Farewell The Millennium Bank

 Well, today was such an emotional day. My colleagues -I would better say ex-colleagues-surprised me with a goodbye party there in the bank PR office. There was a cake, memory telling, impressions of the way I use to speak by Vahid, and even an hiphop performance about my resignation by Sarah and Pejman. Well, I have been working there for 12 years as a PR expert and I resigned as the head of the communications and media team. I somehow was raised there while working with a dozen great people who taught me many things I know today. People like Mr. Rafiee, Elham, Niloofar, Somayeh, Najmeh, Fereshteh, Arshad, Yaser, Mohsens (since we had 3 of them), and Morteza.

Last day of my career as a bank employee, March 2022

But the reasons that made me resign at the end of my contract period this March was something I would like to explain. Officially, as I said to the bank’s HR, I wanted to change my field of work and concentrate more on NFTs and making illustrations. Working an unrelated full-time job did not let me spend enough time necessary for making artworks and related marketing (e.g. personal branding) activities. But if I had not made that decision, I would resign either way. So, there is a bigger reason for stopping working there.

We (all my colleagues and I) in the PR department had experienced a catastrophic situation caused by our new chief officer of public relations since the end of 2019, and the saddest part is we implicitly were not allowed to make any official objection or to complain about it. I am not going so deep through this since it could be interpreted as personal or unprofessional but on the other hand, I have to say it since organizations should be responsible about their choices for managerial positions. The ones who always take the management seats are not the best choice for the business. Thus, like the control tools monitoring employees and processes, a sound and robust system also needs to check on its managerial layer via many managerial tools. Apart from questionnaires, interviews, and other official procedures, the employees’ (and ex-employees’) direct feedback is one of the most important control tools every executive board member should be using – as every one of them usually is responsible for several departments in many organizations. Forthright communication channels with the senior management always should be open to anyone and this doesn’t mean simply introducing CEOs’ -or other board members’- direct email addresses. This means senior management -especially the CEO- should listen to their employees from any layer and respond to them professionally. Additionally, this communication should remain confidential and employees should not be afraid of their feedback’s negative consequences. Unfortunately, we -there as PR staff- had no access to such an open channel to relate the crisis we had. Ironically the CEO’s direct email is checked by the PR manager there… So, sending feedback to CEO has never been an option for our department. I am sure the CEO had heard about our problem but he has not reacted yet for some reason. Whatever the reason is, he has preferred to lose more than 25 employees in his PR department in less than a year and did nothing about it. However, after the first wave of resignations in early 2021, he only had a meeting with us. Not letting anybody speak about the issue, he called all those quittings nothing but the ex-manager plots to sabotage and destroy the reputation of his new successor. Then he intimidated us and recommended we had better not follow the schemes made by those who resigned. Well, none of his thoughts were true… there were all conspiracy theories people usually make up to escape reality! I cannot think of anything but the idea that we -me and literally all the PR team at that time- were only the cost of a bigger interest. In other words, our CEO had to keep his new manager in position regardless of whatever she does.

me and my coursmates during our new-hire training classes, April 2010

Well, I always have loved the bank. It was my second home, my colleagues were my second family. I have been witnessing losing more than 25 of them leaving for good. That was a horrible experience! Here I want to address the bank’s CEO. Despiting knowing that this is not going to make a difference, I have to say it. 25 resignations only in a year in a single department are no accident, Mr. CEO! Even though either of them gave excuses, you can be sure their main problem was not immigration and having two little kids. They could not simply stand working in a toxic atmosphere where the manager -the one you put in the office- constantly humiliates them and smashes their self-esteem. They could not stand being constantly under deadly stress for unimportant things. Yes Mr. CEO unimportant things like how should we ask a simple question from our manager? whether via her office, a text message, a voice message, or an official letter?! Yes Mr. CEO we had the most basic communication issues with your chief communications officer! Yes, these are unnecessary things we have faced bad consequences for. It is not possible to work with a manager who uses anger, ire, and intimidation as a managerial tool, who enjoys seeing people being scared of her, who does not respect her employees’ privacy wants them to be accessible 7/24, who does not welcome dialogues, and communications, the one whose ideas and thought should be executed without any questions. I can understand why she is so scared of employees’ comments and questions; that is your fault, Mr. CEO, you have chosen a person as your PR manager with no communication skills not able to give a simple speech; someone with no background in social and traditional media; someone with no executive and event organizing work experience, someone with no artistic or aesthetics viewpoint who has not even watched a movie or theatre in eons, someone with no managerial skills to stimulate people and lead even a small team of three. Besides working skills, she is not behaviorally and mentally qualified for any managerial position Mr. CEO and you know it. Someone with a military sergeant language, with an up-to-down way of looking at people (I am not talking about the common hierarchy of course), and with an ADHD detail-oriented approach has no place in a modern organization’s management, specifically an organization with the slogan: “The Millennium Bank”. I am not a psychologist but I am sure she even would fail a simple personality test!

I am not sure if someday you read this Mr. CEO but if someone sends you the link, instead of ordering the bank’s legal department to set a complaint against me (your favorite approach toward media and journalists) please think of it. I am not writing here to destroy your brand. Believe it or not, this is a personal blog, only reachable to a limited audience (at least now). Sorry to say that unlike what you defined as the bank’s vision, the organization will never rank among Fortune 500. Maybe it makes huge profits, but the way you and other managers see the human capital and the business itself definitely could not lead you among the globally-recognized companies and organizations.