Trapped With No Way Out

I work in the Payments and Services department at one of the largest banks in my country. Along with one coworker, I help manage a process that hasn’t received a comprehensive update in decades. The systems we rely on are outdated and plagued with recurring issues. These problems were reported through the proper channels, and our manager escalated them to the department responsible for process improvement.

Within this process, I serve as the backup operator. In other words, I am not the primary person responsible for executing the process; that responsibility belongs to my coworker, and I step in whenever coverage is needed.

In February of this year, an incident occurred involving this process. As a result, an internal audit was launched to determine whether anyone involved had violated company policies or operating procedures.

After completing its review, the audit concluded that there was no evidence that any of us had violated procedures or failed to comply with applicable policies. Instead, the report found that the incident stemmed from long-standing weaknesses and deficiencies in the process itself—issues that had already been identified and formally escalated by management before the incident took place.

However, that’s when the hardest part of this story began.

Despite the audit’s conclusions, the Senior Director of our department has expressed his intention to recommend disciplinary action against everyone involved: the director, the manager, the two supervisors, my coworker, and me. In other words, the recommendation would extend across the entire chain of supervision and execution, even though the audit did not find that any of us had violated established procedures.

The case is now in the hands of Human Resources. I understand that HR is not there to simply rubber-stamp or overrule an audit; it has its own role within the disciplinary process. That said, several experienced colleagues have told me that, due to changes in how HR operates today, it is possible for HR to independently review the case and decide not to adopt a disciplinary recommendation if it is inconsistent with the audit’s documented findings. I don’t know whether that will happen in my case, but the possibility is what keeps me hopeful.

In the meantime, I’ve been living with a level of uncertainty that is difficult to describe. It’s hard to wake up every day not knowing whether the outcome will ultimately be based on the documented facts or on a different assessment.

I’m sharing this experience because I believe many people who work in large organizations can relate. When a process has accumulated structural problems over many years, the employees who operate it often become the visible face of issues they neither created nor had the authority to fix. You’re expected to keep the operation running, yet you don’t necessarily have the power to address the underlying causes.

At this point, I still don’t know how this will end. All I hope is that whatever decision is ultimately made will be based on the documented evidence, the established facts, and a fair evaluation of the circumstances.