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Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

Don’t ask questions at JPMorgan…

> When Welch got to the meeting with Monaghan, he says he found the VP standing in a small conference room, along with another executive, Jeffrey Todd Merrill, Vice President – Global Dedicated IT Support, who was seated. (Merrill was Welch’s boss from 2018 to 2021 but is no longer.) Welch says that Monaghan told him he had “just dragged our whole organization through the mud. Go and clean off your desk and get the fuck out of here,” Welch recalls.

Such a strange reaction, did these guys really make this call on their own?

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If you can't ask questions and make observations, or you're told you're not being paid to think, you're being paid to take the fall for some executive director or above. Huge red flag.

Hopefully the NY DoL and AG will deliver them a fresh proctological exam.

The employee in the linked article works in Ohio. New York’s government would have nothing to do with this.

Also, absent a contract stating otherwise, there is nothing illegal with terminating an employee in the manner described in the article, except in Montana.

My observation does not pertain to labor law, but rather to work environments, and how interpersonal dynamics work when there's a large power differential, if the more powerful person acts in particular ways.

As long as I have some personal freedom, I will avoid employment where I can't ask questions and receive honest answers, or where I'm told I'm not paid to think.

For context VP is not really a senior position in JP Morgan anymore. There is such a thing as a Senior VP too, but even that is usually gained by time served as opposed to suggesting someone with real decision making power.

Obviously the VPs in this case may have sway, but it sounds more likely they overstepped, creating a particularly unsavoury mess.

There is no official senior VP title at JP Morgan. The next rung on the ladder after VP is Executive Director

Yes, the average VP at JP Morgan makes less than $200k. The VP title at banks does not mean what it means at other companies.

That’s pretty typical for banks, as I understand it. VP is a low-level management position.

AFAIK, they split VP in two seniority levels, and they also split tech jobs into two tracks, manager and IC. So now, in practice, you get 4 flavours of VP. Same for EDs and, I think, MDs.

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