As I went about my duties, proud of my place and influence in the branch, I would like to introduce two individuals who had a huge part to play in my life. I would also give a few snapshots of the good I did for them this would in a small way help you to understand the emotions I later felt for their betrayal.
Lets start with Mrs. Foxy (Not her real name), she was newly married and as at the time I took over at the branch she was on vacation. She visited the branch a couple of times when I was still being briefed as to my duties at the branch. She was a Funds transfer officer and was accused of a few of knowledge gap issues and mistakes at the Funds transfer desk (though I didn't believe any of that at first). She was the next most experienced staff in terms of years spent in banking and was a candidate to replace the Cash officer(who deputized for the Head of Operations) who would shortly be transferred to Kano .
However because she was on vacation, I choose to recommend the staff (a guy) that had in my opinion the best experience for the job and when she resumed I moved her into the position since she had the most experience. This upset my relationship with the guy as he felt had been demoted after being given the power he had enjoyed. i explained my decision to him and tried to get him to concentrate on his job giving him less work to see if his attitude would improve. I was later left with no choice than to recommend that he be transferred as a Cash Officer to another branch. This seemed to solve the problem and Mrs. Foxy had no contender for her position.
Mrs Foxy was passionate, to some extent I would say emotional, dedicated to her job and seemed to enjoy her new position but when she resumed she made so many mistakes that I began to doubt her credentials of having previous bank operations experience. For instance imagine paying an unsigned cheque by a customer? The customer filled every information but did not sign the cheque. This cheque was received by a teller who did not notice that the signature, which was the authorization to pay, was not there and verified an imaginary signature (I kid you not). This teller then sent this to Mrs Foxy who was to give a second and final level authorization for payment while spotting any thing that was missed by the teller. She gave her approval and the cheque was paid. This was spotted upon review the next day and we had to seek out the customer and ask that he sign.
Next she paid a cheque of N250,000 to a third party (not the owner of the account) for an account that had only N10,000 as its balance.
These were some of the mistakes she made that kept recurring even after several talks, training, threats of escalation of these mistakes (not following through with these threats though hoping it would soon end) and covering for her mistakes sometimes putting my neck on the chopping board for her. I think that is enough about Mrs Foxy.
The next act, I will call Mrs Pity. hers was a peculiar case. She was offered employment by my new bank but did not resume because she had recently given birth. she also failed to inform her interviewers that she was pregnant and did not apply to defer the offer of employment extended to her. So when she came to resume at the branch, having resigned her former job at a bank, there was no information from Human resources about her. i wrote to the HR representative and he informed me that the bank assumed that since she did not resume at the date specified on her offer letter that the offer had expired and she needed a re-validation of the offer if a space was open for her in the branch.
So there she was at the branch, having left the job she had before, rejected at the new job she was going to for a mistake on her part, with a new baby to take care of and a husband,who I thought, may not have been doing so well financially.
I spoke with the former head of operations about her case but he didn't seem bothered saying to send her home as advised by Human Resources Department as it was her fault for not resuming when she should have. I did send her home because I had no document of employment to keep her at the branch, i wrote an extensive mail to my superiors explaining her situation and appealing for their recommendation as the branch still had space available to take her in.
I felt pity for her and took up her case so passionately that at a time my regional manager accused me of sleeping with her hence my interest in her case.
Well after all said and done, I was able to convince them to re-validate her offer letter and she resumed at the branch one day before an embargo on employment was placed by the MD of the bank!
I never knew the huge part these two women would play in my fall from grace.......
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