I'm gonna say something that may very well come as a shock to you. Are you ready? You may want to sit down for this one. I suck at my job.
I know. It's hard to believe that someone as awesome as I am would suck at anything. But it's true. It's a fact that I've embraced, and now I'm sharing my difficulty and my weakness with my loyal readers. It's almost cathartic.
This morning I had a brief meeting with my manager. He made it clear that the point of our discussion was not to make me think that I suck at this job. No, those were my words. The manager just wanted me to be aware of what a tough position that I'm in. Not that I'm about to be fired or anything like that. He was referring to my position as the drive-through teller.
The Powers That Be recently rolled out a new customer service scoring system. If you've ever had a bank teller run a transaction before, there's a good chance you've received one of those survey phone calls asking you to rank your experience with your bank. They introduced this new system a little over a month ago, and with that introduction, I apparently had a shaky start. I scored a zero on my first interview.
To be fair, the scoring is a bit unfair. See, the customers being surveyed are given a 1-10 scale in which to score their tellers. But the score only counts for the teller if they receive a 9 or a 10. Anything less than that counts as a zero. Does that sound fair to you? Me neither. Turns out, I got all 7s and 8s on my first interview. So even if the customer surveyed thinks the 7s and 8s were pretty good scores, they counted for nothing. Thus, a zero.
So I had that little stall at the start of this thing. I wasn't the only one. But I'm the one getting picked on at the moment. The manager's boss decided that, because I'm at the drive-through, I have a really hard time connecting to customers and achieving those perfect scores that the Powers That Be expect to see every time. When other branch managers were asked how they dealt with the drive-through customer service issue, the answer, unanimously, was that they changed drive-through tellers.
Does this mean I'm being yanked off the drive-through? No, it doesn't. Not yet anyway. It could happen, but I really don't think it will. In the meantime, that zero I got has caused me to be the one that gets asked, "How can you change that?"
It isn't as if I was really being picked on. The manager made it clear that he feels my pain as the drive-through teller. This new customer service survey system is very touchy-feely. This is not a thing that's conducive to the drive-through lane. I get a few seconds with those folks in their cars. They tend to be in a hurry, so they tend to value speed over conversation. But without conversation, it's difficult to make them feel warm and fuzzy about their banking experience, thus, it's difficult to get a 10 on that score.
I did think it was interesting that the last three interviews I've gotten have all been perfect scores. But the Powers That Be didn't want to recognize that. They just wanted to look at the zero and figure out how to fix what, apparently, has already been fixed.
As an epilogue to this story, I informed the manager that I would do this job to the best of my ability, in all aspects. I'm pretty decent with faking the customer service concerns (obviously since I've managed to get a few perfect scores). But when it comes to selling stuff and referring customers to the higher ups, I'm just not good at it. It's easy to blame the drive-through for that, because, as I mentioned above, I don't get a lot of talk time with these people. But it wouldn't be any better if I worked the lobby. I'm not good at talking with people about extra products that bank may offer. I'm just not comfortable with it. Therefore, I admitted to the manager that I'm just not cut out for this job.
So I'm looking for a new one. I know I've mentioned that before. I'm desperately seeking a new job that matches my personality and my education a little better than working as a bank teller. This is not a resume and this is not a job application. But I've learned that finding a job is not about what you know, it's about who you know.
After college, I held a couple of jobs that I absolutely loved. In both of those places, I found out about the open positions because of the people I knew that already worked there. I had no problem applying, receiving interviews, and obtaining those positions. Even here, at the bank, I got this job because a friend of mine knew the assistant manager of the first branch I worked in. I got the job at my current branch because that assistant manager had moved into the manager position here. In the meantime, I've sent resumes to about a hundred different places through sites like CareerBuilder and have never received any sort of acknowledgement that I even exist. Even a "no, thank you, the position has been filled" would be better than hearing nothing.
So I'm putting this out there. I have a few readers, and I'm using that to try to make a few connections. Let's just call it networking. I have two bachelor's degrees, one in Christian Studies and one in Behavioral Science. I'm using neither of these working as a teller. I have roughly four years experience in a counseling type of field, however, I'm not licensed as a professional counselor. Also, I love to write. If I thought I could get a job writing the contents of a paper bag I'd do it. And there's about 4 years worth of writing examples right here for anyone to peruse.
As I said, this isn't a resume. It isn't even necessarily a plea for help. I'm just putting it out there, bearing in mind that most of getting by in this world isn't about what you know but who you know.
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