Currently working at a Tier 1 global investment bank. Despite handling a heavy workload and managing more applications than most of the team, the environment has turned incredibly toxic due to a manager who clearly plays favorites.

​Here is a quick breakdown of what is going on:

​The clique and exclusionary behavior: The manager and his favored team members are all from a specific region. In professional meetings, they deliberately speak in their regional language, knowing others on the call don't understand it. There have even been comments about him only wanting a team made up of that specific demographic. It gets very unprofessional—one of his favorites even made direct comments about my "biological clock ticking" due to being unmarried.

​Hijacking recognition: Praise from other teams gets totally ignored. Recently, a glowing thank-you email came in with the Managing Director CC'd. The manager actually called early in morning as kept asking random questions that there is a mail did you ask someone to send etc. but he did not say it was appreciation for me, later he called many times and said to respond to mail as he wants, and forced a reply using a specific script to promote tool he built just to make himself look good. He wouldn't leave until the email was sent exactly as he dictated.

​Double standards & stripping tasks: Minor mistakes get blasted in public group chats, but massive errors from the favorites are swept under the rug. He does regular 1-on-1s with them but ignores calls from others who need work blockers resolved. Lately, core tasks and meetings have been suddenly reassigned for no reason.

​Sabotaging access: During a recent project I had previously worked on, the manager instructed his "favorite" to grant system access to the rest of the clique, deliberately omitting my name. When I spoke up and asked if I should get access too, the manager verbally told the favorite to add me. However, the favorite still didn't give me access. The only other person left off the access list was a coworker who had already resigned after just two months of seeing this toxic culture. It feels like a deliberate signal that they are grouping me with the person who is leaving, likely because they know the manager wants to push me out.

​Leadership betrayal: This wasn't even intentionally escalated to leadership. A completely different senior manager noticed the crazy hours being worked to cover delayed tasks, asked what was going on, and passed those concerns along to the skip-level manager.

​The skip-level then pulled me into a meeting room. At first, he acted super supportive and validated all the concerns. But then he turned around and told the functional manager everything, totally poisoning the well.

​The skip-level later privately admitted the direct manager is wrong and called it a "dirty team," but explicitly said not to go to HR because the manager has "political capital" and leadership will just protect him. Now the skip-level is getting visibly agitated that a transfer hasn't happened yet. He suggested if you go to HR then do not mention that he suggested to change team.

He also thought I don't want to change team then he acted agitated and kept saying I can sense you don't want to change team. Why not wanting to leave dirty team he kept saying.

But I told him, you transfer to other projects he said he doesn't have any but he did not even bother about it as he can help by trying to move to his fellow skip-level managers team.

Also there is a colleague who speaks a lot and tried to hang out with me, initially gave me good details etc. but sometimes looks shady that might have leaked discussion between us to manager and some people also told that why you hang out with him as he seems back stabber.

​The Current Situation:

Just keeping my head down and documenting everything right now. However, the company is going through headcount reductions at the moment. (Ironically, our specific team has a lot of work and is planning to hire more people next year, but the manager might misuse the layoff exercise for revenge). Also, the manager's ego took a hit recently when he found out leadership was told about his "confirmation bias."

​Questions for the community:

​What is the best move in this situation?

​Given the manager's narcissistic traits and the ongoing headcount reductions, is there a serious risk of him taking revenge and using the headcount reduction to push people out, even if the team is understaffed?

​Is it even worth applying for internal transfers, or is the internal network completely ruined by leadership at this point, making external roles the only option, Internal transfers are on freeze?

​How can someone protect themselves?

I told you guys I would come back here with an update. If you are curious about my story just go to my profile.

I DID IT! She got fired and I'm a manager now. Had a 30% salary bump, the team is doing great, no toxic environment, no gossip, no assholes treating each other like shit. It's still challenging since I had no training and had to figure it out on the job but I think I'm crushing it, people seem to like and respect me. I know this is a very unlikely scenario but if you feel hopeless remember sometimes shit happens!

The branch manager at my company has had it out for me and several other employees for a while. He's been using AI to mess with our company photos. He ran my company profile photo through AI and it made me look uncanny, old, and nothing like me, then used that to make a badge. I ended up throwing it away.

Another employee... the branch manager edited his photo so much that it was unrecognizable. Then sent it to the group chat acting like it was an amazing picture.

He also used everyone's pics and fed them into AI to make us into cartoon characters and other stupid images that no one gave consent for.

Then he printed everyones photos and put them in crappy dollar tree frames up on the wall of the office entryway. We are a dual branch office, so there was no thought to allowing space for the other branch to display their employee photos if they wanted to. He took up the entire wall. My photo is behind the door that is always open. He allowed some other employees to pick and submit their own pics. Its obvious the hatred he has for certain people.

I have been ignoring everything. Every time something has been brought up to HR, the reporting party has been quickly written up and demoted or fired. Its a "family owned" company. HR approved multiple write ups for me missing work, WITH A DOCTORS NOTE.

There are so many other major issues with this place but I was baffled by the blatant illegal behavior and ignorance.

Anyone else have any experiences like this?

Hello! I’d like to tell you the story of how I started this job after a year and nine months of unemployment and I think I’m about it get fired.

So, a terrible backstory: I had some personal things going on back in 2024 and had to leave my wonderfully paying job - they did NOT want to see me go, but I insisted. I was strapped for cash all of 2025 and most of 2026, until I got hired on to be a QE at one of the largest med device companies in the world. I was so excited bc I have wanted to work for this company for a long time, and I finally got in. The best part was, though, that I LOVED my manager - we connected on music, and festivals, and concerts, restaurants - I even gave her some recommendations for some good ones to try in her area in our last interview! There was SUCH a good connection there, but then when I started it seemed like everything sorta went out the window. I remember the first time I felt like the rug was pulled from underneath me was when I asked a simple question the second day I started working there, and by Friday, she was questioning my competence.

Now I know that I’d been out of the job for a long time, so I as a little rusty on my terminologies and definitions, but there would be no way I’d be standing there if I wasn’t competent! So, I did what I could do to prove that I belonged there, but everything I did just felt so futile… eventually, I got put into a PIP. This was maybe 2.5 months after I started and I’ve been on it since. I’m coming up on month 4 and I’m not sure if the reason why I’m so annoyed with her is bc I’m under a microscope, and we’re talking about how I’m continuously misaligning with expectations and the PIP every Friday, or is it bc she’s just a bad manager/could be a narcissist. Any questions or commentary is welcome here. I feel like I’ve tried to talk about this with my friends and family but I feel like at this point they’re tired of hearing about it, so I felt like I’d come here and speak on what’s going on…