Page 92 - A Banker Down the Rabbit Hole

effective use of Jeep for recovery and that I had a personal understanding
with the driver not to claim overtime payment. I reiterated in the end, "I
along with the driver worked in the best interest of the bank on a verbal
commitment from him about not claiming any overtime. If under this
situation, the Zonal office feels that overtime needs to be paid, it must
be paid as the timings reported by the driver were correct. If Zonal office
feels that it should be recovered from my salary, they were still free to
do so."

I also wrote that one aspect should be kept in mind that avoiding
overtime would make the utilization of jeep ineffective and overtime
savings would deter all the managers from using jeep at all. The Jeep
would depreciate at the Headquarter branch. The loss on account of
delayed or no recovery would be many times more than the savings on
the overtime payment. Fortunately, the message got understood in the
right perspective and no orders for recovery of amount from my salary
were received.

I got a boost in my morale that when intentions are good and anything
done in the interest of the organization leads to some issues, the
authorities can be convinced with proper information of the
circumstances under which all that happened.

Insights from the episode

1. If we exhibit to borrower that we mean business, he will also turn
around and talk business.
2. If we work hard with sincerity of purpose, it never goes waste.
3. Don't fear questions, if you can justify your actions. Even if
questioned, it is a good opportunity to prove credibility.
4. The environment around us influences our thoughts and actions.
Claiming what is not due to you is poor work ethics.

— z —

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