Serious question here – how often do you guys ask for more work to do? I’m four months into my job and have been doing well so far. I do what I’m told, make sure it’s done well and in a timely fashion, and always check with the team to see if there’s more that they need my help with. Today, however, there hasn’t been much of anything for me to do. I’ve spoken to folks on my deal team to see if there’s anything they need me to do at this time, but since we just recently submitted our LOI’s for a couple potential deals, we’re now waiting to hear back from the bankers. Basically, I’ve all of a sudden found myself with an abundance of free time today. I’ve already asked if anyone needs help, but the deal team has told me they’ll let me know whenever there are any new developments. It’s weird for me not to be busy, and I’m worried that this might be some type of subliminal sign (e.g. my job being at risk, economy getting worse before it gets better, the coming of the apocalypse, Arizona Cardinals winning the Super Bowl, etc.). Have you guys been in situations like this where there was really close to nothing to do, and what have you done in those cases? Do you continue to seek out extra work to do (perhaps on other deal teams), or would you be more inclined to take it easy, surf the web, study for GMAT’s, etc.? Thank you, Idle Numi
this happens so infrequently that i like to appreciate it and take it easy for a day or two. trust me, it’s usually just the eye of the hurricane - the work will come and usually in a big way.
I’ve had this happen this summer. My work has come in waves it seems, and some days/weeks I will be insanely busy while both days this week it seems my work has more or less been administrative clean-up. It’s mind-numbing but has to be done, cleaning up files I’ve built, etc. I’ve worked out both days at lunch and have decided if it’s like this Friday, my weekend will start early on the golf course. I’m not worry about this being a subliminal image, as I know we’ll be busy in 2-3 weeks, and I’m not the last man on the deal team. I’m sure you have nothing to worry about, Numi. Take the time to relax, surf the web a bit, get ready for the GMAT and get some extra sleep.
i never ask for more work. if i dont have any work, ill spend that time reading up on work-related topics or doing these online tutorials or just relaxing once in a while. from my experience, asking for work when there is none just ends up in them giving you useless boring tasks.
I don’t ask for more work but I’ll come up with new projects on my own. Usually they end up getting handed down to the analysts anyways. Having too much free time in this economy is not a good thing.
I agree with jimjohn. if you don’t have a lot to do just keep your mouth shut. it’s worse to bring attention to yourself. they might start questioning your contribution.
Never give the hint you are not busy, or else you will be the sap stuck with extra work. IF a superior asks you to take on more work than you should always accept, if it is mundane work and you are busy, it is fine to reject. But if it’s a new project or something interesting and your the first/only person he/she asks, then no matter how busy you are, you should take it on. But i savour the “no work” moments, but i never let anyone know im not busy. You should see the different fake expressions i have when im posting on AF during the work day. people think i’m working hard, but really i’m trying to figure out how to respond to a post.
jimjohn Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > from > my experience, asking for work when there is none > just ends up in them giving you useless boring > tasks. 100% agree
Numi, I’m usually behind on things so frequently that I have rarely needed to ask for more work; I think my problem is that I don’t say “no” when sometimes I should. In a situation like yours, I might work out with my supervisor a list of professional development goals (something like studying for CFA (or equivalent for you), or learning some aspect of the business, or whatever seems reasonable to both you and your supervisors). If you find yourself with some free time, you can then pursue that with your supervisors’ blessing - after all, you have agreed that these are professional goals for both you and your company. Catching up on industry journals and trends, might be something. So, don’t goof off of course (although you can treat yourself to a long lunch perhaps), but you can probably find some things to do that interest you and give you a better view of the business. BTW, I am a HUGE fan of the David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” (GTD) methodology. If you aren’t familiar with it, definitely put it on your list of things to read about when you have excess time.
Whenever I have free time, I go through FT articles in detail (in general when I don’t have time, I have to skim through the news and miss some fundamentals which they talk about). Also, there are various CEO interviews available on their websites (View from the top), its really very helpful, it gives a perspective of their way of thinking, and then they come from diverse businesses, which again helps to gain diversified knowledge. As suggested by others, asking for more work either lands one into a mundane task or sometimes gives a wrong impression that you are not able to utilize your free time in the most effective manner. Also, as Farley mentioned, coming up with new ideas and projects is very helpful for yourself as well as for the organization you work for.
Numi, It’s summer time. Even the bankers take some time off, sometime. Enjoy
Hi guys, thanks for the responses. I think the suggestion about coming up with new ideas and projects is a good one, and if I can come up with something exciting, it’d be a good way for me to demonstrate my leadership and initiative. It’s also a good point in that maybe we’re just in the part of the deal process where things simply aren’t that busy – having just submitted the LOI, we really need to hear back from the bankers about whether or not we’ll have the opportunity to buy the company before we can do any further diligence. In the meantime, like some of you have suggested, I can do other things to “get smarter” on the business, like keeping up with all the publications we get as well as the daily newsletters. I read most of these regularly but not in a whole lot of detail, mainly because I don’t have time. I’m starting to learn that the thing with deals is that when there’s downtime, it may be best to hold tight, because when things get busy, work really comes in droves and then I have no free time at all. Is the ebb and flow of work like this for any of you guys? As far as “asking for more work,” I’m thinking that the effect of the question may have a lot to do with how it’s been postured. As a number of you have pointed out, it’s not a good idea to give off the vibe that you have nothing to do. However, it’s also possible to demonstrate through your interest in doing more work that you’re enthusiastic and committed to learning more. The question is, how do you guys personally achieve this without coming across as being idle? Anyway, I suppose the main purpose of my inquiry was to figure out how typical it was for people to have downtime. I just feel like if I’m not running at the majority of my capacity, that there’s something more I could be doing. More than anything, I just don’t want to be caught flat-footed where some partner comes by my desk and asks me what I’m doing, and then I have nothing to tell them about. But maybe that’s where I have to get more creative and figure out ways to add value on my own. Either way, I won’t hold my breath – with my luck, I’ll probably be swamped as sh!t tomorrow. Looking back on things, I’m glad I enjoyed the downtime today. Have a good evening folks.
>However, it’s also possible to demonstrate through your interest in doing more work >that you’re enthusiastic and committed to learning more. The question is, how do you >guys personally achieve this without coming across as being idle? One of the ways I climbed the ranks at my current employer so fast (only analyst in the history of the firm to get promoted to PM) is that I always had 2-3 self-conceived projects on the backburner. Whenever it got “slow” I would always pull one of these out of my @ss during investment committee meetings and start talking about all the “great ideas” I had as opposed to the other analysts who would just rehash whatever work they were given when asked what they were currently working on.
Christ Farley, you f*cking love yourself, don’t you? Spare the rest of us–it is nauseating.
I don’t mind farley013’s posts. If he worked hard and was able to move up because of that, more power to him. We all want to fast track it in this industry, so hopefully what works for him will work for me too. farley013, with respect to the “new ideas,” how did you come up with them? Was there someone you spoke with in order to ensure that they’d be value-add and that they were on point with whatever it is that you’re doing? I definitely think this is a good way for me to show initiative and leadership; however, my only reservation at this time is that I’ve only been doing private equity for a few months, and I don’t have that much of a sense as to what would be worthwhile. Last thing I would want to do would be spinning my wheels on something that nobody cares about…
Numi, given how frequently you write on AF and how some of your posts take up a whole page, I thought you’ve always had that issue of having too much free time on your hand.
Yeah, I guess I usually don’t feel as busy as I could or should be. While I was still in college and before I started working in finance, I had these ideas that I’d get creamed with work every day. Days like this do happen but mostly they’re pretty manageable. I’ve found that days where I’m in the office for more than 15 hours can get rough, but anything less than that is fine. As far as the length of my posts, I guess it could be due to a number of things…free time could very well be a factor, but I also work very efficiently. If someone asks me to do something and I don’t have much on my plate, I try to start working on it immediately. As for the forum itself, I also am pretty free about speaking my mind so it’s not like I spend an eternity thinking about what I’m going to write. I also type over 160 wpm which is a major timesaver. Any thoughts on my original topic?
You type 160 wpm? Damn I can’t even think that fast.
I feel like I’m in the same place where you are. I have several days in a month where I have nothing to do and my boss is well aware of it. He doesn’t assign me random projects just to keep me busy which is nice of him (half of the time, he’s on NYT or washington post himself). So I just spend the downtime reading news (NYT, WSJ, FT) and the AF just to get up to speed on industry updates etc. A lot of the times my manager would just end up coming over to my desk to just talk about random stuff (e.g. how our stock did that day, how the competitor’s stock did, how he hates Mccain more than anything and how Joe Biden is the best VP candidate and blah blah)
Hey Numi, I have this situation and more often than not its bc my efficiency is greater than expected. Since I’ve started my role, I’ve created a lot of work flow solutions that have really cut down on the time I need to complete my tasks. Sometimes I ask just to hint at this accomplishment- and sometimes I ask for more just so I don’t look like an idiot when I’m doing personal things (gmat/cfa studying, online bills, etc.) I figure they can’t really complain I do this if I make it know I can take on more every once in a while.