INTERN DIARY: The week started badly, and only got worse
On Monday morning EVERYONE was late to work, and the only person managed to get in before me was the alpha male trader. When I asked how his weekend was (to be polite), he remarked back that he'd only slept for 5 hours during the entire weekend and had drunk so booze much that if I had tried to match it "I would have died".
So, on that jolly note began the next week of my internship.
As the week progressed all I seemed to be doing was reading manual after manual on the desk's asset class. At one point I began going to the toilet regularly for peaceful, extended breaks, but this soon stopped after my meeting with my MD on Tuesday.
I found out that he was going on two weeks' holiday and was setting me a task to write a memo and compile a presentation on whether it would be profitable for the bank to offer a new specific product.
At the same time by buddy's senior gave me some work to do; making a spreadsheet of production numbers of a particular asset. This was swiftly followed by one of the senior sales guys asking me to liaise with research and make a(nother) spreadsheet on numbers for the asset class he sells. Finally, I received an angry email from one of the guys who set me work in my first rotation which I had completely forgotten about!
When it rains, it pours and the crap was definitely pouring down on me hard at this point.
Although I had a fair amount of work, I tried not to let this get in the way of going home at a decent hour. This changed on Wednesday, however, when the senior guy stormed up to me half way through the day (seemingly waiting until our desk was full) and shouted abuse at me in front of the whole team about my timekeeping. Public humiliation is always a lesson well learnt, and from swiftly began working 14-hour days to avoid anymore hair-dryer treatment.
On Thursday morning, one of the salesmen, who had clearly been having a bad day of cold calling decided to take his frustration out on me. He fired question after question on advanced options, which to someone who knew only the basics of derivatives was not a welcome interrogation.
And I was soon running around frantically trying to call in favours from people who I'd done work for previously, but they simply laughed and told me to 'work it out'. Luckily my buddy came to my rescue and pointed me in the right direction. As the phones began getting busy the questions dried up and I got back to work.
Unfortunately with that unscheduled waste of time, it now meant I would be staying in the office until 11pm to ensure I didn't fall behind on my tasks. When Friday finally came about I looked like death, and the fact I had been too tired to shave meant I looked like a PC World salesman. Not a good look.
By the time Friday 6pm arrived I was beyond caring, and pretended I was off to the toilet and just went home. Unfortunately, I bumped into my manager while I was waiting for the lift, so I mumbled some excuse about a wedding and left! A fitting end to a terrible week.
