My Citi experience
Following the stories about personal boundaries, professional standing and psychological safety shared on this platform over the past few months, I’ve had a recurring thought: when a company makes false or misleading claims about a product, they get sued.
What about a company that makes false claims about who they are and your prospects there—plainly speaking: employment fraud and misrepresentation?
During my time at Citi, I have observed 2 MDs openly alluding to an inappropriate office relationship. Their public interactions involved lewd innuendo designed to arouse jealousy, masked by superficial family narratives. Far from harmless, this dynamic carried conflicts of interest: they held sway over personnel promotions and shared confidences regarding questionable layoffs.
One MD shared with me details of her OBGYN appointment. Slightly shocked I was at the time. This forced intimacy manufactured operational cover, trapping colleagues in blurred boundaries so it would be harder to report them later. True to form, that same person later denied knowing me professionally when concerns were raised during an investigation.
Another MD came onto me on the job, only to gaslight me afterward by acting as though I had initiated the advance. I later watched him test boundaries with a new hire at a work function, asking if her husband was waiting for her at home, seeming interested in spending time with her alone. I later learned that his compulsion for targeting certain employees was an open secret, yet unaddressed by management.
Beyond interpersonal misconduct, I witnessed teams packed with individuals on visas from the same national origin as their Group Heads, whose applications were filled out by professionals slated to be restructured out. It was hard not to wonder if shared national origin functioned as a shield against “reorg sacrifice”.
We keep being told Citi has policies for everything. You read them and are stunned by the promised “consequences” for corporate sins. Yet, reality proves that at Citi, the job is to create the policy—not to abide by it, and certainly never to face consequences of raw corporate vice.
Working here takes a heavy psychological toll. Watching professionalism, corporate values and code of conduct mocked by the daily reality on the ground leaves you scrubbing at your dignity long after you’ve left the building.