The “Hamburgler”
In my first year, one person’s lunch was repeatedly stolen out of the lunch room refrigerator. I think the person had complained about it happening no less than 10 times. They finally ‘caught’ the culprit - it was a Manager who just felt like not buying lunch and decided to steal the same person’s lunch brought from home. I overheard the HR conversation with this ‘stealer’ and it was hilariously shocking. The person complained about the food not being cooked to his exact liking. In his own words, “sometimes there is not enough meat and too much mayo on the sandwiches”. The person was not fired, but it was pretty darn bizarre.
The “If I did it” CFO
When I was in Forensic Accounting, we would have to do these “Fraud Risk Assessments” for certain clients. Part of these assessments included interviewing the CFO. There was a standard list of questions that we had to ask and one of them was, “Have you or anyone you supervise ever committed fraud?” Usually, someone of this level just says something to the effect of “absolutely not” and you move on.
Well, not this guy. He got very offended and then proceeded to tell us all the ways he would commit fraud if he wanted to. And when I say a list, he rattled off at least 10 critical controls he could override, how he would cover his tracks, who he would include in on it, etc. It was the strangest and one of the most concerning things I ever heard in a line-of-work that is all about fraud and shady business people. It reminded me of that horrific tv interview OJ once did after his acquittal (think he actually wrote a book about it as well) called “If I did it” with chilling and very specific details.
It just goes to show that some Harvard MBAs often take great pride in telling you how smart they are without always thinking about the context in which they are showcasing their perceived self-intellect. After all, Mr. Skilling from Enron was a….Harvard MBA.
The guy who was 2 years away….for 6 years
Deloitte was somewhat notorious for telling people at the Senior Manager level (level right before partner) that they were 2 years away from being put into the partner process. There was a senior manager who would tell me (and everyone) that he was 2 years away. This wouldn’t have been remarkable if he did not tell all of this “2-year business” every year for about 6 years. I honestly felt bad for him because he genuinely believed he was 2 years away every time he told us. He never was put in the partner process and eventually left the firm. I learned over the years that “2 years away” messaging has some legitimate exploitative legitimacy - it is close enough for people to stay, but not close enough to actually take any action as the partner process is 1 year. So he was not the only duped by the “2-years away” scheme but he was the only one I knew that truly believed it for 6 years.
The girl who “mastered” vlookups
For anyone that knows excel, vlookups are generally frowned upon as an excel formula because there can be a lot of issues with it. The general purpose of it is to find matches that you define between 2 different data sets. In the formula, the very last component requires you to put “True” or “False”. If you put “True”, it will give you exact matches, plus “close matches”. False will ONLY give you exact matches, which is generally what you want. So this girl learns how to use a vlookup formula and proceeds to tell me that she completed what I asked her to do. I started looking at the output and there were a lot of “mismatches”. I asked her if she knew what the “true / false” meant in the formula at which point she told me, “oh, does that matter?”. As I often say, there is nothing more dangerous in excel than someone’s use of formulas without a full understanding of the pitfalls.
You might need your laptop
I once was on a travel project with a guy (maybe a year less in tenure than I had at the time). We were both out of the LA office and would usually take the same flight on Monday mornings to the city where the client was. One Monday morning, we board our flight and he casually tells me, “I think I accidentally left my laptop in one of the bins at the TSA checkpoint.” Instead of panic, he basically acted like it was like leaving his AirPods in the bin. So we took off and his laptop stayed with TSA. We get to the client and he tells the partner that he can’t do any of his work because he forgot his laptop and proceeded to sit around for the entire day. It was “strange” to say the least.
Who’s going to tell him?
We would occasionally have people from international offices do rotations in the US. There was one guy who was rotating through and from the first moment he stepped foot in the office, EVERYONE could smell that his ‘personal hygiene’ was not up to the standards that we have in the US. It permeated throughout the whole floor - just brutal. But, nobody wanted to be the one (or really knew how to phrase it) to tell him that he needed to ‘change his ways’. HR would not even do it. So this went on for a few days until finally someone had a ‘talk with him’ and it got somewhat better before he went to another group on another floor. I guess that is how ‘soft’ and ‘touchy feely’ it was - people were willing to work through a horrific smell for a few days rather than tell him to take a shower, get some new clothes and put on some deodorant.
“My kids have no drive - I don’t understand”
I often felt bad for these really “successful” people at Deloitte who could not understand why their children (who were given everything on a silver platter) did not have the drive they had. They would always talk about hiring SAT tutors, college admissions coaches, etc. and how disappointed they were that all that money spent on these people weren’t translating to any meaningful ambition or drive. It certainly was not everyone - some had kids with incredible drive and ambition, but there were far more that could never understand why giving their kids everything created a mindset of not wanting to work for anything. It is only funny to me because of how obvious it was and how they could not see it (or rather, did not want to admit it).
“That looks like a really big number - is your math right?”
I was once on a project where we were dealing with different currencies - mainly USD and Japanese Yen. We were calculating a number for something (don’t remember what for). I do remember that the client was antsy to get a ballpark estimate. .So the partner (a very detail-oriented guy) asks if we had an approximate amount yet. We sure did - it was 18.5 BILLION DOLLARS. The only problem was she forgot to convert yen back to dollars. The USD equivalent was about $120 million.
“At least it wasn’t my cars”
Before the days of Uber / ridesharing, we would always rent cars on out-of-town projects. On one project, this guy on the team totaled two rental cars in about a 10-day period. Luckily, he wasn’t hurt and did not hurt others, but his nonchalance about the whole thing was a little concerning.
The weirdest part was after the second time he totaled his rental car, I told him would give him a ride back to the hotel. He asked me (with a straight face) if he I wanted him to drive because he didn’t mind. I looked at him and didn’t say a word.
The Manager who pulled “Double Time”
There was a manager (I’ll call him Greg - that wasn’t his real name) in our office who I must admit, was odd - there was something about him that just did not add up. Well, he went on a “extended vacation” to take care of a health situation - totally understandable. This vacation kept being extended. One day, somebody in our office said he saw Greg across the street at a lunch spot. As it turns out, Greg had taken a job with another Big 4. That is not uncommon. What is uncommon is that he was on Deloitte’s payroll the whole time that he was supposedly taking care of this health issue. Needless to say, he was fired.
The girl who quit and had FedEx tell the firm
There was a junior associate that had been with Deloitte for less than a year. I did not know her well and there was honestly nothing remarkable about her. She was social, did her work and from all looks of it, was progressing well in her first year. However, one day she didn’t show up….which then spanned a week - no communication from her where she was - I’m sure there was a wellness check done, etc. One day a FedEx package arrived and in it was her laptop - I guess that was her way of giving notice.
I had to explain and document what my Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) goals were
Uhhh…I’m Asian and plan to be for the foreseeable future. I will also make 2 new Asian friends this year.
Remember all goals must be Specific, Measurable, etc.
If you are senior enough and don’t want to work, rest assured that a new title is in the works
When many senior partners (definitely not all) get to a certain level at Deloitte, it becomes obvious that they have ‘put in their dues’ and as a shareholder, can do as little or as much as they want. If some of these people had to do the "interview with the Bob’s” from Office Space, it would be hilarious…”So what is it…you would say you do here?”. Well instead of actually re-tooling, these people are allowed to “re-title”. Some of the titles are so funny that you wonder if someone used ChatGPT to create them using a prompt such as “give me a title for someone that doesn’t do much of anything”. I am the “Western Region Leader of Empowering Diversity in Manufacturing”. I am all for diversity in manufacturing, but it seems odd that someone could make a crazy amount of money doing just that. Furthermore, what would that role exactly consist of? It is a made-up example, but I assure you that there are outrageous titles that people hold that allows them to maintain power, travel around so people can act impressed, and wait until they can collect on their pensions.
My extremely charitable coachee & the Occupy Movement
At Deloitte, you are assigned a Coach from day-1 and you have one (not necessarily the same one) for the rest of time at the firm. Well as luck would have it, around 2010 / 2011, I was assigned to coach - a junior associate with a reputation for not being very qualified and lacking direction, but so be it…One day somebody asks me, “hey did you see your coachee in the news?” I said, “no, but that can’t be good”. It was not.
It turns out that he was on a project in NYC for one of the bulge-bracket banks and it was during the heart of the “OCCUPY” movement. So he gets approached by a friendly woman who turns out to be a reporter outside his W Hotel (wearing a Deloitte t-shirt of course). She asks him a bunch of what seem like “benign” questions and then publishes an article about how a Deloitte consultant was attending Occupy Wall Street protests in the park and allowing other protestors to shower in his expensive W Hotel room.
I didn’t even know what to say to him - it was the type of situation where there were no words to try and comprehend how someone who is billing hours to a huge banking client is attending protests against those very banks and providing hospitality to other protesters. It was truly a SMH moment if there ever was one.
Be careful when you suggest a lunch recommendation
There was an intern on a project I was on who seemed a little off from the beginning. That was only validated days later when the partner on the project asked if anyone had any lunch recommendations because he wanted to take the team out. So never the shy one, this intern thought it was a good idea to recommend a local strip club for its buffet. Needless to say, it was clear where he went (likely every night) after everyone else went back to the hotel.
You would “think” the CEO would care
Working in turnaround / restructuring, I cannot tell you how many CEOs I have worked with on company-side distressed engagements who would never stay past 5PM, would take vacations and continue to expense things as they deprived their employees of things like coffee…all while his company was running out-of-money. If it was my company. I hope I would ask like the situation as it was….dire. There is more on the line than just pride - peoples’ jobs, etc.
But the more I thought about how common this bizarre behavior was, the more I realized that CEOs that truly care about being the chief steward of their businesses don’t often get themselves into situations where their companies are on the bring of extinction.
The guy whose parting gift to the firm was to destroy all the financial models he created
There was a guy who believed he should be put up for partner and unfortunately for him, he wasn’t. Well, he figured that he needed to leave the firm in a loud way. So, he went on the shared drive where all the financial models he built were stored and hardcoded all of them - for those of you that don’t know what that means - it turns a model into a spreadsheet - it removes all functionality. It was quite the move and quite the headache - he was a business valuation guy and many clients paid for these models to be simply updated each year. So some poor soul had to rebuild each one and I guarantee that the clients were not willing to pay all of the hours it took to rebuild these models due to one guy’s bitterness.
The insecurity of success
The most outlandish thing I saw were people wildly successful and smart at one thing but were obsessed with pretending they were somebody else. Case-in-point, there is some weird fascination with Private Equity. I cannot tell you how many really successful people at Deloitte will tell you they work in Private Equity. It is the strangest thing. Deloitte does a lot of accounting due-diligence for private equity firms doing deals and these “accountants” leading the work will tell you with a straight-face that they are a private equity person. Just because I do Devin Booker’s taxes does not mean I’m an NBA player. I always found this type of behavior odd and came to the conclusion that it’s just not sexy to say that you make a million dollars as a CPA so you must say you are somebody else. But I do understand that having a 30 year-old actual Private Equity guy making $3M / year telling you what to do creates a level of insecurity that is hard to reconcile.
Tips for dealing with these types:
Reinforce the idea that they are indeed “Private Equity people”
If “value chain” comes up, reinforce that they are at the top - ahead of the bankers, lawyers, etc.
Only talk about deals - make everything transactional
When they start acting like the dudes from the movie “Boiler Room”….play along as if you think it’s really cool.
NEVER mention they are accountants - they are Private Equity advisors
Talk about golf at any possible opening for the subject….even if you don’t play and know little about the sport
Use terms like “fresh powder”, “IRR”, “carried interest”, “exit strategy”, “recycling assets”.
When talking about company valuations, ONLY use high-level concepts like “multiples”
Ask if they will be attending Allen & Co’s Sun Valley conference
Don’t ever mention what Warren Buffett thinks about Private Equity - he is old and knows nothing about investing in businesses as far as you’re concerned
Don’t ever ask why they did not actually go work for a Private Equity firm - remember Private Equity firms look to them for advice.
Ask how many deals their work has killed - this reinforces importance and influence
Ignore the fact that they might be making up for their college experience 20 - 30 years later - it does not matter even if it is true.
Never talk about money - they always have more and it should be obvious because they are Private Equity people.
Even if a guy like David Tepper or the Gores brothers are your close relatives, they know them better, so best not to mention it.
Don’t talk politics unless it’s about Mitt Romney (Bain Capital), David McCormick, etc.
The Senior Partner who believed her own bull$hit
There are a number of senior partners at Deloitte who are extremely smart, substantive and impressive. There are also some who are not but others will go to no end to gaslight you - these type don’t understand that their bull$hit is so transparent and all they do is hustle around like they’re doing good things to change the world. It is the type that is always on the phone talking to G*d knows who frenetically acting as if they’re determining monetary policy for the Fed.
I listened to this one senior partner who was one of the most arrogant I have ever met - so many people would eat it up, which made it all-the-more annoying. One day, she starts talking about how she has all these ideas to revolutionize the most popular ridesharing company in the world. After all, the people that invent revolutionary companies need some consultant to lecture them on how to revolutionize it. The funny thing was….she legitimately believed she had good ideas that this company would buy into. Sadly, she also thought the people she was testing these ideas out on were actually impressed by them (so impressed that they were scrolling through Twitter the entire time).
But then again, I guess when you never see your kids, travel non-stop, and tie your entire identity to people acting impressed by your ideas, you have to find some way to believe it was worth it.
Tips for dealing with these types:
Always say, “wow, I bet they never thought of this”
Always give them credit for things they had nothing to do with because they’re going to take it anyways.
Act like you really admire them and want to be just as ‘successful’ as they are
NEVER ask about their personal life or outside interests - it’s a dead-end
Continually reinforce how much influence they have on other people
Ask about their trip to Davos and who they met with - “met” = sent a cold-call email to.
Inquire about which company board seats they are eyeing once they retire
Don’t ever ask why they like hanging out at “Deloitte University” so much - act like that place is the center of the business universe
Weave in AI as much and wherever possible. Another good topic is the “the future of ______” and other concepts such as “smart cities” (even if we can’t handle homelessness right now).
The expert who gave a deposition and made the attorneys very happy - too bad it was the wrong side’s lawyers.
I did a lot of expert witness litigation work early in my career - commercial disputes over trademark / patent infringement, economic damages, etc. In any case, I was supporting one of our Senior Managers on a small dispute involving patent infringement - we were engaged by attorneys to help the defendant ( a company) minimize the amount of damages they owed after having been found guilty of infringing on a patent. This senior manager submitted an expert report which outlined all the reasons why the damages asserted were outlandish and overstated. He was deposed one morning by the plaintiff’s attorneys and I saw him later on and he said it went “very well and the attorneys were very pleased with how it went”. A couple days later, I reviewed his deposition transcript and he basically could not have been a better expert for the other side. He made statements that contradicted everything in our report and fell into every trap that the opposing attorneys set. So he was not wrong - the attorneys were very pleased….it was just the wrong side’s attorneys.
“If you work anywhere for 20 years, you’re going to have plenty of stories and encounter plenty of people that you had to continually reinforce - that’s called experience & corporate politics. The annoyance of yesterday is the humor of today.
Don’t take yourself too seriously...and don’t steal lunches.”