I quit a few months ago, and I agree with you pretty much 100%. Bank of America's current problems stem from two things: being forced to acquire Countrywide's bad loans (and worse PR), and hiring the world's dumbest people throughout the organization.
Bank of America has the worst PR organization I've ever encountered. When the thing about $5 debit card fees was leaked, the media had a field day with BofA, even though one of the big banks was already doing it, and the other big banks were already planning it. Because we had no damage control, we lost a ton of customers and mindshare... for something that we didn't even actually do! (Don't even get me started on all the stores about incorrectly foreclosing on people's houses that we didn't own. Guys, you have a problem there. You need to at least pretend to tell your side of the story!)
Also, I don't understand the hiring process at all: the CEO is some random dude from the legal department that knows nothing about leadership or banking, but somehow got promoted to CEO. (One time, we had a town hall meeting, and he checked that everyone going into the town hall meeting had two Bank of America accounts. What the fuck?)
The rest of the organization is exactly the same. I never had a manager that knew how to program. (My manager was pretty good at resolving political battles, though, which is a useful skill at BofA. The problem was that she had a lot of people that knew nothing about computers telling her what to do, and she couldn't filter out the obvious idiots that were wasting her time.) Most of upper management is people whose pet projects failed at other banks, and BofA was the only place that they could find a job. Nearly every system I had to maintain was written by a team that did the same project at job-1 and the entire team came here. Then the entire team got a better offer, and moved to job+1. You'd think that by the time they were desperate enough to work at BofA, the design and the code would be pretty good... but nope. That would require knowing how to program.
Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is: Bank of America is not evil. They just hire the dumbest, cheapest people they can possibly find, and the result is ... predictable.
(Also, I hope this doesn't sound bitter. I am not bitter about working there at all. It was just too average to strongly like or dislike.)
> Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is: Bank of America is not evil. They just hire the dumbest, cheapest people they can possibly find, and the result is ... predictable.
The result is ... getting payed $37 billion a year in bonuses. That's pretty damn smart if you ask me.
That's simply how people are paid in the finance industry. Let's say you make $300,000 a year. A bank will pay you $200,000 a year, and in a good year, give you a $200,000 bonus. But in a bad year, they'll "only" give you $75,000. So that $37 billion could easily be "everyone made less than their target salary" rather than "the executives gave themselves $37 billion".
Personally, I think the system is stupid: you have to pay me for my labor even if its misused and you make no money off it. But other people see the $$$ in good times, and the system continues. I now negotiate assuming my bonus will be 0, which is pretty much what I saw when I worked in finance anyway. (Bonuses were allocated based on a "has threatened to quit" basis; since I was always happy, I was never a problem that needed to be solved with money. When I did threaten to quit, they could no longer afford to match the counter offers. Or rather, chose not to.)
If that is supposed to say Evil people are a subset of dumb people, then I have to disagree. There are brilliant people who are also evil, like a good portion of the Nazi leaders, or Rupert Murdoch, or emperor palpatine.
There is a difference between being dumb, and doing something dumb.
About once every 2 months I forget how to operate a door. I put my hand on the door handle, push, and walk right into the door, because I forgot to twist the handle. That's a monumentally stupid thing to do, but I don't think it necessarily means that I'm monumentally stupid (at least I hope it doesn't :).
I'd be interested to hear why you think every evil person's actions are dumb when evaluated in the long term.
Bank of America has the worst PR organization I've ever encountered. When the thing about $5 debit card fees was leaked, the media had a field day with BofA, even though one of the big banks was already doing it, and the other big banks were already planning it. Because we had no damage control, we lost a ton of customers and mindshare... for something that we didn't even actually do! (Don't even get me started on all the stores about incorrectly foreclosing on people's houses that we didn't own. Guys, you have a problem there. You need to at least pretend to tell your side of the story!)
Also, I don't understand the hiring process at all: the CEO is some random dude from the legal department that knows nothing about leadership or banking, but somehow got promoted to CEO. (One time, we had a town hall meeting, and he checked that everyone going into the town hall meeting had two Bank of America accounts. What the fuck?)
The rest of the organization is exactly the same. I never had a manager that knew how to program. (My manager was pretty good at resolving political battles, though, which is a useful skill at BofA. The problem was that she had a lot of people that knew nothing about computers telling her what to do, and she couldn't filter out the obvious idiots that were wasting her time.) Most of upper management is people whose pet projects failed at other banks, and BofA was the only place that they could find a job. Nearly every system I had to maintain was written by a team that did the same project at job-1 and the entire team came here. Then the entire team got a better offer, and moved to job+1. You'd think that by the time they were desperate enough to work at BofA, the design and the code would be pretty good... but nope. That would require knowing how to program.
Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is: Bank of America is not evil. They just hire the dumbest, cheapest people they can possibly find, and the result is ... predictable.
(Also, I hope this doesn't sound bitter. I am not bitter about working there at all. It was just too average to strongly like or dislike.)