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Bowl Leader
If I leave big law for ADA will I get canceled?
Rising Star
Additional Posts in Accounting
Seniors: a managers best punching bag.
Are there GT offices in NC? How are they?
What is this "Tax Tech" I keep hearing about?
Think they did a good job on this piece. It was a truly embarrassing moment for the firm, but I think it’s being handled as well as can be expected. Should go smoothly this year 🤞
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/ap-exclusive-new-rules-govern-handling-of-oscar-envelopes/2018/01/22/7e1d5cf2-ff86-11e7-86b9-8908743c79dd_story.html
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If the fate of the deal is in a new hire’s hands you got a bigger problem
I am up for promo this July, so hopefully exit out with my new title. Finger crossed.
I work in deals. And this is why I hate the environment deal teams create. I agree, the nature of the business is deals pop up and sometimes it sucks. It’s ruined many nights and weekends for me. However. A deal popping up 1 week ago (for example) does not trump my plans that I’ve had for 2 weeks+. I have never, and will never, make my staff cancel plans for a deal that popped up after those plans are made. If the staff has been grinding it out and doing what they can, then it’s on our leadership to find a replacement staff for that weekend. I have stepped in more than once to help teams out. And others have for me. The fact that you have a team pulling multiple long nights means your deal is understaffed to begin with. And the staff being on the bench for 2 weeks, which isn’t in their control, doesn’t mean they now have to give up their personal life. Now, if there was a communication issue on their end, that’s a discussion to be had at an appropriate time. But don’t be that person that places the job above the people. You won’t have any people left.
Is he generally helpful? I find most staff on deal teams are not overly helpful until they have a year or 2 under their belt. Sometimes it seems easier just to do it yourself on tight deadlines in my experience.
Rising Star
Yup - this is what’s wrong with this industry
Ask your Partner why the staffing is so lean you have to work weekends for pennies while he goes to the Hamptons
❤️❤️❤️
Don’t ask people to work on weekends
So you found out Wednesday. When did you tell the new hire? Because if it wasn't Wednesday or first thing in the morning Thursday (as in at 9am), this is partially the team's fault.
Weekend work expected is not the same thing as "you can never make plans on the weekend and always have to be on call."
Found out on Wednesday and let everyone know about it on Wednesday
Rising Star
Have they worked other weekends and it’s just this weekend they can’t? Did they let you know beforehand? Was the expectation set beforehand that they would need to work this weekend and did they spring this surprise on you?
Haha omg. Let them have this weekend but then first thing Monday morning talk about busy season investigations. I’d put a meeting on the persons calendar for the first thing on Monday morning with the title “busy season expectations”
I think you also need to take into account what the comitments are, is someone sick? Etc
Let me give more context here. I work in deal. Most of the projects my team works on usually pop up out of nowhere, so it is not easy to set up an expectation in advance. This staff has been on the bench for the past two weeks. I understand the importance of the weekend and personal plans, but I am bit fraustrated because everyone in my team currently works all night long to meet this tight deadline. More burdens on our end if the staff is not availble during the weekend.
Rising Star
Yeah - lifestyle in deals is a complete joke. Takes over your entire life and the pay sucks for it
Might as well go to some other profession where the time spent is better rewarded
If the expectation was not communicated ahead of time so he can plan ahead then respect his plan.
Not sure how much advance notice you gave the new hire or set expectations upfront but something to consider going forward. The weekend is here so I’d reach out to the rest of the team to try to balance the workload with all available team members.
When was this deadline known about? And does the new hire’s comments basically mean he won’t be doing the work and will miss the deadline? When did he tell you?
I think it’s crappy to work the weekend. Even worse to spring it on the rest of the team on Friday night that they need to handle someone else’s workload this weekend.
Can the deliverable wait? I’m in tax so there’s literally never been a situation in my career where it’s life or death. (Despite what some people think.) Talk to the partner. Explain that there’s personal commitments that cannot be moved. Is the deadline flexible? Is it possible to deliver something high level or a portion of it?
Then, depending on the circumstances, I would have a conversation with the new hire about communication and accountability. Not wanting to work the weekend is fine. Not getting his work done and letting you know without enough time to find someone else is not fine, unless there’s an emergency.
Sorry OP. I understand your frustrations. You don’t sound like a bad guy - this is just a bad situation.
Give them tasks to do for the weekend and let them do it at their convenience. Make it reasonable.
When I was an intern, my SM would not allow me to take off on a weekend for my best friend's bridal shower / bachelorette party . I worked until 4 pm on Saturday, went to the parties, was up until 2am and came back into work at 10am the following morning ( the agreed hour with the SM). I also waited until 11am for the rest of the team to show up. I did it because it was expected from me. Your first year hire needs to understand what's expected of him/her. That weekend was a huge reason why I transferred out of that group to a new one where I have been able to thrive and still have a life. The deal world is not for everyone and that's fine, but sugar coating it and not setting expectations doesn't do anybody any favors. I would ask the staff to work.
So that the first year staff knows what to expect and make an informed decision on whether or not to stay with the group. Seems like expectations were not clearly stated from the beginning.
Rising Star
Give us an update. What went down?
We met the deadline by staying up all night.
I’ll take the job if your staff won’t work?
I’m in deals too and I’m currently an associate. I’m going to be honest - expectations were clear when I joined that I might have to work weekends and things were going to be unpredictable. That’s the nature of the work and quite frankly, it takes a damn team to get things done. If you didn’t need anyone, then you could’ve just budgeted for less people on the team. I truly sympathize with you unlike some other people here and hope you do get the message across to your staff that this is the expectation unless they have a pretty good reason cause everyone has a life and commitments but this is the work that you chose to do.
Work to live, not live to work. Regardless of how important work is, some things in life are worth showing up for. We do not know what this new hire is going to over the weekend or how truly important it is to that person. Trust me... when we are on our death bed... we will care less about anything work related...
Also... the job ALWAYS gets done.
Deadline extended to Friday
I would say it just depends. If this commitment existed prior to the request, I would want my staff to honor that and not force them to cancel. That said, if you think they had ample time to plan and could have worked more hours during the week to make up for a lost weekend, then this is more about a time management issue.