How Do They Have Any Employees Left?!

The bank I work for is always attempting to cut costs and implementing strange new policies to catch people out. Every year around bonus and pay evaluation time, a slew of people are always “let go” due to infractions. We are always led to believe that the infractions are so serious that legal and the police are involved.

Rumblings are starting around our department of staff having to have meetings about their behaviour and stats while on calls. I’ve seen the best of our call center in tears as he was absolutely cut down by a team from human resources for referring to someone as “Ms.” instead of “Mrs.”

As we are a bank, security questions are essential, BUT all answers are input by human beings, and sometimes things are just wrong.

One fateful day, I am called into a meeting with three managers and two human resources people to answer for my indiscretion.

Human Resources: “On Monday [date] you had [Customer] call in, and you had to ask him the identity questions. He answered three questions correctly and the last one incorrectly, and yet you granted him access to his account details. Can you tell us why?”

Me: “Can I review the call transcript?”

This is provided to me, and I can see that the last question I asked him was to verify his email address. When entering it in person, someone had transposed two letters in the domain of the email address.

Me: “It’s an obvious spelling mistake.”

Manager: “Yes, but you can’t prove that”

Me: “Well, I can, and I did by using the notes. The previous calls all note that there was a spelling error in the email address. The branch had been notified of the issue, too, and I left my own notes and details to the branch to fix it.”

Manager: “Well, it’s not good enough. This is reason enough for us to terminate you, on top of your excessive sick leave.”

Me: “Wait, what? What excessive sick leave? And why is this being brought up in front of managers who are not my direct reports?”

The human resources people blanch and provide me with the documents… where I have one day more than my entitlement, after the head manager’s kids came in with pinkeye and gave it to 75% of the staff, including me.

Me: “This looks like a blatant attempt to get rid of me. Can I have a break for five minutes?”

Human Resources: “It won’t help you, but go ahead.”

Unfortunately for them, the union rep is on my team and is able to come back into the meeting with me in under two minutes flat. I bring the union rep up to date in front of the managers and human resources. He is getting angrier and angrier as the details are provided to him and the managers and human resources are becoming more and more concerned.

Human Resources: “Look, why don’t you two discuss this while we have a meeting for five minutes and discuss our options?”

All the managers and human resources skedaddle, and the union rep is livid. It’s the tenth meeting in a fortnight he’s been brought into. After ten minutes, only the human resources reps come back, the managers having something else to do very suddenly.

Human Resources: “Well, we’ve decided that we’ll let you stay only if you forfeit your yearly bonus for the next two to five years and attend vigorous retraining at a 25% pay decrease.”

I looked at the rep and walked out. I quit immediately. The rep was so incensed that he and the union brought action against the bank, but by that stage, I was so over it I didn’t care!