I've noticed a phenomenon among my co-workers. Really, it's a "phenomenon" for only one or two of them. It isn't anything new. It's actually something I've openly complained about. But I've stopped complaining. See, it doesn't do any good. Nothing changes.
This phenomenon involves long periods of socialization with random people who frequent the branch. I know what you're thinking, that as tellers we're expected to have conversations with our customers in order to get to know them and make them feel special. I get that. But I only get that when it applies to talking to the random people who come in to do their transaction and spend a couple minutes, at best, inside the bank. My complaint comes when we finish their deposit or withdrawal or whatever and they're still standing at someone's teller window for half an hour talking about anything and everything except the reasons why they came into the bank.
The latest example happened yesterday. A frequent customer came in to flirt with one of our tellers as he normally does. She ran his transaction and accepted the cookies that he brought for her. They talked about nothing for about 15 minutes, and then, without any announcement whatsoever, she walked out of the branch with him. She returned roughly 20 minutes later. I'm not trying to suggest that anything bad was happening. I'm just expressing my annoyance with a prolonged disappearance for which there was no explanation.
I was discussing the situation with the Most Awesome Person I Know and told her that I need her to come by the bank sometime so that I can go hang out outside for half an hour or so. I mean, if these other people I work with can do it, why can't I? Just because all the people I know and am familiar with live away from the place where I work doesn't mean I should miss out on stealing company time.
To me, it's the same argument that I used to hear between smokers and non-smokers. People who smoke are able to go outside several times a day to take a 10- or 15-minute smoke break. What about the non-smokers? Do they get to go and stand around taking a 10- or 15-minute non-smoke break?
Some time ago I mentioned that I was hesitant to write much about work these days because some of the people I work with read this blog. The person I described above is one of those people. She doesn't check this page out every day, but she does have occasion to go in and check things out. But I'm just not sure if I care anymore whether or not the people I work with get mad at me over something I've said or thought. This is just me venting my frustrations. Believe me, when it comes to this job, I have a lot of them. And as I said earlier, it does no good to complain out loud. I don't expect this to change anything either. I expect to just keep on going to work every day, doing my job, and trying not to make too many waves. I'm not there to make friends. I'm there to get a pathetic paycheck. And I'll continue to do so until I finally (please, dear God) find a new job.
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