SETTLING IN... at work (Part 107h)

Trish got to work filling in all the info on the employee roster and when she finished showed it to me. I was pleased. We were both looking at it when Hobie walked by and Trish called him over to see the finished product. It was easy to see he liked what he saw and asked if we were done with it and, if so could he take it to peruse more closely. Of course we said ”yes“. His desk was right behind mine so after a few minutes I turned and asked him if I could ask him a question concerning it. He nodded affirmatively and that gave me the opportunity that I needed. I got up and walked around behind him and flipped over a few pages and pointed to the name of the lady who had been there over ten years. He said he was familiar with her so I then flipped to another page and pointed to the lady who’d been there but five years and was her subordinate. and he said he knew who she was. At this point I was almost shaking but I bluntly asked why their salaries were so close. He didn’t say anything but flipped back to the first page. Then he turned and looked at me and said he didn’t know the answer.

Long story short... I showed him some others that weren’t nearly as bad but I ended up asking if it wouldn’t be wise to create salary ranges for each position. The County did and it made it pretty easy to track salary increases. He didn’t answer me but asked a question... how as I coming on the job description project.  I told him where I stood on it and he then said that when it was done that he’d take up the other issue, salary ranges. I’ll tell you this... I was perspiring as much as if I’d run a mile in my suit in 90 degree weather.

The ad that had been run to stimulate activity at the drive up window seemed to have worked worked. Traffic was no where near the numbers of customers that each teller handled in the lobby but by the end of the first month we were averaging something about 20 per day. As we approached the end of May it was up to almost 30 and Corinne and Katie were working well together. The bank had been running a program with the local schools to encourage kids to save money. On Tuesdays Hank, the messenger custodian, would go to each school and collect the deposits and then they were handed out to each teller to process. They hated it because it was almost always pennies, nickels and dimes and would often lead to errors when it came time for them to do their ”proof“ at the end of the day. Katie was a quick learner and it was obvious to both Bret and me that she could handle more than she was doing. We decided that she would be the one to open each deposit envelope and confirm the amounts and then Corinne would do the actual posting in the kids passbooks. The only place we had for her to do this was a table in the middle of the work area. From Bret’s desk he could see her clearly. On the very first day, not long after she started, Bret whispered kind of anxiously for me to look over his shoulder. I stood up and as I looked at Katie I could see the magic triangle.  For some reason she just felt comfortable when seated, to spread her knees apart. Granted, they were under the table, but from the angle that we were at  there was enough light to know what we were looking at. Bret finally turned and looked at me with a big cheshire cat grin on his face. However, I still wasn’t comfortable enough to discuss panty peeks with him remembering that I’d bought his wife panties back when she was living at my grandfather’s house.

The first time the new school savings processing was tried the other tellers literally cheered. Cara came up to me and told me that school savings was the biggest pain in the butt that the tellers had to deal with. I chalked it up as another ”win“ on my side of the ledger, as far as the Polish Mafia went.

Because of the response to the drive up ad, Bert, J J’s immediate boss and the mortgage officer, came up with the idea of running an ad featuring J J as the new loan officer. There was no denying that he projected a friendly image and Bert wanted to capitalize on it. The PR piece that had been run right after he started generated some interest but it didn’t have his picture in it. Bert wanted to promote him as a friendly, caring person that would listen to what the customer wanted. Bert told me to get on it right away. This whole advertising thing was new to me and, although it meant getting to see Amy again, I wasn’t sure that it was a good idea. I asked Hobie who had handled advertising in the past and Chuck’s name came up again.  


I tried my best to short circuit Amy by specifically asking for her father. Unfortunately, he wasn’t there. Time was of the essence as there was only the rest of the day and all of the next day to not only create the ad but to have a picture taken of J J as well. With Elle’s warning about Amy on my mind I agreed to come over to the office to get the project started. To be truthful, I did have mixed emotions because she wasn’t all that hard to look at and, if she was willing to give ”free shows”, who was I to turn them down. It was what might come up behind the shows that I had to be concerned about.

As I walked into the office I was half praying that her grandfather was in his office. I figured that if he was she might not get as risque. He wasn’t. She was obviously waiting for me because when I walked up to her desk with some rough “copy” that Bert and J J had worked up she was sitting on her leg... and with the short skirt she was wearing drawn up towards her waist... I tried to be as business like as I could emphasizing how important it was to make the next issue of the local paper. All the while  was talking my eyes kept going back to her midsection and the peek of white. Finally I turned and walked back from the desk and, as sternly as I could, asked when her father would be back. She didn’t answer but turned in her chair and took a normal position. She then made a phone call and, while still on the phone, looked at me and told me that he’d call me at the bank within the hour. I thanked her and, somewhat relieved, headed back to the bank. As I walked back I remembered back to my experience with the track photographer back when I started working with the trotting horses. It made me wonder just what made these girls tick.

To be continued...