This was exactly my experience at Goldman Sachs. Sorry, I should be posting under a throw-away, but let's be real for a moment. That place was nothing but a cult. Yes, they make lots of money, but you need to sell your soul. I never worked in a place with so many sheep (non-believers but scared to speak-up) and assholes (believers, only because they profit / climb the corporate ladder) _at the same time_. Fortunately, I escaped after two years of that prison sentence. (The whole experience feels like Shawshank Redemption when I write about it now!) All the global investment banks where I have worked, Goldman had the fewest number of mid-career/senior hires. The intern/fresher pipeline was so deep. Now I understand why! They are so much easier to brain-wash.
Two stories stand out in my new hire training:
We had multiple "partners" (super senior, old-school MDs) tell us: "At Goldman, there is not publically available org chart." Fucking dead wrong. I raised my hand at each of those bullshit meetings and said, "I'm sorry, but this is incorrect. There is a website where you can view and search the org chart." (It was amazing -- no lie/joke.) Each PMD was so "surprised" to learn this. Not sure if real, or encouraging people to do face-to-face networking.
Second, they showed all these weird propaganda videos about how Goldman is closely tied with the US gov't, especially during World War 2. So weird, creepy, and out of date! Many senior partners leave Goldman and enter US politics. In American English, they call it "the revolving door" (between private industry and politics). Many democracies have this problem. But why celebrate it? Fuct! The whole thing felt so sleazy. Why is this important to non-US citizens? Many people looked bored and only read their mobile phones during these 90 minute(!) videos.
Nice post, and I upvoted, but it might say something about your personality that you seem to consider 'throwaway2037' a part of your identity and not a throw-away. It makes me wonder if some of what you consider to be a 'cult' might just be what others think of as 'community'.
I don't doubt that you need to sell your soul to work for Goldman, but those two examples don't seem particularly striking to me.
> We had multiple "partners" (super senior, old-school MDs) tell us: "At Goldman, there is not publically available org chart." Fucking dead wrong. I raised my hand at each of those bullshit meetings and said, "I'm sorry, but this is incorrect. There is a website where you can view and search the org chart." (It was amazing -- no lie/joke.) Each PMD was so "surprised" to learn this. Not sure if real, or encouraging people to do face-to-face networking.
It's a big company - it seems entirely plausible to me that it could have been an honest mistake and he just didn't know that it existed. And the goal of having an organization where people are free to collaborate with others outside of their org, and employees at all levels are able to voice their opinions, seems like a valid aspiration to fight for... even if in reality it doesn't work that way.
> Second, they showed all these weird propaganda videos about how Goldman is closely tied with the US gov't, especially during World War 2. So weird, creepy, and out of date! Many senior partners leave Goldman and enter US politics. In American English, they call it "the revolving door" (between private industry and politics). Many democracies have this problem. But why celebrate it? Fuct! The whole thing felt so sleazy. Why is this important to non-US citizens? Many people looked bored and only read their mobile phones during these 90 minute(!) videos.
It's not uncommon to show "propaganda" videos to new hires when they join a company - to try to motivate them by showing them the impact that their work can have on the world. And yes they do often come across as a bit creepy. It's also not uncommon for companies that have been around for a while to be proud of their history - which probably explains the WW2 references. I also don't think there's anything inherently wrong about working closely with the government - the US government provides a lot of useful services for its citizens after all. Corruption of course is another matter entirely... but I can only assume the video was not promoting corruption.
Surely you must have seen worse things than this in your time at Goldman Sachs?
> It's not uncommon to show "propaganda" videos to new hires when they join a company
And as a new hire it's interesting to get to know something where the company comes from. Often it makes it easier to endure some of the company's idiosyncrasies if you know their origins.
In most of my big league Fortune level gigs you’ll watch plenty of videos eventually about compliance, sexual harassment, phishing, quarterly results, and internal training videos.
You will eventually learn what Peter in “Office Space” refers to it as ‘zoning out’ - you look like you’re watching the video, but you’re only doing just enough to get through the quiz at the end.
Two stories stand out in my new hire training:
We had multiple "partners" (super senior, old-school MDs) tell us: "At Goldman, there is not publically available org chart." Fucking dead wrong. I raised my hand at each of those bullshit meetings and said, "I'm sorry, but this is incorrect. There is a website where you can view and search the org chart." (It was amazing -- no lie/joke.) Each PMD was so "surprised" to learn this. Not sure if real, or encouraging people to do face-to-face networking.
Second, they showed all these weird propaganda videos about how Goldman is closely tied with the US gov't, especially during World War 2. So weird, creepy, and out of date! Many senior partners leave Goldman and enter US politics. In American English, they call it "the revolving door" (between private industry and politics). Many democracies have this problem. But why celebrate it? Fuct! The whole thing felt so sleazy. Why is this important to non-US citizens? Many people looked bored and only read their mobile phones during these 90 minute(!) videos.