Thread regarding Wells Fargo & Co. layoffs

Yes, I’m a Product Manager and I would say about 30% of my job is Risk/Compliance related, most of which is worthless. I struggle to understand how any of it actually reduces risk. But it does reduce the amount of time I get to spend trying to make our products better and helping our customers.

I would like to see the WF control framework mapped to (any!) of the recognized control frameworks. Yeah except that it doesn’t exist. WF needs to re-invent the wheel rather than adopt already established control standards . Every freaking time. I suppose the reason behind it to justify the existence of multiple levels of ‘leadership’ (lacking knowledge of the standards and lacking professional certifications. Beyond pathetic….

Checkers checking the checkers checking the checkers... It's checkers all the way down.

I don't think upper management even wants to understand--they just want the risks to go away. I was even instructed that we are not to use the word "risk"--use "vulnerability" instead (?).

This, as already mentioned "Raising your hand puts a target on your back rather than being rewarded." Even questioning their fluff will get put you in target range.

Before I was let go, I was doing research into a cloud security issue. There was no policy to cover the issue at hand. You can bet they went ahead and did as they pleased, thus creating an issue waiting to happen. Yea, good luck with that!

I vote OP to head up Risk.

You, seriously, hit the nail on the head. It is, and always has been, about “the appearance of oversight” rather than true risk management.

Just a few examples:

Contractors who don’t know anything about the business working with managers who don’t know about the inner workings of the business are writing programs to catch bad actors. (PS my thirteen year old could get around any “monitoring” here in 5 minutes.)

Compliance people “looking the other way” on profit-generating positions because they know they wont advance if they start asking too many questions. (Ra-ra leaders only want to hear the positive.)

Raising your hand puts a target on your back rather than being rewarded. (Keep your head down. It shouldn’t be this way, but they don’t like the bearers of bad news.)

Basics: managers leaving their offices wide open at night so the cleaning people can get in. “Non revolving security doors”, which employees routinely hold open to let people in.

Employees getting to schedule their “2 weeks off” in advance. The idea is to catch people off-guard to detect any wrong-doing within the bank. Good idea, improperly managed, as always.

We do not deserve to still be in business.

Lots o people trying to justify their position by creating work and trying to stay relevant.

Both on Risk and Audit, a lot of opportunity to just shave off!

A circus of Clowns!

If you think Risk is bad.. Audit is worse with adding useless processes.

Your not wrong. I can’t speak to risk but I noticed all the 150-200 year old financial institutions are losing their flipping mind and have a serious FOMO complex and have to copy everything their competitors are doing even if it leads to impending doom.

Decades of having corporate brainwashing training and slides of fine polished American workers protecting the company, protecting the customer info, risk analysis, think business intelligence, ask yourself what would Wells Fargo Jesus do?

Ok Fred, time to train your replacements in Mumbai at Mahindratech. Sign here and you’ll get your severance package in 3 months.