I've been here long enough to remember when teams actually worked together. When you could ask someone for help and they'd give it. When leadership encouraged collaboration instead of competition. That's completely gone now. I don't know what this place has become but it's not what I joined.
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No bank is like it was. Growth is weak and not expected to improve. Competition is brutal. Protecting margins by slashing costs rather than growth is the order of the day. That squeezes employees, who now have more work and more pressure to perform or get cut, and so are less inclined to invest time helping others.
This is because these bsa aml regulations are a make work scam designed by the government to take over the banks and manifest Marx’s desire to have banks in the hand of the state. Take for example this payday lender race car driver. Normally when a layman thinks of money laundering he thinks of a dr-g dealer selling dr-gs and depositing the funds into a Mexican chicken restaurant to launder it. This guy did a legitimate payday lending business that the government didn’t like because it wasn’t the right kind of tribal rent seeking. Watch the Fargo season with the guy who played Obi wan in the prequels to get what I’m talking about.
https://www.ft.com/content/7a53ec36-1268-11e8-8cb6-b9ccc4c4dbbb?syn-25a6b1a6=1
Correct, the race car driver and subsequent $600M regulatory fine was the turning point. This led to an influx of ex-BoA folks because BoA had the same large regulatory fine a few years earlier. A huge expansion of the CRO. This was in 2016, when the DEI policy and quotas were first being set as policy requirements, and you get notable executive level hires that nail DEI targets, like a women POC heading wealth management (GK). POC heading TOS (DV).
AC was an M&A finance guy (not great, but the company is a bank...). But his tenure started by inheriting a shitstorm of risk/legal/regulatory problems that obviously weren't handled well.
@d8 Scott Tucker
@d8 you would have to Google it but basically the guy was a crook and it got the bank into all sorts of trouble. AML, KYC, all sorts of things. I think it led to a concent order which led to massive hiring all over the bank. We had multiple teams in different parts of the bank doing the same back office things but not even knowing of each other.
@d7 Do tell! Race car driver?
The downfall started with the race car driver. It sounds oversimplified but that was it. Everything after that was correcting overcorrections.
@cn beyond inexperienced - MM is awful
Agreed! I have to walk away before it swallows my soul. I’m now dreaming about my “leader” and coworkers on a regular as they do whatever they can to make sure they do what they can to keep their own heads off the chopping block. Lost is trust and integrity. MM is beyond experienced and watching people pretend and su-k up is painful. I am anxious to get out!
For my team, Agile made everyone concentrate on their own work. They have deadlines to meet and are not able or willing to help.
@ay I miss RKD so very much. He really had a way to make any employee who crossed his path feel important and heard.
@b5 that's not how corporations work anymore. It was many years back but not anymore. CEOs are here to make as much money for themselves and shareholders in as little time as possible. Nothing else matters. The sooner we all accept this concept be less frustrated we will all be. Use the corporation to benefit yourself and your families. When the corporation stops being useful to you, leave it for something better. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that.
@a8 This is such a simplistic way of understanding corporations. Yes, their purpose is to make money but creating a healthy and functional environment is a necessary foundation to make money long term. Taking shortcuts to profitability is like a human body taking opi--ds to feel healthy. Sure, it works short term, but long term?
And no, I'm not talking about performative liberalism nonsense, but the basics. Treat people the way you want to be treated. Don't go back on your word. Focus on what matters. Fix what's broken, and don't "fix" what's not broken. Don't put obstacles in the way of us doing our jobs well just so you can point to something you changed.
Remember the days of RD? Those were better days.
Cecere’s incompetence, self doubt, and paranoia caused him to increasingly turn to the “experts,” a/k/a McKinsey consultants instead of the type of experienced banking professionals he should have been relying on for advice and guidance. Cecere was the USB version of Chance the Gardener, and he turned the keys to the castle over to some very dark, cynical people.
Corporations either eat or they die. When there are limited resources, the body feels it. It becomes starved until the corporation does something drastic or simply dies. Regardless of where US Bank is at, it's purpose is to make more money. Do not forget that.