Page 78 - A Banker Down the Rabbit Hole

I had been posted as a Branch Head, the first time, at this branch. The
Branch Head had to function not only as Business Development Manager
but also as HR Manager, Marketing Manager, PR Officer, Operations
Manager, Recovery Manager, all in one, at the branch level. I thought of
being sure of the practice as well as the rules, before issuing an Office
Order, particularly when he had warned me to be responsible for issuing
such an order. I found a circular from the Zonal Office stating that there
were some branches where cash transactions are not heavy and Head
Cashiers are not fully occupied with the full day work. In such a situation,
they could be allocated other accounts related supervisory branch work
to provide relief to the officers in other departments. This was intended
to keep them engaged in learning the other branch work for their future
career growth after they were shifted out of cash department to take up
other general banking duties on their promotion as generalist officer.

Amusingly, I found the contents of this circular had been noted by him
under his signature. But we could not retrieve any other written office
order than this from his personal staff file. This meant that under these
instructions from Zonal Office, the then Branch Head could have asked
him to note the contents of this circular for execution without any written
office order.

Normally, officer cadre staff did not behave like this. But I understood
that he might be having wrong notion or he might have been misguided
by some other officer. But we had to sort out the issue and we got a good
lead in the above circular noted by him. I shared it with him and asked
him to continue doing that additional work without any unwarranted
comments on the ABM. I impressed upon him to help in maintaining the
cordial working culture as usual. But he insisted on an office order in
writing.

I had not seen this gentleman taking such a strong position before. It
prompted me to speak to the Zonal Manager and consult him if it was
proper to give him written office order as insisted. The Zonal Manager

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