ON AND ON... another month (Part 117g)
When I walked in
to work on Tuesday morning I saw a group gathered around Trish’s desk. I
had to wait a minute to get someone to tell me what was up. Cara was in
the hospital, supposedly beaten up by her husband. When the bank doors
opened the group had to disperse to go wait on the customers which gave
me a chance to talk with Trish. She wasn’t in the mood to talk much but
did add that it was bad enough that Cara didn’t want visitors, including
Trish herself who was her best friend. By 9:15am the ”word“ was out to
all the employees who, in turn, showed up at Trish’s desk for more
information. I’d not known anyone who’d gone through something like that
and was at a loss as to what to say or do. Hobie wasn’t much better.
The only insight to the situation came from Bret, who had known Cara’s
husband when he played football in high school, and said he knew he had a
temper.
As if that wasn’t enough of a shock, Pauline, the
switchboard operator stopped by my desk a little later to hand in her
resignation, effective Friday. This was another ”out of the blue“
situation. I knew that her husband was in some sort of difficulty in his
line of work but I’d chatted with her just before the weekend and she
seemed upbeat. I tried to get the reason but she declined to give a
direct answer. Now I had to find a replacement. Lynne, J J’s secretary,
was the fill in for Pauline for lunch, breaks and vacation so it wasn’t a
desperate situation. I knew from past experience that J J would
complain but I could handle that. What was important was just how
seriously hurt Cara was. The first news Trisha got was that Cara
wouldn’t need an operation. That pretty much gave us the magnitude of
her beating and was a mix of good and bad news. Being a believer in
omens, I started wondering what the third piece of bad news would be. I
didn’t have long to wait.
The bookkeeping machine that had
laughingly been called a computer by the first bank I worked for decided
to stop working... again. Robby, the service technician, gave me the
bad news that he had to order the same part from the factory that he’d
replaced the last time the machine went down. (There was a ”message“
there but, as you can imagine, it was ignored.) We’d be without it for
at least two days. The timing wasn’t quite as bad as the last time as
this was the slowest time for lobby traffic during the year. All I could
think of was Murphy’ Law... if something could go wrong, it would...
and it had. By the time I left for home I had a migraine.
Trish
pulled the applications file for me the first thing the next morning and
I picked out a couple who seemed to have some promise with one actually
having experience with a PBX system. Later she got word that Cara had
been released from the hospital and was staying with her parents. Along
that same line, when Hobie heard what had happened to her he contacted
the Board member who was an attorney and arranged for her to have
whatever legal assistance that was necessary. Both those items made me
feel a lot better about her situation.
Thursday had me set to do
the interviews for Pauline’s replacement. I don’t know what happened to
have both show up at the same time but Trish came over to tell me. She
had one of her smirky smiles on her face as she did. She apologized for
the mix up but then she bent down and whispered something in my ear. I
wasn’t expecting it and didn’t get the full meaning but did hear Bret’s
name mentioned. He was back by the drive up window so I was a bit
confused. She repeated it and what she told me was that one of the
applicants had been Bret’s girlfriend when they were in high school. She
told me to watch for his reaction when he discovered that she was here
and applying for a job. For some reason Trish thought that was funny. I
didn’t care as long as whoever I hired could do the job.
It
turned out that she wasn’t the first woman I talked with. In truth, that
lady didn’t ”light my fire“ although she had, at one time, worked as a
switchboard operator for the telephone company. It had been before she
was married and was quite a few years in the past. I told her that I had
more interviews and would be calling her in a few days. By the time I
was done with her Bret had come back to his desk. When Trish called for
the other applicant to come over she noticed Bret and started laughing.
As Trish led her to my desk she called out his name. The look on his
face was one of total shock. It had been worth witnessing. I was glad
there was finally something happening worth smiling about.
She
sat down at my desk and proceeded to explain what had just transpired.
Bret was looking at the two of us, still in disbelief, but didn’t say
anything. She went by the name of Netta and was from an old line local
family. After high school she’d gone to college for a year in the city
and had stayed there for a few years. Her mother had gotten very sick
and she returned home to be with her. After her mother’s passing she
decided to stay and not return to the city. Even though she’d never
operated a PBX, she’d worked for a couple of years as a receptionist and
handling phone calls for a large city based distribution company.
That’s what got my attention because statistics showed that over 40% of
bank customers made their first contact over the phone. It was my
thought that she’d handled a lot of calls and would be just what we
needed to replace Pauline. Not particularly good looking, she obviously
knew how to dress and how to make a good impression... because she did. I
took her upstairs to show her the PBX and let her watch how it worked.
When I asked if she thought she could handle it she just smiled. I liked
that. I hired her pretty much on the spot. When I asked when she could
start she told me ”immediately“. I was pleased with that answer because
it meant she’d have at least a day and a half to work with Pauline.
To be continued...
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