This is the story about the Grinch who stole my Christmas. For the past 15 months, I have worked as a contracted Project Manager for J.P. Morgan Chase in their Data Warehouse Dept. I had wanted to be converted to a full time employee so I looked around Chase for such a position. I found one and was offered the position. Since it was the holidays, the hiring manager said my start date would be 1/5/2015. On the same day, late in the afternoon, I was going over a report with my current manager who was berating me for edits, mostly semantics, with the report. Prior to this discussion, there was never any mention by her or any others of any performance issues regarding me. I was originally brought on for a 12 month project and my contract had been extended with no end date. The project that I was on was a component of a highly visible and important program for government regulators. I had been on the project the longest and was considered the subject matter expert. I also assisted in the training of new project managers as they were brought onto the program. So I felt like I was a well thought of manager. So, while listening to my manager, who had only been on the program for two months and was new to me, berate me about a weekly status report, I decided to go ahead and give her my two week notice. She asked me if I was kidding as it apparently stunned her. After several minutes of discussion, she said fine and wished me well. So everything seemed fine and she sent a note to everyone in the department letting them know that I was moving on and wishing me well in my new position. Then, on 12/16/2014, I got a call from Chase human resources. They indicated that someone in my current department had made disparaging remarks about me so the hiring manager was withdrawing their offer of employment. Needless to say, I was stunned and I knew instantly that it had to be my current manager. I immediately confronted her and she said that she felt that I did not meet her expectations of a project manager. I asked her how she could sabotage my opportunity and with the holidays coming on, did she realize the impact of what she had done to me. She was embarrassed and offered no specific details and no further explanation of her “expectations”. Then as the final insult and to add salt to the wound, I was terminated immediately that day and walked out of the building. Needless to say, I felt stunned and humiliated. So here I am at Christmas, falling from the top of the mountain to the bottom in one day, and now with no job. I called the placement agency that had gotten me the contract at Chase and they were very empathetic and said that unfortunately, that is not the first time they heard of Chase treating contractors like this and that they were not surprised. They also said that Chase had never given them any negative feedback on me nor had Chase indicated that they were going to terminate my contract in the foreseeable future. Several other project managers who sat by me had heard everything and are witness to how badly Chase screwed me. Oh and one last thing. Chase had sent a note out to those that I had worked with two days after my termination, stating that I had gone on to another position at Chase so I should be taken off distribution lists. They were lying to cover up what they did to me. So there you have it, corporate America at its worst.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 18:13:19 +0000
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