With love, your dearest hater

Chapter 2 (Past)

8 years earlier

He cannot be serious. Does he really think it's ok to put in a request at 7pm on a friday for "early next week"? Come on, monday is 4th of july and everyone will be off, today was supposed to be an early friday. I get a little worked up right now, these guys are such a pain in the ass. I decide not to dwell on it so much, I'll recycle a bit of an older project, put in the work on the model and send them our conclusions - nothing too fancy. Small client, small effort. Maybe I'll even be able to use it for an account that actually matters for the firm.

When I started here six months ago, fresh out of college, I was given his account as a "growth opportunity" - "They can be a bit difficult, but I'm sure it will be a great opportunity for you to learn." - my manager Charlie said on our first catch up. As a macro research analyst, I know a huge part of my job is client relationship and these are not known to be an easy handle around Wall Street, but these guys are impossible.

After running some research online on this fund, I did not find anything interesting in particular. Shocker. Apparently, DG Partners was founded nearly two years ago by an M&A lawyer and an investment banker who were laid off due to "unforseeable budget crisis" in one of the big banks around here. Guess it's a good for you/sucks to be you type of situation, they must have at least gotten a good settlement.

Right after that the bank was sued due to regulatory inconsistencies. Yikes. Good for them after wall, close call. They are not a core account for the firm, in fact I do not think they even meet threshold to be one of our clients. Having access to our services can cost a lot of money and I do not seem to gather how they would be able to afford it.

The company is ran by the two partners and they have a team of three juniors under them, which are usually my go to contacts. They come of as really hands on to the partners, but with the amount of requests they pass on, I strongly believe they are second handing all the work from us.

I hear a buzzle coming in and see an e-mail from them. The pop up notification shows the e-mail address from one of the partners and I get sick feeling on my stomach. Ugh cannot be good. Escalation already? I double click on the notification to open it.

From: robert.d@dgpartners.com

cc: research@dgpartners.com

To: Noelle.Evans@boundlesscapital.com

Subject: Boundless Capital - Hedging Proposal Macro Analysis

Send deck and model first thing monday morning.

Sent from my iPhone

Holy shit. Who this Robert guy think he is? The sick feeling is turning into rage, I feel my face getting warmer. It's friday night and I'm literally the only one left in the office. 4th of July would be my first day off ever - that's over. Thanks Robert. But now also my weekend? Come on. He must be a lonely loser with nothing better to do other than destroy other people's free time. I actually feel a strange mix of pity and rage towards him.

But if that's what it takes to get me promoted in the next six months. Bring it on loser. I'll put in as much work as I can so my manager thinks I'm too big for this fucking account. I'll use them to leverage my career and pass on this corner job to another person. Sorry, not sorry.