I knew Blackwater’s business. I was trying to get on their site to see the per annum for the private sector killing gig. Used to be around $500k I think. Lawyer going well thanks for asking before this thread gets deleted.
You get paid what 30-60k in the military but Blackwater can pay 200k+ for doing the same job…
Ha, welcome to the corporate world Gouman!!! Get used to it. I believe I shared this before with you gents, but my former boss once asked me “what is a balance sheet”. She was an ice cream scooper before becoming PM at the bank, no I’m not making this crap up man. BTW this was in the WaMu subprime department, anyone still wondering why we are in the current mess? Now I work with a bunch of certified Mensa geniuses, one guy worked with Stephen Hawking on quantum mechanics in his old days, so I don’t bother trying to act smart. Anyhow it is like tennis, your game is better when you play with someone better than you. For my boss however it must be annoying, he already knows what number the complex model will return from doing the math in his head, before I even start designing the bloody thing in Excel. When I come up with a different # than the one in his head he just says check the model there is an error, and of course there always is…
purealpha Wrote: > For my boss however it must be annoying, he > already knows what number the complex model will > return from doing the math in his head, before I > even start designing the bloody thing in Excel. > When I come up with a different # than the one in > his head he just says check the model there is an > error, and of course there always is… I bet your boss asks you to run the models on some special cases that he knows the answer to or can easily estimate it. It seems as if he has background in physics.
purealpha, speaking of tennis, do you play? where are you located and what level are you? were you the one that mentioned that you’d played collegiate tennis?
Located in the quiet town of Seattle, naw I’m just an average tennis player. Boss man has IQ of 160+, huge technical background, plus a law degree…those guys can just see patterns and stuff normal people can’t see. Dood would be a badboy chess player, he can calculate 50 moves ahead in his enlarged brain case where I can only see 5.
Ideally, you should be smarter than your boss about the specific tasks you’ve been asked to do. That’s comparative advantage at work in the officeplace. Your boss needs to be good at assigning you stuff that you do better than anyone else on the team and bringing the resources together to let you do it. This does not necessarily mean that they are more intelligent than you in general. Ideally, your boss’ job is to help enable you to add maximum value given your skills, knowledge, and experience level. In turn, your job is to make your boss look good. Ideally, your boss is smart enough to teach you something useful for moving up (which may be as much about politics and management as about technical stuff) and you are smart enough to figure out what that is and learn it. Reality is full of things that mess this up, but a lot of people expect that being a boss means you should be smarter than your employees, which is not necessarily the case.
To the all the bosses on here, a cautionary tale on treating your employees well: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4810644.ece
I work for a PM. I felt like I was much smarter than him in many ways, definitely in technical analysis and complicated valuation methods. Obviously all the computer stuff he’s clueless. Why would you really be that upset about having skills that your boss(s) don’t have… just means they did the right thing by hiring you and filling a need they had. Shows they’re smart enough to know when they need help, whether it be due to time constraint or lack of education. You shouldn’t expect to learn how to perform complicated analysis techniques from your bosses, thats what cfa’s and MFins and MEcons are for. Our bosses have experience and its up to us to learn from their mistakes and successes so we don’t have to make 100% of the same mistakes they did.
what a silly question of course, i’ve always been smarter than my bosses, and will always be, until i have no boss don’t all of you feel this way? [scratches his head]
We are all smarter than our bosses.
maratikus Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Do you mind sharing your age, Gouman? I’m 27. Please explain the relevance of this. I can’t wait to hear this one… jbisback Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Not a chance…my boss testifies in front of > senate banking committee…actually had a law > named after him. I will never be as smart as > him…but Im okay with that. Your situation is the type I want to be back in. also Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > I routinely make more cogent, relevant, logical > and less emotionally motivated points > > I know your type. And what type would that be? projectplatnyc Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Finally, if your boss or bosses boss is not > someone you could see yourself being in 5 years, > maybe you should change positions. Working on it e.g. networking, enrolled in CFA, planning to do MBA, reading for personal development on a wide variety of financial and non-financial topics etc.
Gouman Wrote: > Working on it e.g. networking, enrolled in CFA, > planning to do MBA, reading for personal > development on a wide variety… That’ll work. I can tell ya getting a hot asian girlfriend and not giving a damn about any of it works wonders too. 
If you work in the White House, of course.
BTW, for what it’s worth, I think that competent managerial skills are way more important than raw intelligence in the workplace. However, the common trend is that the people who “gripe” about bosses (myself included) are doing so when the person superior to us in the corporate structure lacks not only the smarts but also the management skills. I believe that industries that tend to be more team-oriented often foster better managers. The problem with Wall Street is that there are too many personal incentives and sometimes people who are only out for themselves lose sight of what it takes to appropriately handle a team. I find that this is less of a problem in private equity or investment banking, where it’s a legitimate team working on getting a deal done. While you do hear stories of analysts or associates getting abused, sometimes there’s enough people on the team to either share the glory or distribute the blame. In my experience, where I saw the most frequent mismanagement of employees was actually in equity research – the problem is that most coverage teams involve a senior analyst and one or two associates, which doesn’t really make for that much of a team. In addition, aside from some very good research teams, I tended to notice that there was less teamwork and more distribution of labor, namely in the sense that the senior analyst already knew what he was trying to accomplish and it was the job of the associate to do whatever it was that the senior analyst asked. Perhaps the biggest problem with research is that you’re just working with the same people all the time – it’s not like in banking or PE where deal teams often change personnel from one transaction to another – and ultimately, the problem is that the senior analysts often don’t know how poor their management skills really are because they’ve never had to work with a huge variety of people. These analysts more or less assume that whatever way their prior boss treated them must be the correct one, and because research teams are so siloed, it’s not even like a senior analyst on another team has any real way to keep another bad analyst in check. Plus, there’s always the “ego” factor, in that a lot of these guys think that just because they’ve made VP in director, they must be doing something right. In fact, sometimes they’re so absorbed in their opinion of themselves that they don’t realize that they’re churning through associates at least once a year! (either they don’t realize it or don’t care, but in both cases these people are still bad managers) I would be curious to hear of other people’s experiences, and to see whether they agree or disagree with my assessment that certain Wall Street “teams” are not really teams the sense of a manager-employee relationship; rather, the superior-underling structure is exactly what leads to employees not feeling a sense of ownership of their project and ultimately what often ends up fostering resentment, in my view.
Numi, your post resonates well with me. I’ve worked for people who may not have been the brightest in technical terms but were great at managing me our group and the groups individual needs. I don’t expect my bosses to be geniuses. I do expect them to be clearly more capable than myself, but not be a dick about it, to recognize my potential and be interested in developing me up to their level. The reality is most bosses feel threatened and try to develop moats around themselves and slow the progression of the people below them. I think what really irks me is when somebody is not a very good manager and also not exceptionally intelligent. I just think it’s unfair, and typically the result of nepotism, but who said life is fair.
bchadwick and numi hit it on the head. I think accounting serves as a good example. If you work in an organization that tends to give promotions to good accountants, that doesnt necessarily mean that they can manage efficiently (or effectively for that matter). a good accountant <> a good manager. my current boss hasn’t been in her role for all that long, but she’s great at her job (managing) and i feel a lot better working for her than i did for a previous manager who had more experience and knowledge. in response to numi’s post, you can see the same situation in a lot of different industries/areas. That is why you see the word “senior” attached to so many job titles. Its a way for them to recognize employees, that deserves a promotion. the easiest way is to stick “Senior” in front of a title and give them a person or two to train/mentor. corporate america loves hierarchys and complex organizational charts. if we had flatter org charts and could still find a way to recognize good employees, the world would be a more efficeint productive place.
so why dont you quit???
You sound like a prick with too much pride and self worth. I’m friends with cocky people and d’bags and they don’t bother me at all- you just seem a little “off”, socially.
I am smarter than my boss in accounting and finance, but not in the business and operations side or technical/engineering side, since he is the president that is much more in line with his job. In my own business I am equal to my boss since it is me, which doesnt say much.