What's going on at the FDIC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ Management found this thread.

I assure you I am not.

People should absolutely be fired. Victims should be compensated. AND the appropriate processes should be followed.

There is enough evidence of ACTUAL wrongdoing to be upset about.

No need to try to find connections to RTO or to make up new theories on things to be angry about (the timing of the independent firm).

Shouldn't the director of examinations be reprimanded/fired for the culture and lack of appropriate response?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Less of this stuff happens when people work from home. Ask any employment lawyer, conduct like this dropped off significantly during covid.

Really sketchy for management to be pushing people to come back to the office more than any other financial regulator when there are these serious workplace culture issues.

Except I worked 100 percent remote and we still had happy hours, business trips and that is usually the trouble spots

[Anonymous]

FDIC must think everyone has short memories.
Remember the "girls gone wild" incident years back where their cretin senior IT manager was paying women on a FDIC golf outing to bare their breasts on the putting greens?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FDIC must think everyone has short memories.
Remember the "girls gone wild" incident years back where their cretin senior IT manager was paying women on a FDIC golf outing to bare their breasts on the putting greens?

I remember! https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fdic-investigates-topless-golf-outing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Less of this stuff happens when people work from home. Ask any employment lawyer, conduct like this dropped off significantly during covid.

Really sketchy for management to be pushing people to come back to the office more than any other financial regulator when there are these serious workplace culture issues.

So true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like how one of the offenders got demoted and then promoted to a other managerial position at OCC. It's like no one noticed this giant red flag in his personnel folder.

Asian privilege.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like how one of the offenders got demoted and then promoted to a other managerial position at OCC. It's like no one noticed this giant red flag in his personnel folder.

There was likely nothing in his personnel folder to find, if he had signed a settlement agreement with the agency. A downgrade in position would not necessarily be flagged as a demotion; it can be coded as voluntary especially in conjunction with a move to a new office “to be closer to family.” I have no inside information on his case, but know how the process works at many agencies.

What’s interesting is that the WSJ seems to have personnel records for many of the individuals involved in this article. That’s not publicly available so clearly someone leaked those records.

I’m shocked that any of the folks accused actually provided statements to the WSJ. In particular the OCC employee in North Carolina who is still a federal employee. Height of stupidity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The WSJ story basically just discussed white collar American “road warrior” culture. The same crap happens in elite consulting, Big 4 accounting, I-banking, tech….and also apparently the federal government. Anywhere you have heavy travel involved, you get people drinking too much and crossing professional boundaries.

This same story can basically be written about any major corporation or institution. This article is pretty tame compared to what happens in the Secret Service, DoD, or IC agencies.

Except that a lot of stuff here happened when they weren't drinking. Also, gotta love how the agency gives the union rep a $20 gift card when he voices concerns about management conduct.

At least they kept it under the gift limit for purposes of the ethics rules, right? 😆

Though that might come back to bite them in the butt: it shows that they were cognizant of employment rules and guidelines.

[Anonymous]

Hey...I'm here - what do we got?

[Anonymous]

Conferences and events still need to be on. Send male investigators with male investigators. The banks can't be fraudulently handing out mortgages.

Even when traveling away from FDIC’s Washington, DC, headquarters — which regulators often do to examine and supervise banks across the country “for operational safety and soundness,” per the FDC’s site — the sentiment remained the same, female staffers told The Journal.

The FDIC’s work culture was so palpable no matter where its staffers were in the country that life on the road was dubbed the “Wild West.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like how one of the offenders got demoted and then promoted to a other managerial position at OCC. It's like no one noticed this giant red flag in his personnel folder.

There was likely nothing in his personnel folder to find, if he had signed a settlement agreement with the agency. A downgrade in position would not necessarily be flagged as a demotion; it can be coded as voluntary especially in conjunction with a move to a new office “to be closer to family.” I have no inside information on his case, but know how the process works at many agencies.

What’s interesting is that the WSJ seems to have personnel records for many of the individuals involved in this article. That’s not publicly available so clearly someone leaked those records.

I’m shocked that any of the folks accused actually provided statements to the WSJ. In particular the OCC employee in North Carolina who is still a federal employee. Height of stupidity.

I thought a lot of what they had was MSPB decisions. Presumably the position changes could be determined from a FOIA request no? My guess is some of the other stuff like moving to be near family was gleaned from interviews or statements from people.

[Anonymous]

I worked there in the late 90s on H Street and had a really positive experience but that was super long ago (I am old). I’m stunned to read about this. How horrible!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like how one of the offenders got demoted and then promoted to a other managerial position at OCC. It's like no one noticed this giant red flag in his personnel folder.

There was likely nothing in his personnel folder to find, if he had signed a settlement agreement with the agency. A downgrade in position would not necessarily be flagged as a demotion; it can be coded as voluntary especially in conjunction with a move to a new office “to be closer to family.” I have no inside information on his case, but know how the process works at many agencies.

What’s interesting is that the WSJ seems to have personnel records for many of the individuals involved in this article. That’s not publicly available so clearly someone leaked those records.

I’m shocked that any of the folks accused actually provided statements to the WSJ. In particular the OCC employee in North Carolina who is still a federal employee. Height of stupidity.

I thought a lot of what they had was MSPB decisions. Presumably the position changes could be determined from a FOIA request no? My guess is some of the other stuff like moving to be near family was gleaned from interviews or statements from people.

WSJ only had MSPB report from the one individual who (stupidly) appealed his demotion and now likely will get fired after this article. One has to file an appeal to MSPB to get your info posted on their very public website indexed by Google:
https://www.mspb.gov/decisions/nonprecedential/DITCH_RANDAL_J_DE_0752_15_0022_I_1_FINAL_ORDER_2006694.pdf

Personnel, medical, financial and similar files that “constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” are exempted from FOIA.
https://www.fincen.gov/foia-exemptions-and-exclusions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I worked there in the late 90s on H Street and had a really positive experience but that was super long ago (I am old). I’m stunned to read about this. How horrible!

Tbh, these are edge cases from the field offices, not HQ. A segment of people (mostly men) on the road 100+ days per year and living in hotels for weeks on end are going to do dumb, shady, unprofessional things. I’ve heard similar stories from women in white collar professions across a variety of industries where there was heavy work travel. The government is not immune to men behaving badly.

FDIC is probably the most buttoned-up and culturally conservative of the FIRREA agencies. If anything, the controversy here is that there was some sort of comms breakdown between field office HR and HQ HR when it came to investigating and punishing personnel misconduct. I tend to say “the buck stops here” and pin the blame on HQ HR if there was ambiguity, but they will need to let the investigation play out.

Federal agencies’ HR are very incentivized to just shuffle people around if there was alleged personnel misconduct, but no clear breaking of the law. Agencies don’t want the bad press or a paper trail. Agencies don’t want to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney costs in mounting a defense on appeal by the employee. The employee doesnt want a public record following them around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I worked there in the late 90s on H Street and had a really positive experience but that was super long ago (I am old). I’m stunned to read about this. How horrible!

Tbh, these are edge cases from the field offices, not HQ. A segment of people (mostly men) on the road 100+ days per year and living in hotels for weeks on end are going to do dumb, shady, unprofessional things. I’ve heard similar stories from women in white collar professions across a variety of industries where there was heavy work travel. The government is not immune to men behaving badly.

FDIC is probably the most buttoned-up and culturally conservative of the FIRREA agencies. If anything, the controversy here is that there was some sort of comms breakdown between field office HR and HQ HR when it came to investigating and punishing personnel misconduct. I tend to say “the buck stops here” and pin the blame on HQ HR if there was ambiguity, but they will need to let the investigation play out.

Federal agencies’ HR are very incentivized to just shuffle people around if there was alleged personnel misconduct, but no clear breaking of the law. Agencies don’t want the bad press or a paper trail. Agencies don’t want to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney costs in mounting a defense on appeal by the employee. The employee doesnt want a public record following them around.

The FDIC is independent - can't it just say that that type of behavior is unbecoming of an employee? It's doesn't have to be illegal - just against FDIC rules.