Jamie Dimon: f*** off WFH

Jamie Dimon held an internal town hall meeting last week and got onto the subject of working from home (WFH). It turns out he doesn’t like it. In a lengthy foul-mouthed rant, he tells staffers that it’s full of shit. Here’s a short part of the tirade, as discovered by Barron’s and shared on LinkedIn.

I enjoyed his rant so much that I’m going to share it, but what’s interesting is that I have to post this with a warning that it is NSFW (Not Safe For Work) … depending upon where you work. So, here goes:

“A lot of you were on the fucking Zoom and you were doing the following, okay? You are looking at your mail, sending texts to each other over what an asshole the other person is okay. You are not paying attention; not reading your stuff; and, if you don't think that slows down efficiency, creativity, creates rudeness and stuff, it does. Okay? And when I found out that people are doing that, you don't do that at my goddamn meetings. You go to meet with me, you got my attention, you got my focus. I don't bring my goddamn phone. I'm not sending texts to people. Okay? It simply doesn't work. And it doesn't work for creativity. It slows down decision making. And don't give me that shit that work from home Friday works. I call a lot of people on Friday. There is not a goddamn person to get a hold of.

“But here are the problems and they are substantial, OK, which is the young generation is being damaged by this. They may or may not be in your particular staff, but they are being left behind. They're being left behind socially, ideas, meeting people. In fact, my guess is most of you live in communities a hell of a lot less diverse than this room.

“Every area should be looking to be 10% more efficient. If I was running a department with a hundred people, I guarantee you, if I wanted to, I could run it with 90 and be more efficient. I guarantee you I could do it in my sleep and the notion of these bureaucracies is I need more people. I can't get it done. No, because you're filling that request that doesn't need to be done. Your people are going to meetings, they don't need to go to.

“Someone told me to approve something in wealth management that they had to go to 14 committees. I am dying to get the name of the 14 committees, and I feel like firing 14 chairman of committees. I can't stand it anymore.

“Now you have a choice. You don't have to work at JP Morgan anymore. So the people of you who don't want to work at the company, that's fine with me. I'm not mad at you. Don't be mad at me. It's a free country. You can walk with your feet. But this company's going to set our own standards and do it our own way. And I've had it with this kind of stuff.

“I come in, I've been working seven days a goddamn week since Covid, and I come in and where's everybody else? Whether they're here and there and the Zooms, and the Zoom don't show up and people say they didn't get stuff. So that's not how you run a great company.”

What amused me as I listened to Jamie’s rant – was it AI generated? – is his disconnection with reality as, on the same day, I got this headline:

JP Morgan runs out of desk space after banning working from home

Only three fifths of JP Morgan’s offices across its Europe, the Middle East and Africa division currently have enough desk space to accommodate all of its staff full-time.

Funnily enough, on the same day, another headline made clear we don’t need humans in the office anymore:

IBM under fire as return-to-office order suspected of replacing human staff with AI

The Register talked to an IBM spokesperson who confirmed that by employing artificial intelligence, fresh graduates and outsourcing, IBM hopes to cut costs concluding that “AI will be implemented to replace people.”

My conclusion from all of this is that yes, a lot of jobs are going to be displaced by technology.

But computers cannot taste, smell, hear, see and touch in the same way as humans. We underestimate humanity. Our brains have billions of nerve cells – about 86 billion to be exact – and our wiring is very different to computers. We have wired our brains through real-world experiences, not the Matrix. Well, that’s the assumption.

Meanwhile, if Jamie needs some consultation, he could do no worse than talk to John Cleese aka Basil Fawlty:

“This is typical. Absolutely typical...of the kind of...ARSE I have to put up with from you people. You ponce in here expecting to be waited on hand and foot, while I'm trying to run a [bank] here. Have you any idea of how much there is to do? Do you ever think of that? Of course not, you're all too busy sticking your noses into every corner, poking around for things to complain about, aren't you? Well let me tell you something – this is exactly how Nazi Germany started. A lot of layabouts with nothing better to do than to cause trouble. Well I've had fifteen years of pandering to the likes of you, and I've had enough. I've had it. Come on, pack your bags and get out.”