This is a pretty long story and I contemplated for a few weeks if I should share but thankfully at this point, I was able to find a new job quickly so here goes.
I started at USAA in summer of 2021 during the worker bo-m. I was at my previous firm for over 10 years and had close to 12 years total banking experience. I interviewed with the AML team although at the time I wasn’t sure what department I would end up in. After my interview during what was called a “blitz” day I got a call from HR and we danced around an offer. The salary was pretty good, I mean it was more then what I currently was making but not by a lot. What lured me into the bank was that the job was fully remote, and it was a new, growing team building due to a consent order. Procedures, and processes had to be mapped out and since I had experience with IA and management at my previous firm, I thought it would be a good opportunity. Boy was I wrong.
I found out about a week AFTER I accepted the offer, that they were going to throw me in Detections QA for AML although I had no clue what department I was going to be in when I got hired, at that point I didn’t really care because I already accepted the offer and hey it was fully remote. Originally the job started off kind of slow, training was lackluster but as a new and growing department it was to be expected. A few old timers and managers were quitting right as the onslaught of onboarding occurred. After a few months however it was clear, we weren’t here to do actual meaningful work we were here to fill bodies in seats to satisfy the consent order. The work when there was work was boring and we were tasked with hitting investigators with exceptions although there wasn’t really anything wrong with their analysis. We didn’t get to do anything like build teams or write procedures. The QA detections managers were d-mb and worthless for the most part.
Eventually at the start of 2023 we got the notification that were would no longer be remote and would be forced to go back into the office 3 and eventually 4 days a week. I was ok with the work being slow because I was still getting paid but sitting in a dreary office for 4 days, doing what. Add to that nobody from my team would even be in there since 90% are outside the 60 mile range. The worst part about it is that this was going to be tied to performance while full time wfh wouldn’t receive any penalty. Once that was announced I pretty much gave up on the position, although I was still working but we only had a few items a week to review so the work was pointless. I eventually built an automated user tool and automated my own job but this isn’t what I was fired for (technically). Apparently, I ended up on some report that one of the team leads and her manager spearheaded to catch people not spending enough time in actimize. Although my tool worked flawlessly and I had ZERO QC hits whatsoever my in actimize time was very low and so it drew the attention the "watchers". My metrics were handed over to my manager and she asked why my actimize review time was so low. I didn’t want to admit that I automated my own job so I told her I’m not sure but I have zero QC hits and get my work done in time. My manager eventually put me on a 2 week “administrative leave” at which time I was not to log in or do any work whatsoever but was still collecting a check. The Friday on the 2nd week on leave my manager set up a call with me and HR and I knew what was about to happen. Luckily, I started looking for a job right when I got put on leave. When I had that call the reason they claim I was being fired was for “performance” although all of my work had perfect QC scores and all of my monthly reviews were stellar. The HR rep just sat there like a blithering id--t but I didn’t expect them to do much more than defend the firm. At the end of the call I thanked everyone for their time and hung up. I knew this was coming but still unsure of what the actual termination reason was. Maybe they found out I automated my own job and didn’t want the higher ups to know because then they would be out of a job also. At the end of the day my time at USAA was pointless and did nothing for me or my career, it was just time spent. I didn’t make any meaningful connections or do any meaningful work. I told my new hiring manager about my user tool and had a new job within a week of parting with USAA.