Post: #1

So, one Asian investment banking Barclays analyst sent an email to the upcoming intern class. Some idiot intern leaked the email and got the analyst fired from Barclays and his offer rescinded from Carlyle. Poor guy, his career (at least in the short therm) fucked for an email.

I know that the email is douchey but anyone who has worked in finance (I do) knows that is just a joke. I really can not believe that now we live in a world where HR departments rule the world and is impossible to have a little bit of fun with the new guys.

Please find below the email and the link of the full story:

Incoming Intern Class of 2015,

Welcome to Power! I am sure you are all busy at training, but in the interest of helping your transition into the summer, and hopefully helping some of you secure Full-Time offers, I wanted to introduce you to the 10 Power Commandments. Respect them, love them, live them. You may have heard different stories about Barclays Power – go on WSO and you’ll see us called the “frattiest group”, “top Power group on the street”, or the group with the “best PE placement” – needless to say we are a unique group at Barclays. And with that come unique rules.

For 9 weeks you will live and die by these:

1. Our group dresses very conservatively. Given that it is summer, no socks is accepted and, in fact, encouraged. (Men: On your first day at the desk, it is customary to wear a bowtie and/or suspenders).

2. Remember: this is a summer internship for a full-time offer. It won’t be easy. If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.

3. We expect you to be the last ones to leave every night…no matter what. That’s what good summer analysts do. (Also getting in earlier than me would be a power move – You should enjoy your casual 9:15AM PT arrival time this Friday, but I wouldn’t get used to it).

4. During your first few weeks we ask that you direct all of your questions to Michael Lomio. Tell the other summers too, Michael is industry agnostic. If you ask me a question it will be noted.

5. Never take your jacket off at work. This is investment banking, ladies and gentlemen. Other groups may be more liberal when it comes to summer dress code, unfortunately were not

6. You will be assigned junior “mentors”. It is much appreciated if you would bring breakfast in for your respective “mentor.” Some people are more particular about this than others.

7. I recommend bringing a pillow to the office (yoga mat works as well). It makes sleeping under your desk alot more comfortable, in the very likely scenario that you have to do that.

8. You are expected to allocate at least half your seamless web order for group appetizers/snacks for the month of June. No questions asked. Once the 2nd years leave, you can enjoy your $25 allocations.

9. Have a spare tie/scarf or two around. You never know when your associate will run out of napkins.

10. When you need to leave your desk there will be a sign out sheet outside your cubes. Please fill it out including where you went and for how long. This is important come the end of your internship.

I hope it is clear from the rules above that the internship really is a 9-week commitment at the desk. You are here with the sole goal to impress the group enough to receive a FT offer. During my summer in the group an intern asked our staffer for a weekend off for a family reunion – he was told he could go. He was also asked to hand in his blackberry and pack up his desk.

Some of you have asked for training materials to study up on before you start. Love the enthusiasm. First, I would recommend reading the GS Elevator twitter feed for some social cues. It might be seen as a joke to some people, but around here I think many people find it insightful. Below is a link to a great read for any dress questions.

Dress Rules:

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-dr...eet-2013-8

Second, I have attached a fairly simple LBO for Staples. Understand this will be a bit tough for some of you without a Finance / UG business degree, but we believe in you. There’s a reason each of you was picked for the group. We expect you to give this your best shot and send us a completed LBO model with a short write up by Friday end of day. None of you will have this 100% correct, that’s expected. We also still expect you to complete a significant portion of it.

Welcome to the big leagues, boys and girls. Play time is over and it’s time to buckle up. Once you hit the desk, your lives will be your work for 9 weeks. Please respond promptly to acknowledge you’ve received this e-mail (anytime in the next half hour would be fine) and to confirm that you are onboard for the summer. We know you have access to e-mail, so there’s no way to avoid this. If I remember correctly, you are probably doing training with Sean Clovey from IT, or Market Mark from TTS.

Other than that, I look forward to meeting you all, and I hope you’re excited to join the group! We sure are looking forward to having you here!

Yours Truly,

Justin

P.S. There are a number of typos in place in the email above. These are on purpose. First person to email me back with at least 3 highlighted typos is off to a GREAT start!

Full story: http://gawker.com/source-barclays-banker...1709527410

Post: #2

Getting fired for THAT? Wholy shit in what world do we live in!! At least the firing because of the FHRITP was a bit offensive, but this? Dude probably lost a 100k job over this!! Insane

Post: #3

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.

Post: #4

That's it?
That's the thing that's so horrible he got fired for?

God, I've worked for employers that were harder than that, and I've never even been near investment banking.
We live in a nation of pussies.

Post: #5

here is what the company had to say:

Quote:In a statement to [email protected], a Barclays representative said, “This email communication was in no way authorized by Barclays. Barclays is fully committed to creating an environment where both our bankers and our business can thrive. We have implemented policies and training guidelines to enable employees to gain valuable experience while at the same time maintaining a healthy work-life balance.”

Well, they're obviously bullshitting, but they have a point - you don't make the company look bad.

This Gordon Gekko-wannabe apparently wasn't smart enough to figure that out.

Post: #6

Could someone explain to me what is wrong with his email?

Post: #7

Guys it is not the hardass attitude that got him fired. It is that he put it in an email that got leaked and embarrassed his employer.

Post: #8

Hahahaha, what an arrogant fool. Pride comes before the fall. He thought he had power and status because of his job, and one of the interns fucked him for life.

No banker does anything remotely useful or necessary for society, all of them are peons from top to bottom. Every single guy at barclays is as replaceable as the next guy, with the exception of the algo programmers. He should have taken his own advice and focused strictly on becoming more powerful, and taken his own advice.

Post: #9

What would have happened in better times?

His supervisor/boss/HR would have called the guy to his office and said something like:
"Come on man, you know about the new PR guidelines. Don´t get me wrong, it is kind of funny, but we just can´t do that right now. Just send them some form of apology to calm them down."
The guy would then write an email to the interns explaining that it was meant as a joke, that he´s sorry it came off the wrong way, and that he´s looking forward to work with them. On the first day he would invite them for a coffee, socialize a bit and give them some tips for their upcoming internship. No harm done.

After the 9 week internships are done, the HR department would come up with some made up (if necessary) reasons for having to tell the intern(s) who complained about the mail and leaked it before how terribly sorry the bank is that they were unfortunately not selected for a full-time job right now, but that they will think of them the next time there´s an open position, and thank them again for the passionate work and commitment.
After all, nobody wants backstabbing, oversensitive and treacherous rats like that in his company.

From the article:

Quote:Kwan, though, according to our source, was set to leave Barclays at some point this summer anyway for a job at the prestigious asset management firm The Carlyle Group. But after the email fiasco, The Carlyle Group preemptively fired him, leaving him out two gigs.
(Through a spokesperson, The Carlyle Group declined comment.)
Because he was fired from Barclays, our source tells us, Kwan also will not get the bonus that he was scheduled to receive upon leaving the bank.

They could have said that this specific employee won´t work for Barclays anymore and discretely send the guy off on an unpaid vacation until he leaves anyway. Maybe he really is an unthoughtful idiot, maybe not, who knows. (Though the fact that they fired him on the spot and took his bonus could be a hint.)

Instead, this:
"Panic! Panic! Oh god, what have we done? How could that happen, we are doomed! Doomed! Wait, what if we offer the mob a sacrifice, maybe that will save us? Yeah, that´s our only chance!
Please accept our offering and spare us from your wrath, oh anonymous bunch of people on the internet! Take this man´s life!"

Post: #10

^ More like his boss thought, "well these interns can do the same thing as this asshole for half the price. The perfect excuse to get rid of this dead weight so I can increase my bonus this year by 30%."

Post: #11

That's beyond ridiculous that he got fired for a little humour. My gut feeling is that it was more than likely a white girl who felt uncomfortable and leaked this. Willing to put a big amount on that!

Poor guy! What a crazy world is the corporate world!!!

Post: #12

I don't much like bankers to be honest, but this is such a minor incident to be fired over. This kid is very screwed. The industry is so image-conscious that once
you've generated any negative publicity for yourself, it's impossible to ever get hired into banking/HF/PE/AM ever again.

It just shows you how careful you need to be when putting anything online, whether through an e-mail, text, or social network (ie FB, Insta, Twit).

Post: #13

(06-07-2015 06:45 PM)Samseau Wrote:  Hahahaha, what an arrogant fool. Pride comes before the fall. He thought he had power and status because of his job, and one of the interns fucked him for life.

No banker does anything remotely useful or necessary for society, all of them are peons from top to bottom. Every single guy at barclays is as replaceable as the next guy, with the exception of the algo programmers. He should have taken his own advice and focused strictly on becoming more powerful, and taken his own advice.

Exactly man, got played by an intern - LOL

Not the brightest cookie to send this email out

Post: #14

People in investment banking have died from being worked like this, so when a man outs a company for being run like this, it gives the bank negative exposure that could even encourage lawsuits and other liabilities.

The frat analogy is a good one. Frats haze because it works. Frats also periodically kill people through hazings. Banks occasionally induce suicide among its ranks, or kill people through exhaustion, or induce depression and such. Both frats and banks are careful to bullshit the public and deny that they are treating their charges like slaves.

Getting outraged over this just means you're a stooge to banks, who have their own self interest at heart. Bacan is right, self interest is what made the bank fire him, and not "political correctness." Why you'd get mad at anyone but the banks for this guy getting fired is beyond me.

I myself don't have strong feelings about the matter, except that perhaps the government ought to stringently enforce labor laws incumbent on the bank. Who knows if that happens, given a big bank's ability to lobby for weak enforcement.

Post: #15

Actually getting fired and blacklisted for future finance jobs may be one of the best things that ever happened to him. He might have to actually learn how to do something that is of use to society in order earn his bread.

He might start a business, learn a trade, etc.

Post: #16

This is kinda funny...and a bit scary

We've all seen videos of military boot camp or special forces training where the instructor says a lot of things he could lose his job for if he were in another profession.
How long before drill instructors lose their jobs because someone got their feelings hurt by what he was saying to them?

Post: #17

Banks are increasingly sensitive due to a recent spate of highly publicised deaths due to suicide / over-work.

Google "banking intern dies from over-work" or "banker jumps off building" - cases like these are what would prompt such a harsh reaction over such a minor satirical email

Post: #18

Faintly reminiscent of the infamous Chung email circa 2001. Those of you from the old school might remember this before social media when these things made their way around the world on email trees.

http://www.snopes.com/risque/tattled/chung.asp

Summary: junior banker sends email to his college friends describing his big-baller money game while working abroad and then gets fired. He foolishly used his work email.

Post: #19

dupe

Post: #20

(06-07-2015 07:18 PM)Vacancier Permanent Wrote:  That's beyond ridiculous that he got fired for a little humour. My gut feeling is that it was more than likely a white girl who felt uncomfortable and leaked this. Willing to put a big amount on that!

Poor guy! What a crazy world is the corporate world!!!

While I hate the thieving, treacherous divorce-prone skanks our women have become as much as anyone, I wouldn't be so certain this was a woman. I've had 32 year old men try to do the same to me. Or cry in my office. See my thread on Millennials: /thread-35041.html

Bunch of whiny little pussies. Worse, they grew up in an era where an ALLEGATION was enough to destroy a teacher, so they learned to be little rats at an early age.

Millennials. I've grown to hate them.

Post: #21

That is simply not something you say in an email. There is a lot of implicit culture in Finance, I even felt it in sales, that mandates you work far longer hours than your Salary Package entails usually in return for a nice bonus. My manager would not have ever said anything like that in an email, though he did drop the hint in meetings.

Furthermore, emails can be shared anonymously. If someone wanted to share the words that came out of a man's mouth, they would need corroboration. In other words, be sure as fuck you want to make the allegation because it will stick to your name.

I fucking hate the modern office environment.

Post: #22

just goes to show - before I send any work-related email from any work-related account, I read it back using the "Roissy Times Square Billboard rule". If it's an emotional or argumentative situation, I go grab a cup of something to drink and revisit when the emotions have cooled off. and if it's the least bit controversial... it's better said in person off the record, or not said at all.

just the rules by which the corporate communication game is played. once you've committed it to email, it's forever on the record. so the solution is not to write stupid things in an email. save the non-PC humor for your personal conversations on your personal time with your personal friends.

Post: #23

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.

Post: #24

How ironic. The guy lecturing newbies on power moves got done by a classic power move: his own words were used against him causing his downfall.

Post: #25

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.