Wednesday Schmednesday!

It's Wed. and I've spent the last several days at home, since last Thurs., which would normally be a nice thing; however, the reason for my staying home is because I have been placed on (paid) administrative leave, along with a co-worker, while the bank we work for conducts an investigation. Did we embezzle money? Did we compromise customer's accounts? Did we break into the safe deposit boxes and steal the customer's jewels and money? HELL no! What is the big sin we have been accused of? We have been accused of entering sales referrals that weren't rightfully ours into the system so we would get credit for them.

For those who don't know, banking has evolved into quite the cutthroat business of SALES...meaning, you, the poor innocent customer coming in on your lunch hour to deposit your check, make a car payment, etc., are to be bombarded with sales pitches "Would you like to apply for a credit card? What do you mean you don't need any more credit cards? Well how about a personal line of credit? What about a home equity? I see you don't have a savings (checking, car loan, CD, insert whatever) with us, let's get you started on one today! Oh, you don't have time? I'll have a banker call you! Oh, you'd rather not? Well, ok..." And if we, the paean bank employees do NOT succeed in bullying a large percentage of customers into signing up for something, or at least getting their permission to have someone call them to follow-up and try to sell them something, well, we face the pleasant prospect of having our manager belittle us and tell us how disappointed they are, along with the prospect down the road of losing our jobs if we don't meet our NUMBERS.

If we do get the customer to sign up for something, then we get credit for a "sales referral". We are given a minimum of 81 to meet per quarter, but of course there's a catch: for each customer, we can get a maximum of THREE credits, sooooo, if they actually end up opening a dozen different accounts, we only get credit for three. Yes, that's right folks-THREE. Since many people do end up signing on for more than three, we lose out and it's even more difficult to meet the requirements.

Anyway, they (the powers that be) believe that myself and my coworker have entered some referrals in which we did not actually TALK to the customer (it counts as a valid referral only if you actually spoke to the customer and convinced them to open an account). This supposedly took place in December. The customers in question did open accounts, but the fact that they all work for the same employer has made Big Brother suspicious. We have allegedly violated the company's precious "code of ethics". They believe that we did not talk to the customers, and that in fact we somehow obtained the customer information (for tracking purposes) in some underhanded manner. This is almost hilarious for 2 reasons:

1.) I wouldn't know how to get the information
2.) I am not a salesperson by nature-it's like nail on a chalkboard to me-and have not been meeting the minimum numbers lately, which leads to:
3.) Wouldn't you think that my numbers would be much higher, or at least at the minimum requirement? Why would I risk my job when fudging sales referral numbers would not even be close to helping me make the minimum???!!!

I have heard nothing from my employer as of today, so if they wanna pay me to stay at home, FINE. Plus, I had an interview yesterday and was offered a job today for MORE MONEY and it does NOT involve sales, YAY! They have to do their background check and all that so hopefully I start around the 25th. I am not saying anything to my current employer. If they wanna pay me to sit around, fine.


If they call me back to work, I'll act like everything is fine till all is finalized with the new job; if they DON'T call me back and just let me go at the end of this top-secret investigation (ooooh, BIG.SCARY.INVESTIGATION!) then at least I already have something lined up-and, if for some reason that doesn't work out, I'll find something else. So there!