I find this funny: I have no love for my former employer, United Wholesale Mortgage, for many reasons, but this strikes me as too patently absurd not to laugh at.

Apparently, someone’s suing them for racial discrimination. See the full article here. I’m sure this has happened plenty of times, but if you knew the company, you’d cock an eyebrow at it at the very least.

UWM is an extremely liberal, left-wing environment (as are most major corporations) with DIE principles in full-force. This is the kind of place where I was legitimately worried about being fired if I said something too conservative-sounding and ‘creating a hostile work environment’ (I actually suspect that’s what happened to a co-worker, who I know was Catholic and who disappeared very abruptly and without explanation at the start of ‘Pride Month’, to the point where a manager came to clean out his desk for him). The idea that they would foster an anti-Black racist environment seems to me absurd. Anti-White, sure, but no one cares about that.

Granted, I may be wrong, and of course those who make the biggest show of being anti-racist are often the worst offenders in that regard, but from what’s said in the article, that doesn’t sound like what we have here.

A former account executive is accusing United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), the top mortgage lender in the country, of racial discrimination, hostile workplace environment, harassment and retaliation, according to a lawsuit filed on Dec. 8 in a district court in Michigan.  

Corey Tucker, a Black man who began at UWM in December 2021, claims that shortly after his employment started, he noticed “different treatment within the workplace.” He worked at UWM until June 27, 2022, with his last position being account executive. 

Since when? Had he been there for years, or just a month or two? And of course, if you’re looking for ‘different treatment’ you can always find it (especially with something like skin color, where no one can pretend they don’t notice it), but let’s hear him out.

“Specifically, Plaintiff was assaulted both physically and verbally by his Caucasian coworkers while at the workplace,” the lawsuit states. 

Again, from my own experience at the company, I feel like if there were any merit to these accusations, those coworkers would be out the door within seconds. Co-workers and managers there can be nasty and will walk over you if you let them – same as most companies I imagine – but overtly racial attacks and ‘physical assault’ would be the kind of thing the company would love to fire someone over. It makes them look good, and it’s not like they have trouble recruiting new people.

A representative for UWM said the company does not comment on pending litigation. 

Carla Aikens, the plaintiff’s attorney, said they will “defer to the allegations in the complaint.” 

According to Tucker’s complaint, his white coworkers and leaders would “hurl insensitive as well as racist comments based upon his status as a Black man.” Comments include sexual references, he said. 

“Examples of these comments included stating that a Black manager (one of the only ones) is ‘Black, fit and looks intimidating, but he’s soft,’” the lawsuit states. 

Well, your credibility just went down the tubes if that’s your lead example. How many ways could that be understood in context? Not to mention that I honestly struggle to see how that could be construed as offensive in any context at all; sounds like rather weak jocularity at best: “Guy looks a little scary, but he’s a softy.”

Not to mention that his lead example wasn’t even directed at him. If it was such a hostile environment, surely they could have used something that was actually addressed to him, right?

And I don’t know about ‘one of the only ones’; don’t know much about the managerial staff, but there were a lot of Black people working there when I was there (it’s in Pontiac, Michigan for goodness sakes), including at least one Black female manager who I worked partially under as I recall. So, again, doesn’t square with my own memories.

According to the complaint, on June 10, 2022, Tucker was shot in the face with a NERF gun at close range by a coworker. Tucker said he felt bothered and humiliated and reported the incident to the human resources department. 

Oh, I remember this; some teams would have regular NERF-gun fights as part of the ‘fun work environment’. You’d frequently see people going around shooting nerfs at one another; just part of the scene.

This sounds to me like a miscommunication, or someone trying to include him in the game when he didn’t want to be (actually, his wording doesn’t even say what he was doing at the time, so for all we know he was participating and just took a bad shot). Though the way he puts it makes it sound as if it were an out-of-nowhere personal attack. I guess this is his example of ‘physical assault’? Wow.

Note also he doesn’t say what the HR department’s response was (my guess is something along the lines of “We’ll ask them to be more considerate, but maybe you should try participating with your co-workers?”)

Though seriously, a NERF gun attack is one of your key examples of a hostile work environment justifying legal action?

A few days later, on June 27, 2022, Tucker said he was terminated without warning for “purportedly ‘walking around’ during a ‘power block,’ though he was in the restroom, as he had already stated to his supervisor.” The lawsuit states that power blocks were times when the Defendant wanted Tucker and others to make phone calls. 

According to the complaint, other white co-workers were not terminated for the same action.

No one’s a judge in his own case, and there are a million ways this could be misleading. That said, I have known managers there to be unreasonable, to punish people for following confusing orders in the wrong way, and so on. But of the things they’d fire you for without warning, I don’t think wandering the office is one of them. People wandered about all the time. Maybe his manager was stricter about it than most, but my suspicion is he had been warned, or this was a pattern of behavior on his part. One of those “Stop always being away from your desk” leading to his coming with excuses to do so instead of actually obeying kind of deals.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a notice of right to sue letter in September 2023 after Tucker filed a charge based on race.

In the lawsuit, Tucker asks for compensatory damages and an award of lost wages and the value of fringe benefits, past and future. 

The ‘fringe benefits’ they offered were things like an on-site gym, cafeteria, game room, and ‘meditation room’, along with a ‘strong work culture’ (my manager cited them as such when I pointed out that programmers were underpaid compared to the industry standard). How the heck do you gauge the ‘past and future’ value of that?

Pontiac, Michigan-based UWM originated $29.7 billion in mortgage loans in the third quarter of 2023 when its chairman and CEO Mat Ishbia said it “hired over a thousand team members” and has plans to hire more again in the fourth quarter.

In April, Bloomberg reported that more than two dozen current and former employees claimed the lender had fostered a toxic work environment.

Two dozen out of a couple thousand isn’t all the impressive, especially as I suspect their workforce is heavily weighted towards those who are itching to find a ‘toxic work environment’ of this kind. Though to be fair I was pretty critical of the work environment, but for the opposite reason from what they would say, and it was really just annoying, unpleasant, and moderately Orwellian; nothing worth going to law over.

Former employees told the outlet that UWM managers openly berated subordinates and made sexually suggestive remarks – none of the workers said Ishbia ever used racial slurs or sexually harassed employees.

Berating, yes; I’ve known of co-workers reduced to tears by overly critical managers, and I’ve known managers to talk over objections, dismiss employee concerns, the company to do really stupid, tone-deaf things, but I’ve never heard of racial slurs or suggestive remarks happening, and given the environment, I would be surprised to find that was true (I mean, unless it’s done as part of perversion celebration time). It doesn’t fit with my own experience and impression of the place, which is grim and unpleasant for totally different reasons.

Like how we felt the need to retire to a meeting room to discuss our dissatisfaction with a company policy, lest we be overheard and dismissed for ‘fostering a negative environment’.

UWM Chief Marketing Officer Sarah DeCiantis said Bloomberg’s portrayal of a hostile workplace was “false and misleading.”

UWM, DeCiantis noted, “has operated for almost 40 years and has employed close to 20,000 team members, and there is nothing, in all that time with all those great people, that suggests this story is anything more than disgruntled individuals or a competitor pushing a false narrative to the media.”

Yeah, again, little as I liked the company, I have to say their presentation sounds a lot more plausible. From what’s in the article the guy frankly comes across as a bitter loser straining to find something to be righteously angry about in the hopes of getting some unearned cash (particularly his suing for ‘fringe benefits’, whatever that means).

Of course, this is all just my impression from what they chose to put in their press release. It could well be that he has a legitimate grievance and the reporter chose to present the weakest side of it. But that doesn’t strike me as too likely, especially when contrasted to my own memories of the place. Put it that I would be surprised if it turned out his complaints were legit.