Story 189
This is my third experience I am posting. As I begin to awaken the stories that have lived silently inside my body.
In a previous role, I was an SVP at Citi, reporting to a Managing Director. As part of a reorganization, I was placed on a team led by another male MD, who reported to a senior MD I had worked with for years. Our group was small, just four of us.
From the beginning, I felt isolated.
This MD had long standing relationships within the team. I was rarely included in team meetings, not invited to group gatherings, and I began to hear that he believed I had been placed on the team as a spy by his new boss. That was never the case.
My former manager and his new leader never asked me how this MD was doing. In fact, they believed it was a good fit. So how was I supposed to say he was excluding me? To raise it would have meant questioning their judgment. I felt stuck.
I felt it was my job to make the relationship work. I believed I had to influence and win this MD over. But no matter what I did, it felt impossible.
No matter what I did, strong performance, going above and beyond, even small gestures like holiday gifts, I was kept at a distance. There was no way in.
I remember hearing that he had taken the team out to a holiday lunch, just the three of them. I was not invited.
I sat there and cried. Quietly. Alone.
Eventually, I transitioned to another group. But that kind of exclusion, that quiet, persistent favoritism, stayed with me.
It was not loud. It was not explicit.
But it was systemic.
And it hurt more than I ever expected.
And how do you report something like this?
What do you say to your manager? To HR?
Do you say you are being excluded? That there is favoritism? That you are being quietly pushed out?
How do you prove this?
How do you prove a pattern that leaves no paper trail?
How do you make visible what is designed to remain invisible?