At JPM a VP isn’t going to have an org of 1,000+. That’s going to be managing director level. There are some VPs on the business side that can have numerous employees but that’s about it. In finance you can equate VP to being senior and line manager level at other companies Google, Meta, etc.
One you hit executive director things change a bit. Managing director is the real deal.
Agreeing with/adding to your post here:
With that being said this Reddit post has some fishy elements to me. I wouldn’t doubt the existence of this so called WADU but the capabilities (and laughable suggestions in the Reddit post like “don’t use a corporate laptop” as if JPM issues corporate laptops - most employees use the stupid VDI) seem a little outrageous to me. More likely scenario is they just track badge in and badge out and maybe something like the number of meetings on your calendar and do some super basic reporting up the chain to the HR tech teams who are trying to figure out what to do with the workforce.
Now from the article:
“Some employees described adopting unusual behaviors to evade the system's detection during breaks or interludes throughout the day.”
I don’t know where these so called employees work, but at least in the corporate offices uh nobody pays any mind to any breaks you take unless you have some really anal manager. At the Polaris office in Columbus people bring walking shoes and do laps and things. They have lots of space intended for leaving your desk and grabbing coffee or meeting. The Starbucks in there at the time I was there was supposedly one of the most busy Starbucks locations you could find. I don’t think they’re worried about taking breaks.
“Another current employee within the firm's commercial-banking division said she and her colleagues have resorted to discussing some work-related topics on forums like the iMessage app”
You mean like just normal work? You don’t text your colleagues? Since when is iMessage a forum? Dumb.
The article is really lacking substance and the Reddit post seems kind of conspiratorial. Is JPM tracking things like how long your VDI session is open and your badge in/out? Yea definitely. Is it some big AI conspiracy? No. To what end anyway?
Source -> worked in Digital tech for a little over 4 years and have a number of close friends who still work there and numerous colleagues in executive and managing director level roles.
> “Another current employee within the firm's commercial-banking division said she and her colleagues have resorted to discussing some work-related topics on forums like the iMessage app”
Now that's amusing and quite a tell as to how much BS the whole thing is.
No one at JPM cares how much loafing there is. However:
"JPMorgan Chase is paying $200 million in fines to two U.S. banking regulators to settle charges that its Wall Street division allowed employees to use WhatsApp and other platforms to circumvent federal record-keeping laws." https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/17/jpmorgan-agrees-to-125-milli....
discussing work related stuff on iText? That will literally get you fired.
> discussing work related stuff on iText? That will literally get you fired.
I guess it depends on who and also what we mean by work-related stuff.
I don't disagree with you or others that something like discussing a confidential deal or sharing idk screenshots of customer accounts or something would get you fired. As it should.
The article was generic with "work-related topics" so I was too. Sending a text saying "Hey I'm in the CCB analytics weekly business review meeting with so and so can I call you back" won't get you fired. Both are "work-related" but clearly there are differences.
In the context of the Reddit post and the article, I think the substance was basically a few 601 level employees (at most) sharing some vague "leak" of things they really don't know much about or understand and then the whole Internet speculating on Jamie Dimon sitting there taking screenshots of your bedroom to see if you bought a Playstation or an Xbox.
Like any good conspiracy there are elements of truth - JPMC absolutely monitors badge in/out and absolutely logs all of your VDI activities and it would not surprise me if from time to time (or even all the time) they take a quick screenshot when you log in to see if your face matches your employee ID as a security prevention feature.
But a lot of that post seemed like nonsense and saying "employees have to resort to talking about work on iMessage forums!" redoubled my doubt on the whole thing.
> The article was generic with "work-related topics" so I was too. Sending a text saying "Hey I'm in the CCB analytics weekly business review meeting with so and so can I call you back" won't get you fired. Both are "work-related" but clearly there are differences.
Being deposed by the OCC, SEC, Fed or OFHEO and having to make the argument that somehow your business communications weren’t subject to Federal banking record keeping regulations, is just not a spot you want to be in.
> Another current employee within the firm's commercial-banking division said she and her colleagues have resorted to discussing some work-related topics on forums like the iMessage app
> You mean like just normal work?
Not in a commercial banking division. I would expect that to be at least a reprimand, if not straight termination. There are very strict regulations about that sort of thing in banking. You are absolutely not allowed to discuss work on non-official media without approval. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's actively and strictly controlled.
And for good reasons! The SEC levied more than a billion in fines over text messages on non official media without even having to prove that those texts where eg insider trading,
> Really? You think they dont issue corporate laptops? The suggestion that they do "destroys" the case made?
I know they don’t issue corporate laptops to most employees. I had a Mac because I worked in Digital but that was the exception, not the rule. Yes some employees get laptops. It wasn’t the norm. In fact I believe MD and above aren’t actually allowed to have laptops.
This doesn’t “destroy the case” (whatever that means) - it makes me question the Reddit post given that most employees aren’t given laptops so suggestions “like cover your laptop cam” don’t make a lot of sense.
I have no doubt the firm is tracking a lot of stuff and always have been. Using swear words in chat apps like Symphony would get flagged to HR.
Like all good conspiracies there’s an element of truth. For example, let’s say you sit down at your VDI one day and you see some web cam flash. Does it make sense that they may have some app that takes a picture of the person logging in and makes sure it matches? Yea.
This, however, doesn’t make a lot of sense:
“You’ll notice that your web camera will flash right after login. This is not an “initial connection” flash. Your web camera just took a burst shot of pictures and sent them to WADU. The pictures will be scanned for anything deemed unprofessional or unsafe. Recreational drug paraphernalia, TVs, game consoles, and several other things are all flagged if detected in the pictures. If you see your web camera flash randomly, that was your manager or someone in security requesting a burst shot of pictures from your web camera.“
TVs and video game consoles are unprofessional? Surely they must hate when you bring your Switch to the office and talk about the new Zelda game with all your recent grad workmates!
> At most banks using non monitored communication tools to talk to colleagues would be a fireable offence.
I was consulting at a big 4 IB once. My company used Slack for ourselves, but were onboarded the client's chat tools and told to use them for all project communication which we mostly did. One time a coworker sent me an IM saying he'd follow up with me on Slack. The compliance team flagged it and came after me (not sure why me and not the guy who sent the message). They asked if I discussed company business on Slack and I, not wanting to lie and not wanting to stay on an account that was a meat grinder, just said "yes". They never followed up and I worked on that account for like 8 more months.
Peter Thiel’s data-mining company Palantir was an early contributor. In 2009 JP Morgan Chase engaged Palantir to track internal communications for suspicious activity. According to Bloomberg, the group “vacuumed up emails and browser histories, GPS locations from company-issued smartphones, printer and download activity, and transcripts of digitally recorded phone conversations. Palantir’s software aggregated, searched, sorted, and analyzed these records, surfacing keywords and patterns of behavior that [were] flagged for potential abuse of corporate assets”. Social network analysis allowed the firm to zero in on suspects.
What you’re describing JPMC was ahead of 14 years ago
<< I don’t know where these so called employees work, but at least in the corporate offices uh nobody pays any mind to any breaks you take unless you have some really anal manager.
I would not automatically discount it. I was once in a company that overnight went from happy clappy to 'more with less'. Upon that change, bathroom breaks became timed to capture specifically disliked employees so that a case can be built later to fire them. US. It can be such a bewildering space to work in.
I worked for a large health insurance company. The development team switched to macbooks and could install their own tools. Corporate laptops where shitty and no one had local admin. The installed a tool like that on the macbooks. In the end they just used to check if the OS was up to date and your virus scanner was running. No one checked anything else.
Now this could be a slippery slope. A new manager finding out what is possible and demanding reports on the "dangerous" stuff could change this quickly.
> I don’t know where these so called employees work, but at least in the corporate offices uh nobody pays any mind to any breaks you take unless you have some really anal manage.
I have first hand knowledge of a business that did not control the employees in the office, but wanted to rule that any time not spent in front of the computer while remote was not to be considered working time.
Don't know how it ended in the end, AFAIK the latest review wasn't so strongly worded.
So some business may bother with that, but not necessarily on all fronts.
The old saying is titles are cheap. A VP title is a great way to give someone a small promotion with a small pay increase and they still feel special. Banks/Financial firms figured this out a long long time ago.
Most the VP's I've known at BoA and Chase over the years were individual contributors.
One you hit executive director things change a bit. Managing director is the real deal.
Agreeing with/adding to your post here:
With that being said this Reddit post has some fishy elements to me. I wouldn’t doubt the existence of this so called WADU but the capabilities (and laughable suggestions in the Reddit post like “don’t use a corporate laptop” as if JPM issues corporate laptops - most employees use the stupid VDI) seem a little outrageous to me. More likely scenario is they just track badge in and badge out and maybe something like the number of meetings on your calendar and do some super basic reporting up the chain to the HR tech teams who are trying to figure out what to do with the workforce.
Now from the article:
“Some employees described adopting unusual behaviors to evade the system's detection during breaks or interludes throughout the day.”
I don’t know where these so called employees work, but at least in the corporate offices uh nobody pays any mind to any breaks you take unless you have some really anal manager. At the Polaris office in Columbus people bring walking shoes and do laps and things. They have lots of space intended for leaving your desk and grabbing coffee or meeting. The Starbucks in there at the time I was there was supposedly one of the most busy Starbucks locations you could find. I don’t think they’re worried about taking breaks.
“Another current employee within the firm's commercial-banking division said she and her colleagues have resorted to discussing some work-related topics on forums like the iMessage app”
You mean like just normal work? You don’t text your colleagues? Since when is iMessage a forum? Dumb.
The article is really lacking substance and the Reddit post seems kind of conspiratorial. Is JPM tracking things like how long your VDI session is open and your badge in/out? Yea definitely. Is it some big AI conspiracy? No. To what end anyway?
Source -> worked in Digital tech for a little over 4 years and have a number of close friends who still work there and numerous colleagues in executive and managing director level roles.