Managing Analyst Syndrome

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Managing Analyst Syndrome

Now that it's bonus time, and every monkey (in many cases quite literally) gets a bonus. From top bucket to the bottom of the pile, a new generation of kids will be a few tens of thousands richer than they were a month ago. Investment banks in a bull market are very much like communist regimes in that sense - they don't really discriminate . Everyone gets a bonus and a pat on the back. The money is coming in, so why not? Sure, the top ranked get a few grand more, but then again, they get taxed more, and work more, so net, net it's all the same for every monkey.

Now here's the problem. When the i-bank does not discriminate between who deserves a bonus and who doesn't, and also, doesn't leave the option of no bonus on the table, every little monkey starts expecting a bonus. It is no longer a bonus, but part of the expected base. Anger, resentment and greed jump in when someone gets a bigger one than you do. Defensiveness or bragging (depending on the extent to which the given analyst lacks cultivation) kick in for the monkey in the top bucket.

In between all this wonderful emotion is born the managing analyst syndrome. It's a rather vile and most primitive manifestation of a junior monkey feeling like they have become a big bad ape by being able to say they're now an analyst 2 and not analyst 1 and can throw £1,000 on a night out. This is very similar to the "MD + Lambo = mid life crisis" syndrome, as the said MD is clearly overcompensating for the fact that when his wife left him (he was still a VP then), she told him he was a lousy father and an even worse lover before slamming the door in his face.

Enough words of wisdom for this beautiful Summer day and back to an i-banker one and only love - the excel spreadsheet.

3 comments:

Abhishek Singh said...

Sad to see no body left a comment here yet. If you like what ol' monkey be writing, show da love man!

Good stuff as always. I find that your manner and style are quite English, as opposed to leveragedsellout, which is a more US 'i'm just (or wannabe) a badass muthaf****'. I suppose its author, an Indian living in the US, adopts that style to get through to to the US iB culture (or at least what he perceives it to be).

But, i and a bunch of us over in Asia, do think you have a classier blog. Just more, as it were, polish. Keep walking bro, hope you got a load of light comin at the end of your tunnel.

Investment Banking Monkey said...

Thanks rikitikitavi! New post coiming up soon :)

Anonymous said...

Love your blog thanks. I'm starting in Ibanking in London this fall and you've equipped me with all the paranoia I need. :) Cheers.