Bank of America: Black, White or Shady Gray?
By now, much has been written about the leaked documents from Bank of America, known as the Black Monday leak.
A fired employee from a Bank of America-owned insurance company got the documents out of the company before he left. He says he is being harassed and persecuted by Bank of America, although it is not clear from the published information why they are pursuing him.
He says he fears for his life, or at least his grandmother fears for his life, and compares his situation to the (alleged) suicide of investigative journalist Gary Webb.
The documents he provides, in at least this first release, prove that someone at Bank of America identified an error and someone else questioned the wisdom of covering it up.
So far, it is probably not the bombshell promised. It is possible, from the documents presented, that a low level employee made an error, and tried to correct the error in such a way that would not satisfy an auditor. That, we can be sure, is what the defense attorneys will say.
The leaker goes on to describe the "cult-like" working environment at Bank of America. As proof, he describes the incentives for processing loans quickly, rather than accurately. Employees are given prizes of cash under $100 for winning the most-paper-pushed games.
Everybody complains at Happy Hour. Annually-they-get-matching-tee-shirts-at-the-company-picnic type stuff. We all know this is right out of the human resources management playbook. Many of us have barfed at this behavior at our own companies.
More of us, however, like the game and respond exactly as the personnel office predicted. This cult-like environment is proscribed in management textbooks, heralded as the excellence of winning in the now-classic Collins and Porres study, Built to Last. This is not the stuff of court-level prosecution.
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