JPMorgan analyst fired after questioning Jamie Dimon’s return-to-office policy — then rehired: report

A JPMorgan Chase analyst who publicly questioned CEO Jamie Dimon’s return-to-office mandate was fired almost immediately afterward — but managers rescinded the angry decree hours later, a report says.

Nicholas Welch, a tech ops analyst who had been with the financial giant for eight years, wasn’t happy about the return-to-work directive along with many others at America’s largest bank.

The firm’s 317,000 employees were told Jan. 10 that they had to end their hybrid work and go back to the office five days a week beginning next month.

Welch is getting divorced and has said he needs flexibility to deal with family and childcare issues, according to Fortune.

So he asked the acerbic CEO at a “town hall” meeting for employees Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio, if he had contemplated letting lower-level managers decide how many days their people should come in.

Welch noted that his seven-member team works in different countries and time zones, so there’s “no way that being in an office makes any difference for us specifically.”

“So all I’m asking is that — I’m not suggesting you rescind such an order — but suggesting it be left up to managers of individual teams themselves on [the] necessity of an office work place,” Welch told the CEO.

His coworkers clapped — but Dimon immediately nixed the notion.

“That’s it?” Dimon shot back. “I’m going to give you a complete answer: There is no chance that I would leave that up to managers.

“Zero chance,” Dimon added, claiming that the “abuse that took place was extraordinary.”

Dimon also ranted about employees wasting time during Zoom meetings and lamented that the company’s payroll had increased by about 50,000 people since the pandemic’s 2020 start.

“We don’t need all those people,” Dimon said. “We were putting people in jobs because people weren’t doing the jobs they were hired to do in [the] first place.”

Then he turned his ire toward a petition signed by about 13,000 employees asking him to rescind the RTO mandate, saying, “I don’t care how many people sign that f–king petition.”

Welch said that after the raucous meeting — attended by about 1,000 people and tons more on Zoom —his coworkers high-fived him and thanked him for asking the question.

Then the storm struck.

“I don’t know what the f–k you just did, but come to my desk immediately when that town hall ends. Please,” company Vice President Garrett Monaghan allegedly wrote Welch in a text seen by Fortune. 

Monaghan ended up telling him he’d “just dragged our whole organization through the mud” at the meeting and that Welch should “go clean off your desk and get the f–k out of here,” the outlet said.

Welch grabbed his coat and headphones and took off.

“I’ve never been told to get the f–k out of the office before,” he said.

He later appealed to his direct boss, Richard Cundiff. But he got little feedback and less sympathy, Welch said.

“Thanks for letting me know,” Cundiff allegedly replied when Welch texted him to say his job was on the rocks.

For the next few hours, Welch sat at home, convinced he was fired, Fortune said.

But around 4:30 p.m., Megan Mead, the company’s global IT support executive director, called to tell him she’d “smoothed things over” with Monoghan — and that Welch still had a job, the outlet said.

Less than an hour later, a conciliatory Monaghan allegedly texted Welch to apologize.

“I agree with your message, if not the delivery. We good?” Monaghan asked, adding that he owed Welch a beer and a handshake, Fortune reported.

Later that night, Mead texted Welch to say she appreciated him and was “really proud about how you responded to a pretty unfair circumstance,” the outlet said.

Now the company appears to be in damage-control mode, with a rep telling Fortune that Welch was never fired and that he remains in good standing.

“He didn’t say anything wrong in the town hall,” the spokesman said.

Cundiff, Welch’s boss, also said the worker’s claims about being fired “are false.” He declined to comment further.

But other employees said thought he’d been let go, too — even though it’s unclear if the firm ever filed the official paperwork.

“When a senior member of management yells at you to clean out your desk and leave, I would interpret that as an on-the-spot firing,” a JPMorgan worker told the outlet.

At least Welch still has work — and a little fame among his colleagues for standing up to the big boss.

But he’s still angry about how he was treated.

“I want to do the job that I love in the way that I want to do it,” he said. “That’s what I hope to get out of all this.”