For background, I’m a mid-year at a V20 firm in NYC in PE group.
This guy is finishing up his first year and by all accounts, is a productive and reliable junior associate. He makes mistakes and others give him feedback, but it’s the way he takes the feedback and communicates. For example, I told him he did a decent job on x document, and he’ll respond “ahh right on, I thought about that!” instead of the standard “got it, thank you for the feedback.” He generally provides concrete and thorough explanations whenever someone asks why he did or didn’t do something (even when he’s clearly wrong).
Verbally, the guy is identical to Jeff Spicoli – he’s too laid back and simply does not give a fuck. Obviously he doesn’t dress like Spicoli, but his facial expressions and way of speaking is so spot-on I’m not sure if he’s doing a bit. I can tell it drives some other people up a wall. The other day we were eating lunch and the discussion was some local rooftop bar. Mid discussion, he leaves and while he is leaving, laughingly says to himself “they don’t like me too much at that bar.” I watched the one senior associate just stare at him mouth open as he walked out. Any time I ask him what he got up to over the weekend, 100% of the time he’ll say either he caught a few fish, caught a few waves, or had a few drinks. Literally nothing else, kinda smiles, and will go back to doing what he’s doing.
My question is do I tell him about this? As a rising mid-year, I love working with him – he’s productive and reliable. I just don’t want to see him be alienated on work by others because of his IDGAF attitude.