Company: J-P-Morgan
Date: 2015-09-22
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Working in the Real Estate & Facilities Department was a disappointing experience
Pros: Nice office space, great location in NYC. There were some really nice, knowledgeable people that I worked with. Salary and benefits were good.
Cons: 1.) The position I was being hired for was nothing like what was described during my interview. The size of the projects were smaller and dollar value was well below what I was told prior to being hired. It felt like I took five steps back career-wise. 
2.) I sat down on numerous occasions with my immediate supervisor, to discuss the "gap" between his understanding and my understanding of the position I was hired for. I was appalled by his attitude. When I pressed him on certain points, he later confessed that I was not the first person to have these issues. He had heard it before.... I also found the person (thru LinkedIn) who held this position prior to me, and she quit because of the same issues. Nothing was going to change. 
3.) Many of my immediate co-workers were miserable. They hated their job and hated the work. Some were former Bear-Stern Facilities people and felt grateful to have a job. This made for a very low moral work environment.
4.) There were several employees that I had to work with that were lazy, lied and withheld important information that was needed to keep the projects moving forward. I would ask for the information in-person, during meetings and as an email as a follow up. Once I would copy our supervisor, along with his boss, these employees would somehow "remember" the information and provide it. 
5.) I found many of the people I worked with were uneducated and lacked the basic understanding of construction, furniture or how to plan a facilities move. They worked their way up in the company but did not have a clue because they were not trained. Conversations had to be dumbed down constantly. Often I stopped to explain whatever it was that my co-worker didn't understand, and I would wonder what else they needed to know so I was not surprised at any point in the process.  
6.) There were a few people I worked with that were "loud talkers". There were small conference rooms available for conference calls or calls that could be made on speaker phone. Why these few felt it was okay to hear their entire conversation, I will never understand. 
7.) Somehow the end users felt it was okay to complain and send nasty emails to me directly, about how it was not acceptable that their new workstation was smaller than their old workstation because they worked at the company for x number of years / or that their job title required a larger workstation. I felt like a punching bag.... I would remind these people that the cubicle size was determined by the higher ups and not me. 
8.) The IT people were impossible to deal with. They could not commit to a date to move equipment... even something as small as a fax machine. So it became impossible to schedule the movers and the furniture people until the IT people could provide a time and date. IT somehow did not have to work with others. 
9.) The vendors were all very nice and very patient. It was hard to not provide them what they needed in a timely manner. It was even harder each week to hear my immediate supervisor to remind us all in the weekly meeting, that "we hand out the lollipops, so they (the vendors) can wait." 
10.) We had a department that took care of all of the artwork thru-out all of the office spaces. I sent out many emails to this department giving them the location of the artwork, the day and time period that this artwork needed to be moved. I also provided them with two names of contacts for people who worked on the floor in question. I copied everyone on these emails so everyone had the same information. On the day the artwork was to be moved, the art movers went to the wrong floor and started taking artwork down off the office walls in occupied areas. I was in meetings in another state, no where near this office space and was bombarded by phone calls / texts / emails. Anyone who would have taken a half a second to look at the information that was provided would have seen that the art movers were on the wrong floor. But instead... they called my boss. They told him that I made a HUGE mistake. He calls me up ranting and raving. And when I forward to him the emails he has been copied on, he does not apologize for his behavior. 

In conclusion: I was at this job for three miserable months. If the economy would have been better, I would have quit after two weeks. I was not a good fit for this position and the department was not a good fit for me. I am sure there are some great departments to work in, but I did not find any.