The Five+n Types Of People You Will Meet At Work v.Entry Level @ Financial Institution

1. The Overambitious DoucheBag (ODB)
The ODB is the most common species inhabiting the cubicles of the Entry Level Tech Analyst land. The ODB is very easy to identify. He possesses many characteristics in common with his Ivy League IB or PE buddies, but instead of going to 'make the big deals' and 'rake in the money for the company' he goes to work to staple & collate spreadsheets and powerpoints. The ODB is easily the best dressed on the floor. If people didn't give him enough dirty looks on the first day, he would wear a suit to work or walk around in a $5 tie. Emails from the ODB tend to be VERY long and CC'd to everybody he knows (even people outside the firm). Phone conversations are longer. The ODB is well brushed up on all American sports and is very eloquently opinionated about teams, players, coaches, rulings, etc. Any sport that might fall outside of baseball, football, or basketball is either a 'personal favorite' due to college involvement or warrants itself a subject of discussion because the ODB 'is not fully in tune' with the sport but can appreciate the intensity and communicate his opinions of it nonetheless.
Finally, the most dominant trait of the ODB is the frequency with which the ODB uses cliche business terms (or the word business itself). The ODB's sole reason in accepting a job in Technology was because nothing remotely close to finance or banking would take him, marketing and consulting are for pussies and the ODB figures the 'foot-in-the-door' approach will work. The ODB spends massive amounts of company time studying business principles of the department, trying to engage other employees in discussion of the business aspects of the code they're debugging, and trying really really hard to convey to his managers that he should be involved in projects involving business, strategy, or finance.
Synergy and football aside, the ODB does not fall into the InfoSys Kid category due to lack of any familiarity with IT or CS (maybe a few Intro to Java courses) and is therefore even more useless than the InfoSys Kid. Tasks that require meticulous level of detail, any logic or background knowledge are out of the question. The job will have to be redone, at least twice, and damage to other project/people/systems will be immeasurable. The ODB is fated to spend years of futile labor in Excel, promising people that he will soon be able to write VBA code. The prospect of the ODB 'running the numbers' for them will make people queasy and short of breath, so the ODB mostly spend time making PowerPoints for the sake of making PowerPoints.

2. The InfoSystem Kid from a Tier 1 school
Characterized by a smug attitude and complete incompetence, the "InfoSystems kid from a Tier 1 school" is a boon to everyone around him. Eager to prove that her stupendously expensive, yet worthless, education has made her capable of contributing to the world around her, the "InfoSystems Kid" is easily exploited and made to perform all the useless lame tasks available to the imagination.

3. The Immigrant
The Immigrant is a common species in entry level employee zoo. He can be characterized by being of Indian or Chinese descent, horrible smell, food brought from home that looks like bull's testicles, smells like curry. However, don't let the language barrier fool you, its used to avoid any responsibility. However, the Immigrant is genuinely happy to have a job that pays 60K instead of having to sell me falafel when I'm drunk

4. The misplaced Technonerd
So you studied QBasic when you were 8, wrote HTML when you were 10, made cheesy JavaScript applets when you were 12, AOL punters by 13, and became a full fledged script-kiddie by high school. You mastered everything from Quake and C&C to Halo and WoW in your 'spare' time and can recall 3 day UT2004 binges. You invest your hard earned money into whatever NVIDIA comes up with and hate anybody using Windows ME. When you got to college, you realized that you've wasted a lot of money on things that were largely a waste of time and deleted most of your computer games (but kept the 250GB of porn). You started trying to compile something open source (Gentoo) on your spare box at home and/or started contributing to some meaningful open source projects. You probably got involved with some computer associations in school (ACM) or joined some program that makes you code or compete in some school projects : security, robotics, etc. You had that one (or two) teacher that opened your mind to exactly how much math and theory you did not know, so you chose to pursue the subject area. Perhaps towards senior year you have managed to think of something clever or contribute something meaningful to some portion of computer science. If you are lucky, you might even have a publication to your name.
The good news : You've done good. Google is hiring. According to T.Friedman, you are the solution to America's pressing problem of education and lack of innovation.
The bad news : You've taken a job at a bank. No one with any significance has any appreciation for you or the work you do. Your technical prowess will go unnoticed and unrewarded. Your job is mundane and stupefying.You will not have the time or resources to keep up with changing technology. All the math you learned will soon be forgotten. Statistically, you are bound to become the next item in this list within 10-20 years.


5. The guy who has been working at the bank for 20 years but still remains "entry-level" in every way. Things to look for: pictures of kids on the desk, newspaper clippings from the 1980s, large collections of outdated hardware, letters of demotion, group pictures of friend who moved on to better jobs.

6. The Chewbacca
After four years of watching anime, not showering more than twice a month, and sleeping though everything The Chewbacca finally picked all the Pocky sticks out of his messy hair and beard and got him an interview. The Chebacca is the second most rarest species of employees you can possible encounter. The perpetual slumber in college and lack of personal hygiene prevents this character from successfully bullshitting through interviews. Most interviewers are repelled by the god-awful stench and choose to recommend employment elsewhere.

7. The Boss's Boss's Boss's Kid/Kid's Childhood Friend
A combination of the ODB and the InfoSys Kid, this fellow knows he's got the road to middle management paved for him. This Boss's Boss's Kid comes in flavors of idiot and not. Probably the Entry Level employee with the most potential, the Boss's Boss's Kid can achieve greatness through 'opportunites' from daddy & freinds or be well secured and rewarded for mediocrity by not lifting a finger. However this kid got in, the connection he has wasn't high enough to get him into finance so technology will have to do. Unlike for the ODB, the 'foot-in-the-door' approach can work very well for this specimen. As soon as the pesky HR coordinator is out of the picture, the Boss's Boss's Kid will enjoy great horizontal and vertical mobility, high level exposure, and lack attention to his unproductive behaviors. If all else fails, the Boss's Boss's Kid has a real good chance to finally master Solitare at $50/hr.