Days of a Kuwaiti Bank Teller

It’s official. The new trainee is turning my hair grey! It isn’t enough that she acts like Miss-Know-It-All when this is her first job and hasn’t had any prior experience. If you think the job takes such little skill to perform then why are you making all these mistakes? That, in a nutshell, is the part that is vexing me. It’s her attitude. If she didn’t flaunt how perfect she was then her numerous mistakes wouldn’t stand out as much. Everyone starts new and we all make mistakes. It’s how we learn and how we grow.

Today we received communications from our Head Branch with her name on it. It was a photocopy of a cheque with a circle around the place where the beneficiary’s name is. KD5,000 was transferred to an account without a name on the cheque! When confronted with this she claimed that there had been a name written on the cheque when she cashed the funds. Was it written in invisible ink? Did it disappear overnight at the Head Branch? We had difficulty in tracking down the guy who’d signed the cheque but finally we sorted it out. We got him in the branch and had him sign a paper stating the funds had been transferred to the correct person.

In the beginning of your ‘career’ you don’t want to make a mistake that can cost you KD5,000! How long will that take you to pay off? Contrary to popular belief the bank does not pay for our mistakes. The moment you sit on that counter you have to take an extraordinary amount of responsibility. You have to be up for it. If not, I advise you to get off the counter because you shouldn’t have control over people’s money. 

I am not happy that I have to clean up all her mistakes but I have to because anything she does badly reflects upon me, the branch, and the bank. I am not happy that she continues to blaze on with utter disregard of the terrible consquences that her actions are capable of. People like this sometimes don’t learn until they’re burnt but I sincerely don’t wish that upon her. Why can’t she slow down and be more careful?

Summer is a lazy time for banks because most people are out of the country. We have less customers, thus less stress. Ramadan is right around the corner to continue our lazy streak. Lack of customers equals lack of stories for me to recite. My current obsession is turning our latest batch of summer trainees into grade A tellers. I don’t know what’s happened to the bank’s training program but it’s not doing an effective job.

It seems like a lifetime ago I was crammed in a small cold room with 20 other individuals being tutored by a high-strung Egyptian woman.

Smile!

Eye contact!

You must egreet ze customer with Saba7 elKheir!

You must use ze customer’s name!

These days countless trainees arrive at my branch without any knowledge of the basics of customer service. Is summer making them lazy or do they really not care? When you go to a branch what would you expect as far as customer service is concerned?

Each month there is a list of people that gets rotated around the branch. We call it the Red List. It’s the bane of our existence. Whoever is unfortunate enough to fall victim to the list that month has to sift through the names dregging up every available phone number we have for that customer. Then come the three steps.

What are the three steps? The first step is getting a working number. The second is getting ahold of the customer. The third and most important step is having the customer step into the branch and pay off their outstanding debt.

It sounds easy, doesn’t it? I can do that, you’re probably thinking. What is she moaning on about? If the world was a better place, that list would be the easiest part of my job.

It’s times like these when I feel like I work for a collection agency. It’s hard enough getting ahold of customers when you have a simple question to ask them. Reaching them when they’re on the list is nearly impossible. Some of them give us fake numbers when they initially sign up for a credit card. Others have numbers that are disconnected from service or mobiles that are constantly switched off. Often when you finally hear a human voice you’re told that the customer is out of the country.

It never fails to amaze me at the amounts people run up on their credit cards. Some people are constrained by the limit they have on their cards. Others run wild and free with theirs. How can it be acceptable for a 17 year old girl to run up a 15,000KD bill each month on the credit card Daddy’s issued her? I see the purchases from my system and I shake my head at the names of the stores she’s spending at. What does she find there each month to spend that amount of money?

How responsible is it of the parents to allow a 17 year old that much financial freedom? With expenditures of that magnitude, do you believe she has learned the value of a dinar? Is it my place to judge? From where I’m sitting, behind the counter, it is. You’re the one on the Red List. I’m the one trying to get ahold of you.

"Teller!" a voice shouted as I stepped into the branch. It was not a joyous exclamation. I could hear the relief in my coworker's voice, "I can't believe you're really back! I thought she got rid of you too!"

The hair on the nape of my neck stood up. Something was different in a bad way. There was tension in the air. I didn't know when I left my branch a month ago that I would return and find that everything would be changed. The most significant change was that our manager had been replaced. Instead of the prickly male we had come to tolerate and learned how to deal with, we now had to adjust to having a female manager.

In all likelihood, my following statements may result in a severe backlash but I will not attempt to forestall it by mincing my words about the way things are. You must confront the problem in order to reach a solution. I will concede that there are stereotypes in what I will continue to say and these stereotypes from the experiences I've been through over the years and from what I've heard from other employees. That said, I'll continue…  

Female managers are known to be merciless. In a male-dominated world, they have to work twice as hard as their counterparts and they need to be ruthless to do it. There is no time to mince words or to coddle your hurt feelings. If you can't take the heat, tough luck. If you're male, they will squeeze every ounce of work in you making your life hell if in any way they suspect that you are trying to pull one over them because of their gender. If you're a female and you get a female manager, I have four words to say to you. You are in trouble. Female managers view other females as a threat rather than an ally. In viewing them in such a light managers discriminate against their female employees.

It's well-known that male and female management styles differ. Countless studies have been done, numerous papers have catalogued the differences, the benefits and disadvantages. Our new manager was definitely one who illustrates all the disadvantages of being lead by a female.

1. Always know history in order to learn from it. A quarter of the staff that had worked with her have resigned within 3-6 months of being under her management. She has had the highest staff turnover rate because they either resign or request to be transferred. 

2. She discriminates against women because they are women. At our branch she has transferred 3 of the female staff to other branches because they are "inadequate" and yet kept our incompetant male loan officer. 

3. She has a history of commending a staff member's work only to rip them to shreds on the official evaluation. She will then refuse to change it and complain to the administration that the employee is unwilling to better him/herself by accepting her input. 

4. She will do anything to get ahead. This includes seducing potential customers and asking female employees to do the same.  

In the week I've been back I've been fortunate in escaping her scrutiny. She has had to attend managerial courses and so hasn't been at the branch very often. I'm wary of what the work atmosphere is going to be like upon her return.  

الله يستر علينا

A temporary leave of absence, she said. Two weeks, she said. How temporary is a month? I believe I've shown a remarkable amount of self-restraint in not writing in that time period. In an amazingly short time I became attached to WordPress as an outlet for my work-related stories and more so to you, Readers. I'm grateful to those who commented or e-mailed me about my (seemingly) sudden disappearance. To maintain my anonymity I will refrain from giving out the specific details but I will take the opportunity to issue the following statements.

1) It had nothing to do with the pseudo-stalker. An upcoming post will shed light on those incidents. Harsha wasn't too far off the mark.

2) I didn't cease my posts because I was found out and threatened with dismissal. I've been discreet in revealing details about customers because privacy is crucial in my line of work.

3)A pressing matter turned into an extended holiday and now I'm back, refreshed and revived. I'll be back at work tomorrow and frankly I couldn't be more excited. I've missed my coworkers and customers, the smell of the branch, the peacefulness of entering it in the mornings and preparing for the rush. I've missed the routine of my days.

Today the shady character from my previous story returned to the branch.

I was away from my counter and concealed in my favorite dusty corner with my favorite coworker, FunnyGirl. FunnyGirl is so named because she has a knack of turning everyday occurances into hilarious tales. A simple drive to work becomes a madcap car chase. A visit to a restaurant results in outrageous modes of flirting and humiliations in front of the other sex. She was telling me of her latest mall exploits when the Trainee showed up and told me someone was asking for me. When you hear that someone is asking for you in the branch 90% of the time it's not a good sign. Customers only ask for you if they've come to complain.  

"Who is it?"

"I asked him but he wouldn't tell me his name."

"Is he a regular?"

"No. I've never seen him before." 

"Did he seem angry?"

"No."

"Annoyed?"

"No."

"Did he ask for me brusquely or casually?"

"He seemed worried. He asked if you were transferred to another branch. When I told him no, he asked if you had the day off. I told him you were here and then he seemed to relax."

Curious, I went out to see who it was. No one was waiting for me. I asked the Meeter-Greeter if she'd seen the guy.

"It was the same man who was staring at you the other day." 

One of the more frustrating traits I find in our loan officers is that when they make a promise to a customer, they don't deliver. I don't know who's in charge of their training but when I first started on the job I was repeatedly told to underpromise and overdeliver.

Today, a loan officer had the audacity to blame a trainee for his inability to meet his commitments. He summoned the customer into the cubicle that masquerades as his office and notified him that the trainee was the reason the work was being held up. I only found out because the customer stormed up to me and demanded to know why the trainee hadn't prepared the requisite forms for his application. 

Needless to say, I was incensed when this happened. It's completely irresponsible of him to turn the trainee into a scapegoat and to waste a customer's time. You can lose customers over silly incidents like these. Customers get upset when they take the time to come to the branch and find out they're there for nothing. They lose faith in you and the next time you call them in they may not be so eager to show up.

Unfortunately, our manager doesn't seem to share my opinion on the matter. The loan officer got huffy after I confronted him about it and brought up the issue at our end of the day meeting. The manager thinks I overstepped my boundaries and shouldn't be teaching the loan officer his job. It doesn't matter that I've seen this behavior before and the subsequent results. All that matters is that loan officer doesn't get sulky and so refuse to bring in new business.  

Working as a teller is sometimes akin to working as a bartender. A myriad of people find themselves at my counter. The more time they spend there, the more likely it is I will hear a personal tale. Some of these counter confessions are heartbreaking, while others are added to a list of things I wish I didn't know.

A good teller manages to both console and run transactions. I confess, I'm not always a good teller. Every so often I need to break for five just to regain my composure. I've always seen the world through rose-colored glasses; the eternally foolish Pollyanna. These confessions bring my world tumbling around my ears. 

"I got laid off three months ago but my parents are unaware that anything's changed. I need to use my savings to pretend there's still a salary being transferred to my account."

"My wife passed away during the Invasion. She was murdered. I've remarried since but I don't love her the same way I loved my first wife. I would give anything to have her back."

"My stepsister's dying of cancer. She doesn't know that I found out. She hasn't told our father yet and now that I know her secret I don't want to see her. I'm scared of death and dying."

"I owe a lot of people money because I have gambling problems."

"When I was studying in London I met and married a Jewish girl. My parents don't know. When I graduated they arranged for me to marry my cousin. I take regular trips to London to see her."

"My four year-old cousin was raped by her uncle. Her father knows but he didn't tell the mother. They told my cousin it was a dream and she shouldn't tell her mother about it. They're worrying about a grown up being unable to accept reality and destroying an innocent child's life in the process."

"I married my husband out of obligation. The man I love is poor and my family wouldn't let me marry him. They don't know that my husband cheats on me."

Earlier this week a minor won the Burgan Bank Surprizes prize of 300,000 KD. He was featured in all the major newspapers and with good cause. That’s roughly 1 million US dollars. The boy looks under 12 years old and he’s now a millionaire, or close enough. His father said that part of the winnings will be donated to charities and toward the boy’s education but words and actions do not always go hand in hand. I pray that his money is managed properly to ensure that it’s still there when he comes of age.

When news like this makes the papers my customers never forget to bring it up when they grace my counter. A lot of them think we tellers have the power to get their names on the winner’s list. If only!

“Can’t you make me a winner in next month’s draw? It’s the big one you know. I could use the extra money for work around the house.”

“Sir, you already are a winner.”

“You know what I mean, Teller. You can make me become the next millionaire!”

“If I could I would’ve had all my relatives win by this time.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can do something about it.” -wink wink-

“I’ll bring it up with the GM at our next meeting I’m sure.”

When nothing happens the next month they sulk but eventually their hopes always return.

To increase your chances of winning place a minimum of 50 KD in each of the following accounts:

Bank of Kuwait and Middle East has Al-Wafeer.
Burgan Bank has B-Surprizes.
Commercial Bank of Kuwait has the Al Najma (Star) draw.
Gulf Bank has its Dana (Mother Pearl).
National Bank of Kuwait has Al Jawhara (Jewel).

Dear Customers,

You were waiting a long time for your turn today but it is Sunday and it's to be expected. Many were there with you. Don't you remember? You were complaining to them. I understand that branches should have more than two tellers but when one calls in sick and another loiters upstairs with his coffee and cigarettes, I am powerless to do anything. When you grumble, I am the one who hears it. When the other tellers are absent, I am the one who feels the burn. You only have to wait your turn. I am the one doing the work. I only have two hands to do my job and my job requires a lot of multi-tasking.

When there is a huge queue waiting on me sometimes it causes me to be tense. Your asking me to speed up will only cause me to make mistakes. These mistakes will further delay your turn at the counter. Don't rush the people in front of you when you yourself will take longer than the people you have been harrassing. If you think we are being slow, time us. Each customer is entitled to 10 minutes of my time. It's rare for a customer's transaction to take a full ten minutes but sometimes it's necessary to exceed that time when there is a problem at hand. At the very least, it will give you something to do while you're waiting.

I will see you soon. Second shift will be starting momentarily. Please be kinder this time.

Best regards,

Teller