I've been wanting to vent about my one and only job in private high finance. Was tempted to put this on Glassdoor but at this point I'd be surprised if the boss is still alive.
The company provided private equity loans to people climbing the property ladder. High interest rates, fast approvals (but only 10% of applicants were approved). Four people in a tiny office with no view in an expensive skyscraper.
After a successful interview, I was given a one week trial. They were so impressed on my first day they gave me the job immediately. I do have some beginners luck in general, but also I'd been studying their website all weekend.
I was so excited because it was in a fancy part of town, in an impressive skyscraper with a luxurious interior. I felt so out of place in my cheap office clothes. I would walk to work past Hermes, Tiffany's etc and buy Red bulls for the homeless people camped outside, then ride in the elevator listening to the most impregnable conversations, sweating like a pig from the walk.
I was never given a contract to sign. One employee had been working there a year and never been given a payslip. When I asked the accountant for payslips she nearly laughed at me in anger.
On my second day, they asked if I could do marketing stuff. I was like, yeah, I have no background but sure. They decided to get rid of the very experienced girl who was on trial as marketing guru. I was promised a payrise in future to match the double job description but was treated like a gold digger for bringing it up in casual conversation.
The boss had an emotionally abusive relationship with his son who represented him in the office. The son was not paid a wage. He used to live in the city but now he lived at home with his dad again. He spoke like he was 35 on the phone, but was only 21. The girl previously in my position had become his girlfriend and lost her job when they broke up.
My work was very closely monitored and micromanaged using Google docs by a boss I never met. I was completely fresh to the industry and they couldn't understand why after three weeks there were things I still didn't understand, like that honesty was not their policy. That was never explained to me and I was punished for being honest with clients. That was completely opposite to everything I was raised with in both school and the workforce.
The company charges a fee to potential clients before accepting their application. You could pay them $1500 and get nothing in return from them. That's why their target audience is luxury real estate flippers, but even those clients would get pissed when rejected.
My job morphed from answering phones, filling applications and managing stats, to scraping emails from Linked in and the government business registry. I had to fill a quota each day and spent up to 4 hours on this daily. Yes, they were using them to send unsolicited marketing materials that looked like they were made in Microsoft word.
I was fired by an email sent at 1am, after I took one day off that I had given them two weeks notice of. It had been fine with the son, but apparently not with the boss. I didn't read the email til I was already on the bus to work, but I had to go collect my stuff anyway. I had worked there three weeks and one day.
I understand how and why sharks like this still exist and fulfill a need in a crooked property market, I just don't understand what made them think hiring me was a good choice. no background in finance, only reception, which started out as my job, but they kept thinking of other things they found more important for me to do.
Finance is an industry where people don't create value for others or the world in general, but only for themselves. That was a fundamental precept I was never able to get my head around.