Holiday cum working day

A large public sector bank will have lots of shit job pending. And the shit job multiplies with time. The constraint of manpower makes them to postpone it until the last moment when it becomes priority 1.

Cersai or 'Electronic registry of security' is one such thing. Last few weeks people were thrown from here and there to complete the data entry job.

My duty was to complete this at 'Pambanar' . The name sounded so uncool & far off. I woke up early morning & after much enquiries I located the bus . To my surprise the bus went on climbing up and up. It turned out to be a cool hill station with a river flowing on the other side of the road . Pretty ladies were bathing on other side of the river .

I was surprised to see a crowd of ordinary looking people sitting on the door way and a long queue snaking into several coils in front of counter . The branch had one huge ATM room and no one inside. The irony hit me only later . These people were illiterate estate labourers and had to depend on counter for withdrawal of even small amounts.

Years ago a cunning manager took advantage of the illiteracy and sanctioned spurious loans for these people. He took a chunk off it and happily lived ever after. His successor had to clean up the mess after him. Life is so unfair to some

I used to go to hill stations for a visit & stay at hotels at costly prices. But here for three days I had free food & accomdation at a great place.

7 day Bank

Months ago, a happy news went around the bank. Atlast the banking days are going to be reduced to 5.

Banking although seemingly public sector has notorious timings and work culture. Half of it's from colonial banking image which gives some kind of notion that longer you sit, the harder you work . Added to that 'work is worship' , 'customer is king' etc. The funny thing is most of the day is spent doing unproductive and zero-revenue job.

Soon the elation turned to utter despair when the chairman made a grandiose statement: Bank has to work 7 days a week. People were too stunned to speak. Many permutations and combinations were thought about shifting the Sunday chores to other days.

Then the unions & association pitched in with a strike against the arrogance of the chairman. Management responded by chargesheeting the leaders. To make matters worse the charge sheet was revoked for a few.

Last day our beloved chairman came up with his explanations:

It seems the poor guy was answering a question from media on how to make the bank profitable.
Mr Chairman , bank is not going to run on profit by working round the clock. Because  people donot live to bank. They bank to live . Only a minority of the urban elite waste their Sundays to go to bank and spend a few minutes for enquiry. For that are you going to open a whole bank and work the air conditioners and pay the staff and still make profits out of it?
Mr Chairman in case you didn't know , people first make enquiry through internet , do their homework and approach bank or even approach through e mail. For that you needn't open a whole bank  through the week.

I have seen and worked in the Sunday branches and believe me it's a total waste of time to indulge in the financial fantasies of a few jerks.

Mr chairman you spoke about a few industries working round the clock. In case you haven't noticed you get electricity round the clock. That doesn't mean you need to deposit money 7 days a week and you need a loan 7 days a week. Bank is not YET a necessity to sustain human life .

Thirdly you said about keeping the share holders happy. Sir in the end it boil downs to this . I wonder who ate these mysterious figures with deep pockets who draws simple pleasure out of making people work like slaves.
You even mentioned bank belongs to 2lac employees. No sir, it doesn't . It doesn't when you've to work ungodly hours for nothing. In case you haven't known yet bank is most underpaid industry in the public sector.

I hope you some day develop the sensiblity to understand that it's not just the salary an employee needs.

One request to you is never come up with half cooked stories.

Who first?

Who's apple of the eyes of a manager?
The smartest ? No . But I would say the best workhorse. The one who slogs his ass off to get the shit job done .

The nation's largest banker has a very strange policy. They pick up the best few from a young officers batch , make him believe he's special and post him in a single man branch. It sounds good to  hear that you're running a branch alone . At the end of the day you're unable to avail leave, you've to sit long hours as there's no one else to run the show and top of it all you'll have to make sure branch is on profits & you feed the whims and fancies of the bosses.

The good part is the wise guys at the top knows you wouldn't complain as you're too eager to climb the ladder.

But it surprises me that the organization with a so called ethical mission , treats its staff with utter disdain and contempt. There's nothing to it apart from incentives and profits.

Another example was the chairman declaring Sunday ought to be made a working day. This coming at a time when there's a demand for 5- day working.

What comes first ? Employee? Profits? Customer?

A few lessons

The wise used to tell me :
' Never trust anyone at the bank. '
' Save your ass first . '

But I , being a pussy, fall for the theatrics.
Last day a retired Air Force came. He sent his son to Australia and wanted us to disburse the second installament. Ours being a C grade cannot do forex transactions. Hence we will have to release the fund in rupees and send advice to city branch .

The Air force went on and on about the foolishness of sending his son abroad , about how marijuana was legal there. Soon it became a discussion n debate . He talked of sacrificing for the country .

Parallel to the eulogy, I finished my job. There was a service charge component which he had to pay at the city. That's when I shot myself in my foot. Instead of making him pay then and there I asked him to pay at the city branch.

After a few hours we get a irked call from our.city branch. He went there and midway through the process , he announced he has no money for service charge. The city branch as is not responsible for the customer called us up. They couldn't abandon it halfway.

And we had to take risk and additionally release money for the service charges. So another lesson

Beware of a barking dog

Here it starts

The past few months have been a liberal dose of reality. I had been at conflict with myself on how to organize and present my thoughts and at the end of it i decided to start something anew.

A few years ago i was living the life of a software professional. I wasn’t very keen on it and wanted to get out of the cubicular life style. Everyday you met the same set of people who talked the same things. The bitching, back stabbing, goals, aims and aspirations were the same. The hopes and passions rose and fell along with dollar rates. Everyone wanted to fly ‘onsite’ and post the picture in Washington.

I tried out a few options. I did some MBA exams, appeared in a few interviews. Soon i realized i wasn’t for it. Then the banks started recruiting in hordes and i swept along in the tide.

I appeared for a  few exams and found out it wasn’t easy enough. Soon love happened and the bitch also were into the exam mode. After a few years I decided to give my parting shot and call quits with the Bank exams. The bitch pushed me into the final one. As if for a miracle , i cleared while the bitch didn’t.

And like every other bitches she got hitched to a well to do NRI and flew off.

Clearing the Bank exams didn’t exactly overjoy me. I was still in two minds. Should I quit the lucrative paid IT job. I might have to move around in different parts of the country every few years. The interview wasn’t exactly tough because I was pretty comfortable with myself.

People still ask me if i made the right choice. To this day i don’t regret it. I met a whole load of sons-of-bitches & bitches in this one year. I’m not exactly sure if I’m going to climb up the ladder and be the chairman of the largest bank in India. Moreover I don’t know how long I am going to compromise with my values