More Toxic than Chernobyl - Associate Goldman Sachs Employee Review

I came into the firm as an experienced hire through a diversity hiring program. Within my first month a VP on my team told me I was only hired so management could get a “tax break”. I should have walked away at that point but I was determined to stick it out. Of the 4 or 5 people who originally brought me in to the firm, all were either fired or left in outrage before I even started - this should have been another red flag (because the firm has a massive turnover problem). I felt that management consistently lied to me about a variety of things mostly pertaining to advancement. They would also talk pretty openly about horrible things they had done to past employees and laugh about it. Maybe these things could have been more tolerable if they were the meritocracy that they tout but they weren’t in my opinion. That same VP’s job revolved around technology and he/she didn’t know what a server was (literally asked me in a conversation once “what’s a server”); the difference being he/she was part of the elitist yet incompetent culture that permeates the NYC office. They regularly hire the children of clients and as you can imagine they are usually the kind who NEED their daddy to get them a job because they are otherwise completely unremarkable. I stayed two years until I had to train another VP how to do a new job he/she was assigned and he/she couldn’t competently use excel (same individual would regularly try to humiliate analysts/associates for lack of technical skills until he/she took it a step too far once and was almost fired). Seriously as far as diversity programs go, you can’t bring someone in under the guise of receiving training and then have them train your VPs.