month and every quarter is important. The pressure to perform is unrelenting, so a laddish culture of big balling is partly a result of the sort of extroverted people who thrive in those roles, and partly a psychological defence mechanism.

You need that psychological armour, because sometimes you really don't feel like you're the shit - you just feel like shit. But you've got a living to make. So you put your suit on like a boss, stride into the office like John Wayne on Viagra, and pretend to be loving the fact that you've just spent most of the weekend working on a proposal and are sweating over whether you'll win the deal, because your quarter depends on it. If you can't convince yourself, you won't convince clients.



So it's a tough, masculine environment in a different way to the police or firemen. It's like trying to pick up girls - but every working day of your life. The rewards are great but the process can feel exhausting if your head's not in the game, and you need to grow a thick skin to shrug off rejection. Being told "no" sucks, whether you're trying to shag some perky little gym bunny or sell a new software solution to a bank. And you get told "no" a lot in sales - it's probably the same in finance. If it was easy, they wouldn't pay as much.


Would close this financial year

Anyway, I don't think this guy's email was tough or objectionable. He was just trying to tell his interns how to succeed in a slightly jokey, but no-bullshit sort of tone - if they had a scrap of self-awareness, they'd be thanking him instead of complaining. He could - and probably should - have sent them some generic HR-approved boilerplate that gave them no clue at all what the business was looking for from them.

But there are lots of special snowflakes around these days who've been raised by helicopter parents and the glorified daycare centres that are modern universities to believe they're all unique and wonderful and the world ought to congratulate them for breathing, and OhMyGod! Muh triggers!

Remember Spongebob Shitpants from the Mattress Girl hoax?

[kmhour]

(06-08-2015 07:04 AM)markygras Wrote:  

I've worked in these sort of corporate environments before (I fled for the oil fields). After reading his email, and Barclays' response, I can tell you the likely scenario - situations where someone gets fired for something innocuous usually means one thing:

The company probably WANTED to get rid of him for awhile and was looking for an excuse to do so without lawsuits/paying him unemployment.

I've seen it with cops, doctors, engineers, etc. Management was waiting for them to screw up, and rather than the slap on the wrist their peers might receive, this is taken as a means of finally ridding themselves of a problem employee. His coworkers are breathing a sigh of relief.

I don't think they were looking for an excuse to get rid of this guy. I haven't worked in finance directly, but if he was making them money, he was getting his bonus. If he wasn't making his numbers, he wasn't getting it, and from what I know of the industry that's a pretty clear indicator that you need to be looking for a new job.

[Foolsgo1d]

At a time Barclays needs to cut money this guy goes out and tries to place his ego on some newbies.

He is a soft cunt, seen worse but his arrogant "I'm a banker!" is what I dislike. There are better men than him jumping off high rise buildings. The world will not miss him.

[Kid Strangelove]

To understand this incident - you have to understand the entire culture of wall street right now, and the culture of years past. Now and always, it's always been:

Fuck the Young.

As many of you pointed out - you have to grind in your 20s to make it on Wall Street. There is no such thing as a "work life balance" because your work is your life. How else do do describe a 100 hour work week? That's 14-15 hours of WORK per day, 7 days a week. And no one is willing to do anything about it, because "if you cant stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen".

These kids are essentially high priced slaves.

Now - here is where it gets interesting.

Young bankers are offing themselves now. There is very little concern for this because, on the one hand - liberals wont feel sorry for "privileged" guys in their 20s making 6 figures, and on the other side - conservatives wont feel sorry for an "entitled millennial" being "afraid of a little elbow grease and hard work".

But still - the issue gets brought up. These stories don't stop. Something has to be done about it.

And in old time Wall Street fashion - you either put the blame on the young guy or pay a minuscule fine.

Here, they had a young guy to take the fall - so he took the fall.

If they don't have a young guy to take the fall - no one takes a fall and a fine is paid.

Once you penetrate the upper echelon of wall street - yeah, you are truly a master of the universe. But until then - you are a replaceable cog.

Remember how the Wolf of Wall Street started? "You are lower than pond scum". That's just how it is.


All the young guys in finance that I know are "playing the system" - they know they are replaceable, they know the promotion scale sucks. So what do they do? They get other jobs at other firms. On Wall Street - getting a higher paying job at another firm is the new promotion - and that's because your employer just does not give a fuck about you.

I know I've been using my cancer to make a point, and shit, I'm about to do it again.

I made a friend at the hospital I was getting treatment at - she works for Citigroup. She hasn't started her treatment at that point - she had just finished her tests, but she already had to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket. I work in a 7 person start up and my out of pocket costs are in the hundreds of dollars (my pre insurance medical bills are a story for another time).

It's hard for me to believe that a multi billion dollar finance company has a worse health insurance plan than a 7 person start up, but that's true.

[Dr. Howard]

The takeaway I took from this was...the guy worked for Barclays, not some 6 man rogue firm. Barclays is big, like walmart corporate big where they sweat all day worrying about their 'corporate culture and image'. I'm sure there would have been no problems if he sent this out and worked for a small firm where you can pretty much shoot from the hip at all times.

[floor7]

1. Barclay's fired him because this is terrible for their outside image at a time when young bankers are offing themselves. They weren't looking for an excuse to let him go because the fact he got a Carlyle offer tells me that was a top notch performer in his team. Carlyle is one of the hardest PE firms to break into as a banker. This is 100% image driven.

2. I have a feeling that this kid was a bit of a beta in HS and at Georgetown but when he got to NYC banking, he turned into an Over the top "Banker bro". A natural banker bro would've known when to exist as a bro and when not to. I'm guessing Kwan forced his 'bro-ness' and therefore made this mistake because he's over-compensating.

3. Carlyle is one of the more conservative PE funds out there. They might overlook something like this for a genuine rainmaker, but he's not. He's a pre-mba associate that is essentially a DCF/M&A/Valuation excel monkey. There are a lot of those in the ocean who would kill for the job.

Working in finance is soul sucking. I would not recommend it to anyone.

[Sonsowey]

I personally would never send something like that as a work email, especially to a bunch of new people.

Perhaps I would send some sort of inappropriate joke to a colleague I knew personally and was pretty damned sure would think it was funny. But hell even now I feel like, save the jokes for when you're talking to someone, any stupid shit on email can come back and bite you.

Is that beta?

[WalterBlack]

(06-08-2015 11:45 AM)Kid Strangelove Wrote:  

I know I've been using my cancer to make a point, and shit, I'm about to do it again.

I made a friend at the hospital I was getting treatment at - she works for Citigroup. She hasn't started her treatment at that point - she had just finished her tests, but she already had to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket. I work in a 7 person start up and my out of pocket costs are in the hundreds of dollars (my pre insurance medical bills are a story for another time).

It's hard for me to believe that a multi billion dollar finance company has a worse health insurance plan than a 7 person start up, but that's true.

Isn't that on her? I work in Corporate America and I'm offered nearly dozen different options for healthcare before the start of every year. She must have taken one of the cheapest ones.

In regards to the OP - I've always assumed that my employer can take a look at all of my emails, so I've never even sent anybody a joke through my work email.

[floor7]

(06-08-2015 06:33 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

I personally would never send something like that as a work email, especially to a bunch of new people.

Perhaps I would send some sort of inappropriate joke to a colleague I knew personally and was pretty damned sure would think it was funny. But hell even now I feel like, save the jokes for when you're talking to someone, any stupid shit on email can come back and bite you.

Is that beta?

No - being beta is not understanding social cues and not being able to correctly ascertain the terrain. So no, you are not being beta when you are being prudent.

[Ziltoid]

Is this sort of corporate culture really exclusive to investment banking?

Maybe I'm horribly ignorant, but some varying degree of this nonsense is what I envision when I think of most white collar office jobs these days... A snarky punchable boss with zero charisma or leadership skills getting cheap thrills and validation out of the endless little power trips they can exercise over you, probably stemming from a backlog of pent up rage over being subjected to the same shit on their rise through the ranks.

This does not strike me as a masculine "boys will be boys" sort of setup, some zilch treating you like a sweatshop employee solely because he can, knowing your livelihood hangs in the balance if you step out of line. Office politics of this sort seem intrinsically feminine.

Dude's email came off pretty unprofessional and it's hard to feel sorry over him getting a much needed dose of humility. Enjoy the proverbial soup line, asswipe. And try never to aim this tone of voice and attitude at another man in person outside the office, unless you're prepared to duck really quickly.

I do agree the company only fired him as a PR maneuver (and because ultimately he, much like his underlings, is just another replaceable cog), and that stuff like this is systemic via their encouragement.

[calidude]

Accoring to a post on WallStreetOasis "the email was sent around to the P&U intern class last year too, and the year before. Just a way for the analysts to have some fun with over-nervous summer interns"

[Peregrine]

To go from Barclays analyst with a Carlyle offer to nothing overnight over a silly email...

I'd put this guy on suicide watch.

Quote:

I can understand why they talk like this in tough professions like police, military and fire department: if you can't take some dude talking trash to your face then you aren't cut out for the stress that these jobs entail, but I don't get why banking culture is like this.

Because investment banking is similarly high stress and high stakes.

[greekgod]

(06-08-2015 01:08 AM)CactusCat589 Wrote:  

The intern nuked his own opportunity for a full-time offer by showing he's not trustworthy - just to screw over the banker. It's just a crazy kamikaze power move for no reason.

Yeah, the person who leaked this doesn't understand corporate culture. The MD of this group had IT pull the exchange logs and flag whoever sent it. Additionally, the whole group of interns is fucked for the summer because no one will trust them by association with this incident. Two boneheaded moves fuck everyone.

[Samseau]

(06-10-2015 12:41 PM)greekgod Wrote:  

(06-08-2015 01:08 AM)CactusCat589 Wrote:  

The intern nuked his own opportunity for a full-time offer by showing he's not trustworthy - just to screw over the banker. It's just a crazy kamikaze power move for no reason.

Yeah, the person who leaked this doesn't understand corporate culture. The MD of this group had IT pull the exchange logs and flag whoever sent it. Additionally, the whole group of interns is fucked for the summer because no one will trust them by association with this incident. Two boneheaded moves fuck everyone.

I'm not so sure. Corporate culture rewards snitches. I think the person who ratted out this dude will be on the fast track to associate.

[BlueOcean]

Finance is a high-stress and cutthroat environment, but most junior financiers are super beta bitches. Finance tends to attract people who
are venal, political, and status obsessed. I'm not surprised that an intern would fuck over his superior like this. It's an environment where it's okay to fuck people over
and step on people on your way up. Being a snitch is nothing to be ashamed of.

Most financiers are also very beta with women too. They tend to attract gold diggers and get divorce raped a lot.

[bacan]

They might reward snitching to a higher up.. No corporation rewards snitching to gawker.

[Simeon_Strangelight]

(06-10-2015 12:41 PM)greekgod Wrote:  

(06-08-2015 01:08 AM)CactusCat589 Wrote:  

The intern nuked his own opportunity for a full-time offer by showing he's not trustworthy - just to screw over the banker. It's just a crazy kamikaze power move for no reason.

Yeah, the person who leaked this doesn't understand corporate culture. The MD of this group had IT pull the exchange logs and flag whoever sent it. Additionally, the whole group of interns is fucked for the summer because no one will trust them by association with this incident. Two boneheaded moves fuck everyone.

Indeed - none of the interns will be hired, if they hadn't been fired already. They likely underestimated how viral things can get.

[Col. Tigh]

(06-07-2015 06:00 PM)bacan Wrote:  

I need to bookmark this to remember that my fuckups are pretty minor in comparison to other people's mistakes..

Guy is an asshole and an idiot. Showed poor judgment and made his employer look bad. Of course they should have fired him. There are hundreds of guys who could do his job.

Are we on the same planet? That e-mail was milquetoast and essentially cliche. You think that obviously humorous message was poor judgment?