Page 124 - A Banker Down the Rabbit Hole

37. Decoding the disobedience

Despatcher not sending the urgent mail the same day
I joined a new branch after promotion at earlier branch. I noticed a couple
of times that whenever I would mark a mail as 'urgent', meaning same
day dispatch, the dispatcher would not send it the same day. I wanted
to check and confirm further whether it was deliberate act or by chance.
I kept a watch, I did not mark some urgent mail as 'urgent' and found
that it was dispatched the same day. Whatever mail I marked 'urgent'
was dispatched the next day. I got disturbed and called the officer
supervising this dispatcher and told him about what was happening. He
told me that I need not go into it and he would take care of such 'urgent'
mails and I could send it across to him and not to the dispatcher.

When I questioned the Supervisor, "Why the dispatch clerk should obey
you and not the Branch Head?" He told, "I would speak to him at the
opportune time. You should be concerned with results and would not
have any complaint like this." The branch was dominated by union
workers like any other branch of the bank. I could not afford
confrontation with unions on every big or small issue and kept quiet as
they assured me that work would not suffer. I had never worked with
this employee before. I realized that there must be something in the mind
of the dispatcher against me that had resulted into this behavior. It baffled
me more as I wanted to go into the reasons for such conduct on his part
when almost everyone else respected my authority.

One day, during lunch time, I was in the cabin sitting alone and I found
the dispatch clerk also sitting alone in the hall. I thought of asking him
the reason for such a conduct and called him to my chamber. He came

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