Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (54 page)

Most bank tellers are women because of the pay scale. It’s assumed that women are paid a little bit lower than men. (Laughs.) There are only two men that work in the area, aside from my supervisor. The head teller, who’s been there for years and years and years, and a young fella in charge of all the silver. For most men it’s a job that doesn’t offer that much kind of advancement. You’d have to be the type that would really just enjoy sittin’ back and doing the same thing over and over again. A transaction is a transaction is a transaction.

Some days, when you’re aggravated about something, you carry it after you leave the job. Certain people are bad days. (Laughs.) The type of person who will walk in and says, “My car’s double-parked outside. Would you hurry up, lady? I haven’t got time to waste around here.” And you go—“What???” You want to say, “Hey, why did you double-park your car? So now you’re gonna blame me if you get a ticket, ’cause you were dumb enough to leave it there?” But you can’t. That’s the one hassle. You can’t say anything back. The customer’s always right.

Certain people who are having a bad day themselves feel they must take it out on you: “What are you doing there?” “Why are you checking that?” “Why did you have to do that?” You calmly try and explain to them, “That’s what’s required.” You can’t please ’em. They make sure you’re in as nasty a mood as they are. (Laughs.)

We have quite a bit of talk during coffee breaks. There’s speculation: “Do you think this is what happened?” There was a girl who was let go this week. Nobody was told as to the why or wherefore. Nobody really still knows. They keep coming through the bank saying, “We don’t want rumors started about such-and-such.” But they don’t explain it. She doesn’t exist any more totally. She’s no longer here.

The last place I worked for, I was let go. I told the people I worked with, “If anybody asks, tell them I got fired and give them my phone number.” One of my friends stopped by and asked where I was at. They said, “She’s no longer with us.” That’s all. I vanished.

When it happened, it was such an abrupt thing. I hadn’t really expected it. I was supposed to be an example so that these things wouldn’t occur any more. One of the factors was a man I wasn’t getting along with. He worked out at the desk. He was—how can I put it?—he was a very handsy person. He was that way towards everybody. I didn’t like it. He’d always pick out a time when you were balancing or you were trying to figure something out. You didn’t want to be interrupted. At other times, you wouldn’t mind, you’d laugh it off.

The reason I was given for being fired was that I was absent too much and had been tardy too often. But I think there was really another reason. The girl who was supervisor was leaving and I was next in seniority. I just don’t think they were going to let me go further.

With her the job was everything, it was her whole life. She would stay there till seven in the evening if something went wrong, and come in on Saturdays if they asked her to. When I was done—I’m sorry, I was done for the day.

And I was very open about being different. It started when one of the girls had brought in a little sticker-thing for Valentine’s Day. I thought they were cute. So I had just taken a couple of hearts out of one and put it on my name sign on the window, ‘cause I liked it. There was never anything really said except “How come that’s there?” And I said, “ ’Cause I like it.” A lot of customers’d come in and say, “Wow! She had hearts on her window, she must be a nice girl.” It gave them an opportunity to have something to say instead of just feeling they didn’t know you and didn’t quite know what to say. I think the bank didn’t care for that too much. They want everybody to be pretty much the same, kind of conservative, fitting into the norm. I think that was the real reason I was let go.

I think a lot of places don’t want people to be people. I think they want you to almost be the machines they’re working with. They just want to dehumanize you. Just like when you walk in in the morning, you put the switch on and here you are: “I am a robot. This is what I do. Good morning. How are you? May I help you?” I hate having to deal with people like that.

In some way, I feel my job’s important. Especially when you work with people who are trying to save money. It’s gratifying for them when they give you the stuff and you mark in their book and there it is—wow! I’ve accomplished this. And you say, “I’m glad to see you again. You’re really doing well.” Most of these people here work in restaurants downtown and are secretaries. Lower middle class and a lot of blacks come in this bank. They’re a lot more friendly than some of your other people, who are so busy trying to impress one another.

They don’t even recognize you. It’s like I’m almost being treated as a machine. They don’t have time to bother. After all, you’re just a peon. I had a black man come up to my window and say, “It’s really nice to see somebody working in a place like this who’s even halfway relevant.” And I thought—wow! (Laughs.) I had my hair up like in little ponytails on the side and just had a pullover sweater and a skirt on and wasn’t really dressed up. I was very taken aback by it. It’s the first compliment I had in a long time. It’s nice to be recognized. Most places, it’s your full name on the window. Some places just have Miss or Mrs. So-and-so. I prefer giving my whole name so people can call me Nancy. (Laughs.) They feel a little more comfortable. Certain officers you refer to by their first names. Other people you don’t. Some people you would feel kind of weird saying, “Hey, Charlie, would you come over here and do this for me?” Other people you’d feel strange calling them by their proper name. All men who sit at the desk in the office you refer to as Mister. Okay, he’s a vice president, he must be called Mr. So-and-so. Whereas you’re just a teller. Therefore he can call you by your first name. Smaller banks tend to be more friendly and open.

When I tell people at a party I work for a bank, most of them get interested. They say, “What do you do?” I say, “I’m a teller.” They say, “Oh, hmm, okay,” and walk away. I remember getting into a discussion with one person about the war. We were disagreeing. He was for it. I wasn’t getting angry because I thought he has his right to his point of view. But the man couldn’t recognize that I had the right to mine. The thing finally was thrown at me: “What do you mean saying that? After all, who are you? I own my own business, you just work in a crummy bank.” It doesn’t compute. Like, unless you’re capable of making it in the business world, you don’t have a right to an opinion. (Laughs.)

My job doesn’t have prestige. It’s a service job. Whether you’re a waitress, salesperson, anything like that—working directly for the public—it’s not quite looked on as being prestigious. You are there to serve them. They are not there to serve you. Like a housemaid or a servant.

One of the girls said, “People who go through four years of college should have it recognized that they have achieved something.” A man said, “Don’t you think someone who becomes an auto mechanic and is good at it should also be recognized? He’s a specialist, too, like the man who goes to be a doctor.” Yet he’s not thought of that way. What difference? It’s a shame that people aren’t looked at as each job being special unto itself. I can’t work on a car, yet I see people who can do it beautifully. Like they have such a feel for it. Some people can write books, other people can do marvelous things in other ways . . .

I usually say I’m an accountant. Most people think it’s somebody who sits there with a green eyeshade and his sleeves rolled up with a garter, poring over books, adding things—with glasses. (Laughs.) I suppose a certified public accountant has status. It doesn’t mean much to me. Do I like the job or don’t I? That’s important.

 

 

The company I work for doesn’t make a product. We provide a service. Our service is auditing. We are usually hired by stockholders or the board of directors. We will certify whether a company’s financial statement is correct. They’ll say, “This is what we did last year. We made X amount of dollars.” We will come in to examine the books and say, “Yes, they did.”

We’re looking for things that didn’t go out the door the wrong way. Our clients could say, “We have a million dollars in accounts receivable.” We make sure that they do, in fact, have a million dollars and not a thousand. We ask the people who owe the money, “Do you, in fact, owe our client two thousand dollars as of this date?” We do it on a spot check basis. Some companies have five thousand individual accounts receivable. We’ll maybe test a hundred.

We’re also looking for things such as floating of cash. If a company writes a check one day and deposits money the next day, it tells you something of its solvency. We look for transfers between accounts to make sure they’re not floating these things—a hundred thousand dollars they keep working back and forth between two banks. (Laughs.)

We work with figures, but we have to keep in mind what’s behind those figures. What bugs me about people in my work is that they get too wrapped up in numbers. To them a financial statement is the end. To me, it’s a tool used by management or stockholders.

We have a computer. We call it Audex. It has taken the detail drudgery out of accounting. I use things that come out of the computer in my everyday work. An accountant will prepare things for keypunching. A girl will keypunch and it will go into the monster. That’s what we call it. (Laughs.) You still have to audit what comes out of the computer. I work with pencils. We all do. I think that’s ’cause we make so many mistakes. (Laughs.)

You’re an auditor. The term scares people. They believe you’re there to see if they’re stealing nickels and dimes out of petty cash. We’re not concerned with that. But people have that image of us. They think we’re there to spy on them. What we’re really doing is making sure things are reported correctly. I don’t care if somebody’s stealing money as long as he reports it. (Laughs.)

People look at you with fear and suspicion. The girl who does accounts receivable never saw an auditor before. The comptroller knows why you’re there and he’ll cooperate. But it’s the guy down the line who is not sure and worries. You ask him a lot of questions. What does he do? How does he do it? Are you after his job? Are you trying to get him fired? He’s not very friendly.

We’re supposed to be independent. We’re supposed to certify their books are correct. We’ll certify this to the Securities Exchange Commission, to the stockholders, to the banks. They’ll all use our financial statements. But if we slight the company—if I find something that’s going to take away five hundred thousand dollars of income this year—they may not hire us back next year.

I’m not involved in keeping clients or getting them. That’s the responsibility of the manager or the partner. I’m almost at the bottom of the heap. I’m the top class of assistant. There are five levels. I’m a staff assistant. Above me is senior. Senior’s in charge of the job, out in the field with the client. The next level is manager. He has over-all responsibility for the client. He’s in charge of billing. The next step is partner. That’s tops. He has an interest in the company. Our owners are called partners. They have final responsibility. The partner decides whether this five hundred thousand dollars is going to go or stay on the books.

There are gray areas. Say I saw that five hundred thousand dollars as a bad debt. The client may say, “Oh, the guy’s good for it. He’s going to pay.” You say, “He hasn’t paid you anything for the past six months. He declared bankruptcy yesterday. How can you say he’s gonna pay?” Your client says, “He’s reorganizing and he gonna get the money.” You’ve got two ways of looking at this. The guy’s able to pay or he’s not. Somebody’s gotta make a decision. Are we gonna allow you to show this receivable or are we gonna make you write it off? We usually compromise. We try to work out something in-between. The company knows more about it than we do, right? But we do have to issue an independent report. Anyway, I’m not a partner who makes those decisions. (Laughs.)

I think I’ll leave before I get there. Many people in our firm don’t plan on sticking around. The pressure. The constant rush to get things done. Since I’ve been here, two people have had nervous breakdowns. I have three bosses on any job, but I don’t know who’s my boss next week. I might be working for somebody else.

Our firm has a philosophy of progress, up or out. I started three years ago. If that second year I didn’t move from SA–3, staff assistant, to SA–4, I’d be out. Last June I was SA–4. If I hadn’t moved to SA–5, I’d be out. Next year if I don’t move to senior, I’ll be out. When I make senior I’ll be Senior-4. The following year, Senior–2. Then Senior–3, Then manager—or out. By the time I’m thirty-four or so, I’m a partner or I’m out.

When a partner reaches fifty-five he no longer has direct client responsibility. He doesn’t move out, because he’s now part owner of the company. He’s in an advisory capacity. They’re not retired. They’re just—just doing research. I’m not saying this is good or bad. This is just how it is.

It’s a very young field. You have a lot of them at the bottom to do the footwork. Then it pyramids and you don’t need so many up there. Most of the people they get are just out of college. I can’t label them—the range is broad—but I’d guess most of them are conservative. Politics is hardly discussed.

Fifteen years ago, public accountants wore white shirts. You had to wear a hat, so you could convey a conservative image. When I was in college the big joke was: If you’re going to work for a public accounting firm, make sure you buy a good supply of white shirts and a hat. They’ve gotten away from that since. We have guys with long hair. But they do catch more static than somebody in another business. And now we have women. There are several female assistants and seniors. There’s one woman manager. We have no female partners.