geez

Martingale · Post by **Martingale** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 3:14 pm

At my current position, bonus for me is around 0%, should I kill myself? Sad

dgn2 · Post by **dgn2** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 4:35 pm

Remember that I am in the Middle Office. The dealer does not see us as producers, despite the fact that getting regulatory approval for new models raises money for the dealer in a sense.

...the message they are sending is this: you are not particularly important to us...we don't give a flying fuck about what you do for this company...if you are smart you should go somewhere else...

You would never believe it, but we are loosing a lot of people in the back and middle offices. Workload is up about 35% because the regulatory climate has been harsh. I was killing myself last you to help free up a significant amount of capital, but I learned my lesson. I told my bosses I am done with the company in Jan.

Martingale · Post by **Martingale** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 5:05 pm

In my case things are a little different, I am not in IB anyway and it is common people like my level get paid essentially nothing for bonus( the payment structure is not like IB), but I see I worked my ass off and some dudes are just hanging around drinking coffee(and red bull) and doing nothing, and we are paid the same, it sucks.

dgn2 · Post by **dgn2** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 5:22 pm

Yeah, that doesn't sound great.

jungle · Post by **jungle** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 2:37 pm

risk is pretty thankless. if it all goes wrong, it's the fault of risk. if it all goes right, it's the traders! grrrr....

sfca · Post by **sfca** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 6:46 pm

Risk can also just be a lifestyle choice. The risk analyst, depending on the company, can have a lot of freedom. If he wants to play around with VAR models, he can. If he wants to obtain some of the front office derivative code and play around with it and do serious programming, he can. If he wants to work in credit derivatives, or equities, or fixed income or securitizations that day, he can. It is kind of like that commercial that says, "where do you want to go today?".

Graeme · Post by **Graeme** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 8:02 pm

I'm ex risk, now consultant, on risk issues a lot, but more and more on modelling issues.

I agree with the last post on lifestyle choice. But also if you are in a senior sort of position you can fall foul of the shoot the messenger thing - you take news that the trader was a dumbass to senior management and YOU get crapped on.

My favourite example is when my valuation of a restructured exotic (me = head of risk and back office prcing and risk modelling) and front office valuation differed by 20,000,000. Please don't ask me in which way the difference was. So, to paraphrase

"No, no, no"

"yes, yes, yes"; etc. for a few days.

"Well, boys, THIS clause in the contract means such and such."

"No it doesn't."

"Ask the lawyers. Better still, ask the counterparties lawyers."

"Yes, it does mean such and such." (Counterparty, known agressive international bank.)

"Well, we REALLY meant this and this."

"Well, you REALLY can go away."

Now, to summarise further, various events, in chronological, order, but only with some causality between some of the events:

[list]

[*]I get crapped on. The lawyer was more worried about making sure that the contract had all the 'whereever it says he, it also means she' nonsense, and didn't worry about those meaningless symbols where it defines the payout, but, apparently, this was my fault.
[*]The said dealer nevertheless swings employee of the year award and no doubt a chunky bonus. (To me, this is the best part.)
[*]My bonus, on the downhill slide since those heady joining years, now reaches not much at all.
[*]I leave.
[*]The bank doesn't exist anymore.
[/list]