5 Red Flags I Missed Early in My Career
My First Job Nightmare: Toxic Banking, Guilt Trips, and Career Red Flags
Why your first professional experience often teaches you exactly who you don’t want to become
After I graduated from university, my first job was a boring job as a loan officer for a bank. The training was terrible. Only three days. They gave me a bunch of theory, and showed me only a couple of times what to press in the program for practice. The program was not intuitive. You had to press random buttons in random places, which made the process of memorizing how to work with the program very difficult. Plus, the lack of practice was scary.
We heard this phrase during training: “We must do everything possible to make the client take from our bank.”
The workplace was in furniture stores, and you had to constantly change places. The schedule was inconvenient, 4 working days and 2 days off. So meeting with friends was an option, since they had normal regular schedules, 5/2. Working hours were from 11 am to 7 pm. You couldn’t do anything before, during, or after work. Just go home straight away.
At work, the Internet could only be used to launch a program, all other sites were blocked. I didn’t have Internet on my phone then. You couldn’t even bring a book to work with you. You had to either consult clients or register clients. There were days when not a single client came to calculate a loan or register. The day dragged on incredibly long, especially in one of the locations, which had no windows, since the store was on the -1 floor.
I came to the new location on the first day. It turned out that there were two more credit specialists from other banks. One of them treated me to a candy. I was pleased, I didn’t know that there would be other people, I didn’t take anything with me to treat them either.
Guilt manipulation
I arranged the first loan. The second girl arranged the second loan. When the next client came and calculated the last third loan, it turned out that I had the best price with a rate of 0%. That is, it was an installment plan, and he arranged a loan from me.
The girl who treated me to a candy accused me: “I treated you, and you stole a client from me, what’s wrong with you?!”
This was pure manipulation through guilt. In her opinion, it was like this — I gave you a candy for a few cents, and you owe me a client. That girl forgot that everyone worked in the interests of their bank. I had my own KPI and I acted following my duties. In which, by the way, “One for all and all for one” was not written!
Because of her infantile outlook on life, she began to accuse me of betrayal. Although the treat was a gesture of her goodwill. I didn’t ask her about it.
Management incompetence
Then the manager who conducted the training came and scolded me for taking out a loan at a 0% rate. I reminded her that during the training, she said that we need to poach clients from competitors.
To which she replied, “Well done for poaching a client, but we don’t give out loans at that rate.” “Then why is it in the system?” She simply said, “Don’t do that again.”
These were double standards, or a double message. She put me in a situation where any of my actions would be considered wrong. That is, I was reprimanded for following the instructions. The manager was not fully competent and did not tell me during the training what to do in such a situation, and blamed everything on me.
It would seem that there could be a worse problem on the very first days of the beginning of a career, but then it only got worse…
Don’t disclose real rates
Clients came to calculate a loan, and I told them how much it would cost per month, for the entire term, what the overpayment was, and what the interest rate on the loan was. Many of them didn’t like the numbers that they saw, and they left. After that, the salespeople came up and started yelling at me for naming the real interest rate.
They accused me of scaring away clients and of not having any sales because of me.
The salespeople were ignorant. They didn’t want to think about the fact that it was forbidden to name false interest rates. It looked like the other credit specialists were playing along with them. Lies and manipulation flourished in the store. The place reminded me of some kind of village street market. My honesty caused them to have fits of aggression. I was on the side of ethics.
Dismissal
I realized that the principles of these people and companies are far from mine. After two weeks, I couldn’t take it anymore and quit. They were supposed to transfer my salary right away, but it didn’t happen. I told the manager about it. She said they would send it tomorrow. They didn’t send it tomorrow, or in a week, or a month. All this time, I was calling and writing to her. She said she was solving the issue.
A month later, the lawyer called the director and said so-and-so, if they don’t pay, we’ll go to court. The next day, they paid me everything.
The director didn’t know that the manager was incompetent in the matter and wasn’t solving it. Then the manager called me and started scolding me for the lawyer calling the director, She said, “Normal people don’t act like that.”
How it really was. The manager once again demonstrated her incompetence; she lied, dragged it out, and didn’t inform the higher management about the problem. I had already waited for a long time, and when I saw that the issue was not being resolved, I decided to seek payment by all legal means, in this case, the help of a lawyer.
The manager behaved unprofessionally and, for the third time, instead of learning from her mistake, accepting it, she took a childish position. She was offended and transferred the blame to me: “Because of you, I got a reprimand.” This girl shifted responsibility instead of taking it. She also cannot work with criticism, and does not know how to resolve work conflicts.
It would be impossible to work in such a team, as there were many red flags:
- toxic work environment;
- gaslighting, double standards, or psychological pressure;
- irresponsible management;
- manipulation through guilt.
In such teams, if you are honest, you will be a black sheep or a white crow. They have already developed their own poisoned, unspoken set of rules, going against which, you risk ruining your nerves every day. Sometimes the first job shows not only where you should not be, but also who you definitely do not want to become. And this is also a valuable experience!
Sometimes the best lesson is knowing who you definitely do not want to become. Maybe you’ll find something useful or beautiful here 🦝?
Have you ever encountered toxic management or "guilt candy" in your career? What were the red flags in your first job that made you run? Share your stories in the comments!
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