“Tell me your story”, is the new “How are you?”, when small talk is no longer on the menu.
Although Wall Street to Wellness is a perfect heroine’s journey arc, that also happens to be my actual life.
Not all parts of my career were rotten to the core like the decade leading up to my Retirement from Wall Street. Not all colleagues were tyrants, either. Luckily, the culture of a company cannot erase my experience and knowledge.
I’ve written this section twenty times and erased it nineteen. I’m afraid of retaliation, still.
I was berated, cursed, and screamed at on a call with many executives including my boss, lawyers and sales managers.
“What the Fuck, Lynn. How do you not know that information?” she said.
It went on a bit longer, the world quieting around me, the flash light on my face like an interrogation.
No one stood up for me.
The call went silent after the burgage of F-bombs thrown my way.
I was in shock.
That afternoon, I made my exit date.
I cried on the carpeted bedroom floor for hours and hours that night wondering how, after working seven days a week on a secret project for the woman, Kirsten Hill, who berated me, what I could have possibly done to deserve being yelled in public (or private for that matter).
According to Merrill, my exit was considered a retirement and on my own terms.
That’s sort of true. I had options and a plan and was ready to reset my life. I retired from a place that made me ill.
Is this the next me, too? Horrific leaders, erasing any confidence of motivated, loyal (19 years!) employees?
No stranger to standing up for myself when workplace behavior was unacceptable, I had someone fired for sexual harassment at 27-years-old. I was repeatedly sexually harassed on work trips until I was married.
But bad culture isn’t just about physical betrayals—it is also mental harassment.
Those who worked alongside me in the trenches of the BofA/Merrill battlefield will have PTSD reading this. For those who didn’t, the shameful mental fuckery from other adults in Finance might be shocking. Friends watched in the distance, seeing me snap or be wiped out easily.
My close work network spoke in whispers over coffees about the cutthroat environment that favored anyone willing to follow along. The top dogs, both male and female, prioritized results over people, Growth at the risk of realistic goals and hiring a cleanup crew (me and anyone who could fix things fast) to fix messes they’d overpromised and would never dream of under-delivering to shareholders.
I was repeatedly told I was not perfect by imperfect leaders themselves. I was often asked to complete deadlines that were literally impossible by anyone’s standards, yet I tried.
The hours were like that of an ER Doctor; I went on until I couldn’t anymore.
Questioning anyone in the C-suite was unthinkable and you’d never get support from a direct manager if you did speak the truth. As a natural born leader, I saw most of those around me become counterfeit followers, avoiding the truth and moving along each day as if they had lost their own will power.
Based on the gulf of work created by unrealistic commitments, my own team’s subculture started calls or 1:1s with ‘I’m so sorry, but I have to ask you to do this.”
Each meeting was filled with sighs of premeditated exhaustion, as we shared the growing list of absurd requests coming our way.
I was asked to deliver items in a month that took a year and that rolled to all of my teammates week after week. My team often delivered the unthinkable in three months. Then, we’d do it again on another “yes” when it should have been a “no.”
I didn’t leave a hard job, I left a culture of mental & verbal abuse.
If work was a boyfriend, everyone would have told me to break up with him years ago. The last decade at work mimicked me Dating a narcissist holding out the engagement carrot that never comes. I stayed for the Money, the title and the benefits while plotting my exit, which took five years.
I didn’t run away from the work or workload or complexities, I created a new work-life.
I didn’t leap, I made a plan.
Bad leaders with manipulative personalities. Aka assholes with power.
Unnecessary decisions with harsh impacts for many of us downstream.
The inhumane way in which executives spoke to each other, spoke to me.
The divisive gossiping about others trying to make a living and do their best.
Repeating former mistakes wasting so much time, working to the bone knowing the shit outcome was coming, only to point fingers at me for warning them about what was to come (shit outcomes).
Managing by fear, spending my day in and out of high conflict meetings, where adult bullying and disrespect were commonplace.
Organizational changes just to mess with people, create chaos or lift up a narcissist to the next level.
I fell out of Love with being treated like I was a prisoner who committed a crime.
Being told ‘good job’ meant nothing, a ploy to do more work.
My work life was so miserable, I spoke to HR and got blank stares, as they too lived in fear of losing their job.
I called our anonymous employee hotline to start an investigation, nothing was done.
Andy Sieg and Kirsten Hill had too much power and they used it to scream at us behind closed doors.
Things worsened after I was lied to about my next promotion—and worsened again when they gave my promotion title and salary to someone else as a punishment.
Over the course of my time at Merrill, people have doubted my work stories and called me dramatic to my face and definitely behind my back. I’m not naive to expect the perfect job.
Workplaces have problems, people have issues, budgets wax and wane, not every decision leaders make—or have to make—is one you agree with.
But a baseline level of respect seems like mutual table stakes. Did my work contract state, “I do the job and you are nice most of the time and pay me what we agree upon.”
Apparently not.
My personal legal council told me that as a white woman in my 40s, I’d likely lose a case. In the last months, I was passed over for a promotion I was promised if I completed the tasks I handsomely did.
Rather than putting any more effort into a place that didn’t like me, I called the HR retirement hotline and made a plan to leave on my own.
I left because someone (Andy and his wolves) was given too much power to create a hateful environment, with dead promises that started to impact my Mental Health. I moved towards a balanced life, one where I could create my own title and no longer be micromanaged.
Creating a culture at home where work is work and life is life and Family is family has been the greatest gift.
If you are still here, thank you. This was very hard to write and harder to live.
If you are in a similar situation, I see you and I can help you find a way out that works for your life, at this stage. You are better and more important than any toxic workplace.
P.S. Don’t miss what’s next — some of my future posts will be available to paid subscribers only.
