When Nicholas Welch got his front row seating at the JPMorgan Chase Town Hall Conference in Columbus, Ohio on February 12th, he had no hopes of any issues. He was only a few feet away from the bank’s chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon. He sat on the stage and dealt with thousands more with about 1,000 employees and Zoom.
Like others at the bank, Welch is unhappy with the recent order that all 317,233 JP Morgan Chase employees will resume work in the office five days a week starting next month. Masu. Currently, approximately 40% of JPMorgan Chase employees are on a hybrid schedule, allowing them to work from home two days a week.
Welch, a Tech Ops analyst who has worked for JPM since 2017, says he has been divorced and is looking for flexibility in dealing with family and child-rearing issues. “I want to do the job I love with the flexibility to do that,” he told Fortune. (Welch has a grace period for the time being. Polaris is the regional headquarters of JPMorgan Chase in Ohio, and there is no date set for more than 12,000 employees to return.)
After a brief introduction of Dimon, the City Hall was opened for Q&A. Welch was ready. He was the third person chosen to ask questions. He had spent several weeks preparing his remarks, so he wasn’t nervous about the CEO of JP Morgan Chase at Town Hall. Welch began by thanking Dimon for “listening to old hillbillies like me.” His team was made up of seven people from various regions, including India and Buenos Aires, and explained that they worked in four different time zones.
“There’s no particular way to be in the office makes a difference, so what I’m asking is that you’re not suggesting to cancel such an order, but that’s what the individual teams themselves managers do. suggesting to leave it to his colleagues praised him, Welch said during the meeting.
“That’s it? I’m going to give you the full answer. There’s no chance I’ll leave it to the manager. Zero chance. The abuse that took place was extraordinary,” Dimon said. Dimon then appealed to employees wasting time during Zoom meetings and how JP Morgan Chase personnel have inflated 50,000 people in the past four to five years. “We don’t need all of those people. We put people in work because people weren’t hired in the first place,” Dimon said.
Later in the meeting, Dimon also complained about the petition from JP Morgan Chase workers who wanted the bank to withdraw their RTO duties. “I don’t care how many people will sign that damn petition,” Dimon said.
Nic Welch has been working at JPMorgan Chase since 2017.
Following the 45-minute town hall ends, Welch (pictured above) says he was greeted with a “thank you” from High Five and a colleague. However, his day soon came to an ominous turn, where he received a text from the branch and help desk from Vice President Garrett Monaghan. “I don’t know what you just did, but come to my desk as soon as that town hall is over. According to the message seen by Fortune. Monaghan will be Welch in 2022 and 2023. Although he was an immediate supervisor of the company, he is no longer his direct boss, both of whom work for Technology Employee Support Services, or Tess, a division of JP Morgan Chase.
When Welch reaches a meeting with Monaghan, he is sitting in a small meeting room with another executive, Jeffrey Todd Merrill, vice president of Global Dedicated IT Support. He says he found support. (Merrill was Welch’s boss from 2018 to 2021, but no longer.) Welch says Monaghan told him “drawn the whole of our organization through the mud.” Clean the desk and take fuck out of here,” Welch recalls.
“Do you think so?” Welch said as he left the room. He works remotely two days a week, so he picks up his coat and headphones and doesn’t have much to carry around. A few minutes later he was standing in the car park. “I’ve never been told to let my fuck out of the office before,” he said. (Monahan declined to comment, and Merrill did not respond to messages or calls from Fortune.)
Welch didn’t know what to think. His current boss, Richard Kandiff, supported the client’s success manager, moved to Florida in January and was not at City Hall. Welch texted him at 12:14pm and told him, “I was ordered to go to the house because Monaghan had only threatened my work.”
“Thank you for letting me know,” Kandiff replied. Welch then told his boss that, according to a message Fortune saw, Monaghan ordered him to clean his desk and go home. Kandiff did not reply.
Twenty minutes later, Welch had not received any further communication from Kandiff, so he texted him again and asked him to speak to his boss, who was out on vacation. “She’s currently out of office and I’ll let her know at the next meeting,” Kandiff said.
For the next few hours, Welch sat at his home in Columbus and was convinced that he had been fired. That didn’t change until around 4:30pm when Megan Mead, executive director and director of global IT support, said he had called him. (Monahan, Kandiff and Merrill report to Mead, and it’s all part of the Tess.) According to Welch, in the approximately 45-minute conversation, Mead “smoothed” with Monahan and Welch was not fired. Do work. According to a text message Fortune saw, Mead sent a message to Welch. (Mead did not respond to calls or LinkedIn messages seeking comment.)
Less than an hour after Mead called Welch at 5:14pm, Monaghan texted Welch and apologized, saying he was shaking hands with Beer. “I agree with your message, if not delivery. Can we do?” Monaghan texted.
He wasn’t fired
Welch’s boss Kandiff told Fortune that the shooting claim was “false” and declined further comment. A JPMorgan Chase spokesman said Welch was not fired and was in good condition with the bank. “He said nothing wrong at City Hall,” the spokesman said. Other JPMorgan Chase employees who have heard of the exchange from Reddit or Welch himself but have not seen it, believe he has been fired, but it is not clear whether the documents have been filed. “When senior management members scream to clean your desk and leave, I’ll interpret it as an on spot firing,” said an employee at JPM Chase. Fear of retaliation
For now, Welch still has his job. There is also a certain level of fame among JPMorgan Chase workers. Some workers even call him the “voice of America,” Welch said.
Still, he is upset at how he was treated and accusing him of the fear caused by the RTO of fire. “I want to do the job I love the way I want to do that, and that’s what I want to get out of all this,” Welch said.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.
