Capricious and hypocritical - Customer Service (CSR) Macatawa Bank Employee Review

I recently left Macatawa after a long time in senior customer service roles. Although I had different people that I interacted with given our role difference I laughed out loud, (ironically) when I saw the Glassdoor post entitled “vicious and petty”. That pretty much described my time there and, as the post notes, getting out with your honor intact is a challenge. Because I have good org skills I was able to be patient and find another more senior role in a different org, although given the convenience of my assigned work location I stayed for a long time...nearly a decade. So here’s my story. Over my tenure I found I had to excessively document normal milestones and achievements. Because I was not on the “in” crowd, despite being really good at customer service from prior experience, I was left out of a most of the “soft” advancement opportunities, especially early on. I was chagrined that not being reformed, not being from Grand Rapids or Holland Christian HS or Calvin or Hope made me an outsider. But the workplace geographic location was convenient and despite being annoyed at how much I had to constantly advocate and defend myself, I stayed for the convenience. When I finally got into the mix for advancement and received the opportunity to mingle more with management I found the interactions with leadership and middle management riff with gossip and negative talk. Specifically and notably I would frequently hear the more tenured members of senior management talk poorly of people above, below and around them. It seemed like it came from an entitled sense, like we were here before and through the banking crisis so it’s our prerogative. I didn’t want to be disruptive and I was just starting to gain more seniority + location convenience. But finally a sequence of events came that demonstrated the viciousness, hypocrisy and callousness noted by the prior poster to Glassdoor. It broke my complacency. These events were tragic particularly for those directly affected, but they fully reflect the environment and culture. Also, caveat, I wasn’t a part of the groups orlocations primarily affected / involved but I was able to put them together because of my need to frequently interact with the affected departments. It actually started when they fired a branch manager. The reason? He had “let” his branch get robbed… for about $1,500. I knew/ know him well and he was a strong and competent branch manager, with 15-20 years broad experience in retail deposit gathering organizations. That started me thinking more deeply about what I needed longer term in my career. At what point, even with careful documentation and track record would I bear the brunt of a similar capricious and vicious act? The probability was higher than anyone should be willing to accept in their day to day. And I’d been a first hand witness to how the derogatory views on everyone that they espoused. So it didn’t seem far fetched that I could be out of work because of someone else’s actions and the petty nature of the leadership team. Then, shortly after, the merger announcement happened and shortly after that a number of risk and operations staff members were termed. It was pretty disruptive. I was floored when I learned that the reason for the terms were because of “negative and derogatory language about the president and co workers” (at the time, the newly ascended Jon Swets). I learned that the chief retail banking officer had escalated the language issue to HR. I found it hypocritical in the extreme considering the language I heard these specific people use over my tenure. I once heard Jon Swets call Ron Haan (then president) an idiot to a coworker. Every time I had an interaction with the chief retail banking officer she would absolutely sh** on everyone. Because she owns a significant portion of the bank no one ever confronted her. When I learned all this in the context of the terminations I was like, timeout. When the next exit opportunity presented itself I took it. Even a convenient work location can’t overcome this level of toxicity and hypocrisy. I’ve been with my new org for a while now. It’s been an affirmation that it was the totally right call. Normal levels of looking out for oneself, advocacy by my manager that I can see won’t be stopped by a toxic and hypocritical senior management team, and fewer cliques oriented around religion and school choice. So there is hope if you are here currently and wondering if it’s you or them. Be patient, but certainly get out as soon as you can and, if you are considering working at this organization, do so having been warned. As the “vicious and petty” post says, the Wintrust and Macatawa worldview are the same.