The ebb and flow is as this. Recession hits and jobs get scarce. Management knows this so they leverage these times to really crack the whip. Team meetings will be peppered with implications of “work hard, longer and more often” “there’s plenty of other people out there who’d be glad to take your place if you don’t like it” etc…. all with the implied threat of step in line and do what your told or you’ll be replaced. You’ll get used to it. You can get used to anything even torture.
The work load will increase across the board for a long time but here’s the thing….it ends.
There will be an end to it. The recession will lift, companies will start hiring, people will leave to go elsewhere for more money. Citi will then be perplexed as to why. They’ll try measures such as come into the office more often to foster “that good ole family feeling” especially on donut Thursday. All that aside, this will be your window to find a better job.
Go outside the financial institution. They have number crunchers, tech people, PMs, and so forth in other industries too not just the financial institutions only. For now though, sharpen your skills, network outside of Citi, hunt up old colleagues who have left and open up those lines of communication. Set up your job search engine notifications such as with LinkedIn, which by the way has filters for pay and remote work to really narrow down those searches. Be patient, your time will come.