In January 2016, I was verbally informed by Goldman Sachs HR representative Craig Tamamoto that I was being terminated “for cause.”

At the time, I was also told that I had previously been warned regarding the conduct at issue.

Years later, after reviewing the records and documents surrounding my separation more carefully, I began asking a simple question:

Where was the documentation supporting that narrative?

Because the timeline and records I possess tell a far more complicated story.

Just sixty-six days before my termination, I received a 2015 performance review containing generally positive feedback and no indication that I was facing imminent termination, serious behavioral concerns, or escalating disciplinary action.

Months earlier, in May 2015, Goldman Sachs HR representative Johanna Diaz spoke with me regarding workplace boundaries. According to my recollection, she explicitly began that conversation by stating that I “was not in any trouble.”

That distinction matters.

Because if the issue was not considered disciplinary at the time, the later assertion that I had been “previously warned” becomes difficult to reconcile with the company’s own earlier framing.

The underlying conduct itself was not hidden or complicated.

Around December 29, 2015, I sent a Microsoft chat message to Robert Boroujerdi, then Director of Research of Goldman Sachs’ Global Investment Research division, stating: “I miss you so much.”

Days later, I was terminated.

But the inconsistencies did not stop there.

During the same phone call in which I was verbally told I was being terminated “for cause,” I was also presented with a severance agreement providing approximately three months of salary in exchange for signing within eight days.

That alone struck me as unusual.

More significantly, the severance agreement itself referenced my departure as occurring “in connection with a downsizing” — language materially different from a traditional “for cause” termination (see Section 4.3).

Those are not interchangeable concepts.

One implies misconduct or serious performance failure.
The other reflects organizational restructuring.

Both explanations cannot comfortably coexist without raising legitimate questions about how my separation was internally characterized — and why.

Years later, in 2025, I requested a replacement copy of my severance agreement after losing the original.

The version I originally executed in 2016 was signed by Craig Tamamoto.

The replacement copy I later received from Goldman Sachs reflected a different Goldman signatory: Aimee Hendricks.

That discrepancy raised additional concerns for me regarding document preservation practices, execution records, and the extent to which historical employment documents may later be regenerated, modified, or reissued internally.

Standing alone, perhaps that would not mean much.

But viewed together with:

• the absence of any documented warning history,
• the conflicting classifications surrounding my termination,
• and later disputes regarding access to historical records,

the inconsistencies became increasingly difficult to ignore.

Then the story evolved further.

In 2025, internal Goldman Sachs-origin communications connected to a documented mental health crisis I experienced in 2017 later surfaced as exhibits in Connecticut court proceedings years after my employment had ended.

Those materials contained highly sensitive personal information.

The print headers on the documents reflected: “Tamamoto, Craig (HCM).”

At that point, both Craig Tamamoto and Robert Boroujerdi had long since left Goldman Sachs.

That raised obvious questions:
How were those materials retained?
Who accessed them?
What systems were involved?
What records still existed?
And how had highly sensitive communications connected to a former employee resurfaced years later in unrelated litigation?

I began requesting records.

Beginning in November 2025, I submitted Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs), preservation demands, ethics complaints, and formal notices to Goldman Sachs’ HR, Privacy/Data Governance, Compliance, and Legal departments.

I requested:

• personnel records,
• HR/HCM files,
• internal notes,
• archived communications,
• access logs,
• and clarification regarding how my termination was internally classified.

Goldman Sachs repeatedly narrowed its responses to New York privacy-law access limitations while declining to substantively address the broader concerns involving:

• preservation,
• downstream dissemination,
• archived communications,
• internal classifications,
• or access-review questions.

Over time, I escalated the matter to:

• the SEC,
• FINRA,
• the New York Department of Financial Services,
• and additional regulatory and ethics-reporting channels.

I also transmitted a litigation hold notice and a formal demand for resolution.

No substantive clarification was ever provided.

This article is not simply about a disputed termination from nearly a decade ago.

It is about what happens when institutions possess near-total control over the records used to define an employee’s professional history.

Goldman Sachs controlled:

• the classifications,
• the personnel records,
• the archived communications,
• the execution copies,
• the internal commentary,
• and the systems through which those materials were later preserved, accessed, and reproduced.

I did not.

And that imbalance matters because reputational narratives often harden long before employees ever gain access to the records supposedly supporting them.

A verbal “for cause” termination carries consequences.
So does the suggestion that an employee was previously warned.
So does the later resurfacing of highly sensitive communications years after separation.

Yet despite repeated requests, preservation demands, ethics complaints, regulatory notices, and formal correspondence, I was never provided documentation substantiating the narrative originally communicated to me in January 2016.

Instead, I encountered shifting classifications, altered execution details, narrowing procedural responses, and institutional silence surrounding the broader questions being raised.

Perhaps there are explanations for every inconsistency described here.

But when institutions control both the records and the ability to independently verify those records, the distinction between documentation and narrative becomes dangerously thin.

And once that happens, the institution does not merely preserve the historical record.

It effectively authors it.