J.P. Morgan 4

Alas, Morgan. It had been pleasant to whisk through security into its civilized air, leaving the clamor of the Wall St. crowds behind.

Sure, foolishness dominated. But it wasn't nasty, crooked and brutish, like for example where I worked immediately before and after (Refco and Ambac).

The prominence I've given here to the colorful BCL battle may have left the erroneous impression that it was a significant preoccupation during my 14-month tenure. It wasn't. When my farewell message said "much should be done quite differently at Pinnacle," I wasn't thinking of BCL.

Morgan fit well into my life -- one point of the daily triangle. The morning walk to the office from my Battery Park City apartment was under 10 minutes; after work I'd walk to the Downtown Athletic Club (DAC), located between office and home, and play squash.

The money was decent enough -- $75 for each hour I worked, close to $200K/year. But it should have been a lot more.

Every indication was that those "High Performance Teams" produced little more than abject failures. I'd occasionally get a glimpse of what they were up to when I'd be called for help. A lot of it was London-like. Part of the problem was the misguided organizational incentive to get many bodies on the team, but only part.

If you put it together -- high cost, low or zero value output -- you can appreciate the subtlety that seemed to escape the senior execs. Those teams were not so high-performing.

Couldn't I do astronomically better for Morgan? And, at the same time, for myself?

I'd already noted to my boss Bob "the pattern at Pinnacle whereby I am given the wrong problem to solve and a lot of time and energy is spent for nothing." Was there no opportunity here to do much better for all concerned?

After the London trip I wrote Bob again:

Does anyone need a new application? I'm ready to write a fine one that users will love.... I am eager to help out in the manner you see fit. I am offering the above in the hopes that I will be able to bring greater benefits to you and the organization than in the past.

Bob told me he'd love to give me an application to do. But he had nothing. There was simply no new application to be written.

Morgan CIO Peter Miller had delivered an address one day to several hundred Morgan people in an auditorium of that old 4-story building. His top priority, he announced, was "to expand the firm's application portfolio" -- which is a senior exec's way of expressing something simple like "to get more applications written."

Miller, I learned, was a squash player -- a former squash partner of one of my current partners at the DAC. So, although he was in the management stratosphere, I invited him for a game -- sort of like the limo driver jogging with the president -- and I went to his office one night to accompany him to the DAC.

Must you ask? Oh alright. I beat him. But the guy put up an OK fight.

I mentioned to him about Bob not having any new apps for me. He didn't seem thunderstruck. He didn't really say anything. I wondered: was this, like, consistent with his view of things?

After our game I raised this a second time. No new app to be written? His top priority?

Yes, he allowed, that had rung a little bell in his head.

Besides our game, that's as much as I ever got from Peter. I guess you don't get to Mount Olympus by spilling your guts out all the time.

A month or so later I attended another lecture he gave. He spoke of the importance of retaining IT workers and attracting new ones, because of the shortage of IT skills, and he urged audience members to contribute ideas. I later emailed him:

With regard to your invitation to contribute ideas, the recognized shortage of IT skills, the desire to make JPM attractive to technical employees and vendors, and your goal of improving JPM's application portfolio:

I can single-handedly develop a new PowerBuilder application faster and better than a typical team of 10 developers. Put me in touch with anyone needing an application. I will define the requirements, write them up and get user sign-off, then write and deliver the software. These results can be achieved relatively free in terms of the time or effort of whoever I report to. I have proven myself here to be self-directed and resourceful, and I can provide regular status updates that clearly demonstrate progress.

Teamwork? Yes! I will be on the users' team. In software development I always share the users' perspective. I will listen to them closely and find out what they really need, and they will love the application I develop for them.

Despite my recognized ability after a year of service to Pinnacle and very positive feedback on my work, it's been made clear that my growth opportunities are zero or worse and the incentives point to departure.

There was no reply.

"Most paranoid delusions are intricate... but this is brilliant." Is this what you're thinking?