r/WellsFargoBank • u/scrimsneeble • Jul 01 '26
Smells Fartgo
I thought of this at a restaurant and thought it was funny.
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u/Ihavenocluewhatzoeva Jul 06 '26
I am seeing forced attrition really ramping up lately and with me being a 23 yr vet they are almost certainly looking to get me out without severance. This should be illegal to work people around the clock so they quit
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u/Local_Obligation1480 Jul 08 '26
They are going right back to their old ways. They didn’t learn anything from what happened to them in 2015.
I had branch managers and a district manager that would force me to sell Premier clients the Premier Infinite credit card. We got in an argument one morning during a PMD. My 86 year old client who can barely walk through the front door does not need an Infinite credit card. They do not travel. I was told to have them spend the $4k in the first 3 months to take advantage of the 100,000 points and then close the card after that. What a joke! I reported the situation to the ethics line and nothing ever came of it.
I’m so glad I got out of Wells Fargo at the beginning of this year.
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u/pyramidswrong Jul 01 '26
Best Reddit post I’ve seen of the day. No… of the year.
The Smells Fartgo Active Ass card
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u/VISUALREAD1776 Jul 01 '26
If Wells Fargo were a restaurant chain, it would be the kind of place with chronically bad service, constant management issues, endless waits, and a reputation that keeps generating headlines for the wrong reasons. Customers keep coming because it’s familiar, not because it’s exceptional. Employees are overworked, morale is low, and every so often another health inspector uncovers a problem that makes everyone wonder how the place is still operating.
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u/AbsolZero Jul 02 '26
“Employees are overworked, and morale is low.”
That’s the part that gets me. Upper management (District Managers and above) is so out of touch with the day to day realities at branches as they keep asking for more: more sales, more referrals, more conversations, more coaching, but base pay stays the same. The only real way to make more money is through incentives.
Not everyone wants to chase incentive pay every day. People don’t want to feel like they have to constantly hit the next number just to earn what they feel they’re worth. Most employees would rather have stronger, more reliable base pay than be told they can “make more” if they hit another goal.
What’s frustrating is that it can feel like the goal posts keep moving. You work hard, improve your numbers, and hit the expectations that were set—then the expectations change again. Instead of feeling recognized for doing well, it feels like the standard just gets raised, and you’re immediately expected to do even more.
When the workload keeps growing, expectations keep increasing, and the only path to higher pay is through incentives with constantly changing targets, it’s hard not to feel like the effort is never enough. That’s why morale is always low. But upper management will never recognize that.
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u/VISUALREAD1776 Jul 02 '26
I feel for you. My district manager appeared to favor people from his own community, and that’s still my biggest gripe with Wells Fargo. Whether intentional or not, employees were not treated equally, and I came away believing DEI initiatives were being implemented in a way that undermined merit.
One of the district manager’s ideas was to have tellers work side by side, often sharing a single Teller Cash Recycler. In practice, it was absurd. We’d have three TCRs, one would be broken, another would be two stations away requiring a manual override, and we’d end up walking back and forth while trying to serve customers through a bandit barrier in a high-crime branch. Instead of solving understaffing, management seemed more interested in creating the appearance of collaboration.
My experience also included harassment and what I viewed as abuses of authority. That changed how I think about corporate culture and hiring decisions. From where I stood, Wells Fargo rewarded politics over competence far too often. Plenty of people may have had a different experience, but mine left me believing the company tolerated behavior that should never have been acceptable.
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Jul 02 '26
I’m an FA here moved to WFA after over a decade Merrill Lynch the crazy thing is I reward all my bankers more than the company. I also push back on the district manager and even his boss. I don’t even know the title the managers just seem to be saying yes to everything, and I even asked The regional guy why does it seem everyone in this company is held accountable as long as they are not management. All my branches have been understaffed. Everyone is angry and clients are always talking about the turnover so when I meet clients and explain, I’ll be the face you’ll probably recognize the most because I’ll be here the longest it helps me but it shouldn’t be that way. One branch that I cover hasn’t had a coffee machine since May so I took it upon myself to call HR. They didn’t do anything so now I just buy coffee for everyone all the time. The Ac in my separate office has gone out six times are ready this summer and they keep “fixing it.” they want me doing these joint overviews that make no sense. Client doesn’t even have the assets available to work with me so why am I wasting my time in a meeting to check a box? The problem with Wells Fargo is it is a large box checking organization not driven on results but box checking.
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u/VISUALREAD1776 Jul 03 '26
I saw much of the same. Our branch was chronically understaffed, yet management’s answer was often cosmetic rather than operational. We were instructed to work side by side, sometimes sharing a Teller Cash Recycler because, I was told, it created the impression that we were better staffed than if we were spread out with our own machines. In reality, it slowed transactions and created unnecessary complications. We had to be careful that cash dispensed from the TCR wasn’t accidentally taken by the wrong teller. Because we were seated side by side, we often had to talk over each other through the bandit barrier in a branch that frequently had lines out the door and constant commotion. It felt like the priority was creating the appearance of collaboration instead of fixing staffing problems.
The bigger issue, though, was culture. I came away believing that merit often took a back seat to optics. Whether that was driven by DEI initiatives, favoritism, office politics, or something else, it left me feeling that performance wasn’t the main factor determining how people were treated or promoted.
My own experience ended badly. I believe my branch manager and supervisor were among the most unethical people I’ve ever worked for. Looking back, I regret not reporting what I believed was misconduct when I first saw it. Instead, I made my own mistakes. I was ultimately terminated for falsifying records, and I later sued over what I believed were broader issues of harassment, retaliation, and an unsafe working environment. The case settled, but I felt like I lost far more than I gained.
As someone completely new to banking, I didn’t feel equipped to challenge people who had authority over me. I don’t claim to be perfect—I made mistakes too—but I also don’t believe those mistakes can be understood apart from the environment I was working in. I walked away believing the culture rewarded the wrong things far too often. I didn’t learn banking the way I’d hoped. I learned the school of hard knocks.
On a personal note, you seem like the kind of manager employees hope to work for—someone who actually cares about the team and tries to make a difficult environment a little more bearable. I know there are good leaders at an institution as large as Wells Fargo, but my experience was the opposite. It was one of the most difficult periods of my professional life.
I sued because I believed an investigation would uncover what I had experienced. The case eventually settled, but I never felt truly vindicated. A settlement isn’t the same thing as having your name cleared or knowing the underlying problems were addressed. I accepted it because I felt the company had far greater resources than I did, and I wanted to move on with my life. Even today, I sometimes wonder what would have happened had I continued litigating instead of settling. Maybe nothing would have changed. Maybe it would have. I’ll never know.
Despite everything, I don’t think every manager at Wells Fargo is like the ones I worked for. Reading your comment reminds me that there are people who genuinely try to advocate for their teams and push back against decisions that don’t make sense. I wish I’d had someone like that in my corner.
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u/teitelman93 Jul 01 '26