Not at all -- I've seen it happen many times. Higher management tries to blame somebody, that person shows a paper trail, and higher management shuts up. They can't do anything, there's nothing they can put in the employee's HR file.
People literally generate paper trails so that they can cover their ass. Many times after a particularly controversial meeting, I've immediately written out a summary of what was agreed upon and why, e-mailed it to everyone in attendance, and included the note to reply if anything is incorrect. Then when somebody's upset 4 months later and tries to blame you, you show them the e-mail and the lack of any disagreement.
Obviously at the end of the day, legally a company can fire you for mostly any reason at any time. But generally speaking in corporations, there are processes in place around penalizing employees that require documentable facts.
Of course I'm talking about places that have at least a couple hundred employees, with an HR department as such. (Smaller companies are much more at the whim of their founders, for good or bad.) But this bank certainly sounds large enough.
People literally generate paper trails so that they can cover their ass. Many times after a particularly controversial meeting, I've immediately written out a summary of what was agreed upon and why, e-mailed it to everyone in attendance, and included the note to reply if anything is incorrect. Then when somebody's upset 4 months later and tries to blame you, you show them the e-mail and the lack of any disagreement.
Obviously at the end of the day, legally a company can fire you for mostly any reason at any time. But generally speaking in corporations, there are processes in place around penalizing employees that require documentable facts.
Of course I'm talking about places that have at least a couple hundred employees, with an HR department as such. (Smaller companies are much more at the whim of their founders, for good or bad.) But this bank certainly sounds large enough.