Yeah, those damn details, huh? The god damn archives. What a hassle for a hitter like you ROTFLMAO Coolio, you have outdone yourself. This sentence is so garbled that it's impossible to extract any meaning out of it whatsoever. I am serious man - try typing out garbled shit like this and checking it out in the morning when you're relatively sober. If you had seen this in the morning, you wouldn't have posted it, because it doesn't contain any meaning. Here's my response Cat hunt level flower extra total uplink. lol... anyone who reads your posts understands all too well, man. My last post here. Good for GS for sharing the wealth, and I hope they accumulate another 440K each next year.
I don't think any of us would pay a support person a penny more than what he is "worth", we are not socialist hippies, afterall. All I can say is that a good ops person is very hard to train and find, since there a lot of implicit knowledge here, there is really no manual. If you go to a credit derivative, even easier, a basket option ops group, those who actually know what options get cleared OCC and when, what options are kept OTC as journal entries, where to get prices for them, etc.; these kind of people are very rare. True that their work doesn't require a lot of analytical thinking (which is why they don't get paid the big dollars), but to a fresh kid would be utterly confused by how clearing and settlement works, it is freightening. By my estimate, we have had back-office people who are in the industry for 5-10 years and still have no clue as to how the whole thing works. I owned swaptions as a part of my analytics group for a while. Tthe funny thing is that no one on the trading desk knows how the whole thing get settled and cash moved. At the end of the year the desk would often write off $5-6M in settlement errors that they ate (into their P&L!). It was funny (and sad). So a group of us ended up proposed to the head of derivatives to hire a good options ops manager (I paid for 50% of his 1st yr salary from *my* budget), and he was guaranteed $450k / yr, he was worth every penny. In any other industry, telecom, utilities, etc, all the ops guys would do are just "super monkeys" (nuclear powerplant operators = super monkeys), they have a manual, and it is virtually impossible to deviate from the standard ops procedure. When I first got to finance (first in technology), I was amazed that no one in ops would know what the whole #$%! process is, it is truly sad. But this also made a person with good knowledge hard to find and therefore paid a lot more than average.
gk1998 If this is directed at me... did I say that a secretary should get as much bonus as an I-banker? Did I say it's easier to get another good I-banker with a network than it is to get another secretary, even a good one? I was simply responding to coolio's spew. My point, which rufus just stated more relevantly (to trading) than I could have is that niche pros are important in any business, even if they're not making the strategy decisions. rufus's example has its analog in every business. Try asking a lawyer who is taking over another lawyers practice how important the legal secretary is. Try asking a small cap manufacturing firm how important a good accounts receivable clerk is, one that has built a relationship with clients, one who knows who's who. If this was directed at me, try parsing the posts for meaning before you respond. Take care. PS - where are coolio's alter-egos/aliases? duckling?? where are you??
Support staff are required to finish tasks. There is no incentive for them to do more, hence the mostly crappy support staff at most companies in America. Guy who excels for most part gets paid the same as guy who slacks. Employee of the Month Award not worth it for most. Too bad they are not rewarded on merit. Maybe then, we'd get better service and support as traders. Instead get outsourced guy with heavy accent on phone.
Its mostly about privilege. Many of us work outrageous hours, come up with creative ideas and earn relatively little. You could go to the same schools, hold the same degrees, score as well on any objective test, and your resume would go into the circular file. Goldman often repeats the "its a meritocracy mantra". They would say they are creating value for their clients. Unfortunately, analysis of stakeholder value creation via all the m&a activity and trading results of their clients are likely to show sub-par results. In the trading arena, their network with information second to none allows them to make many large consistant low risk and no risk transactions. (In ET terms) If you do a greatly advantaged trade, strings would be pulled, and it would be busted. If Goldman does an advantaged trade the greatest network of legal and political talent on earth will make sure the trade stands. It would be great if a truly level playing field existed, unfortunately it probably never will.
Anyone is able to estimate me the earning of a Head of Internal Communication at Citigroup in NY? Is that a good/high-profile position or not?
I do believe that GS is based on meritocracy. I'm in B-school and 10% of my class previously worked at GS, mostly M&A , PE, and leveraged finance groups. They are among the brightest people I have met.
I have worked for GS and IMO they are the worst place to work for and this is from someone who is been on WS for 10+ years... It is like being in a government agency based somwhere in Siberia and all the legacy, pride BS that is created about GS is pure farce... If you like to innovate, be creative and above all open minded GS is not the right place to be... If on the other hand you are a yes man then you might give it a try.. nough said