Company: J-P-Morgan
Date: 2013-05-22
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

The worst company I have ever worked in
Pros: Bank has weathered financial crisis better than most
Cons: JP Morgan is by far the worst company I have ever worked in.
 
1.  Talents are wasted.  Qualified accountants are employed to perform daily system reconciliations which requires no accounting knowledge whatsoever.
 
2.  To do system reconciliations you need to build up knowledge of the specific JPM systems, which means to do your job properly you have to spend a lot of time building up non-transferable skills
 
3.  Focus of most roles are very narrow.  Staff are pigeon holed into doing a few specific things, and most people are happy to just follow the instructions and do not take ownership (or do not have enough knowledge to take ownership) when something goes wrong.  There have been so many times when I have heard "I just press the buttons" (or something similar)
 
4.  Management show no appreciation for staff.  They see nothing wrong with making staff work until midnight, on weekends or on public holidays and do not even say a "Thank you".  Yet, they have no problem sending around an email reminding everyone that the working day starts at 9am, and a number of people have been coming in a few minutes late.  
 
5.  Management are very petty.  As an example: In 2007 (the most profitable year for JPM before the credit crisis), the company asked staff to pay £15 if they wanted to go to the company Christmas party.  I mean, come on!  Even Greenpeace give their staff a free Christmas party!