BACK TO REALITY... Same ole, same ole (Part 165q)

BACK TO REALITY… Same ole, same ole (Part 165q)

The next morning Elle was in a much better mood, thankfully. She said she’d given the names of the kids clothing stores to the other women and they were going to pursue it. Remembering my conversation with Judith at her boutique, she had said having kids clothing would bring in younger people who, while there, might peruse the adult clothing which would be where the money would be. I won’t say I felt optimistic but at least there was a plan. Before getting in my car I popped the garage door to take a look at just how many items they’d chosen and it was still a fair amount. It reminded me I needed to get to work on the signs the minister had requested.

I won’t say I was obsessed with seeing what Woody had chosen to wear. In both Laura’s and Joanie’s cases I’d been more involved and had seen some, if not all, of what they’d chosen. As soon as I walked in the door I forgot all about Woody and her clothes. Mike, the messenger/custodian told me that we had no electricity. No power meant that we couldn’t open as all the teller machines were powered by electricity. I was the most senior officer there at that moment and I’ll admit I didn’t have a clue as to what to do. Liz, the auditor, came through the door just minutes later and I called her over to my desk. We’d had a few occasions where we were without power before we’d switched over to the service bureau but had the ledger cards to work with. Now, all the records were kept by the computers at the data center. Knowing that we had to come up with something I had the idea that since the customer had a passbook the chances were close to 100% that the balances showing in them would be correct. With that number in hand we could at least offer some service for those that requested a withdrawal. I asked Liz if she would be satisfied with just the signed withdrawal slip as proof of the transaction. She, being ultra conservative hesitated and while she was contemplating her decision I saw the first customers walking into the lobby. Bret, Trish and Lorie were standing just behind Liz and I made the decision for her and told the three of them to let the tellers know what we were doing and to stay behind the teller counter to explain the situation. Ignoring Liz, I called the data center to find out how they handled situations like this within their own system. I remember the answer… “With difficulty…”.

I spent most of the first hour on the phone with them. I had Mike do a bit of investigation to see how serious the outage was. The simplest way to explain it was that the electric power company had split the downtown area into quadrants and it was the quadrant where we were located that had the problem. Their regional office was also located in the same quadrant which gave me perverse pleasure but also some real hope that the problem would be solved quickly. Almost all the customers were reasonable. That, and the fact that we were on the cusp of the busy period where few people were willing to make withdrawals and to lose accrued interest, made the situation tolerable. I don’t remember why Hobie was late that day but as soon as he arrived I briefed him on the situation. I tried to explain the procedures that the data center had given to me but Hobie didn’t understand and insisted upon calling himself.

As I’ve written in past posts, Hobie had moved from the area where Bret, Trish and I sat to the space under the stairs to the second floor. There had been a number of cases where female employees had unwittingly come down the stairs and not realized the if someone were standing in front of Hobie’s desk there was a distinct possibility and getting an upskirt peek. I was in that position when the “upstairs Sandy”, J J’s recent hire, came down the stairs. I’ve explained that she was not all that attractive but… she was female… so when I saw the form above me I looked up. The first thing I saw were two legs. I don’t remember if I saw that she wasn’t wearing a slip first or her panties. I must have had at least 10 seconds of uninterrupted viewing before she reached a level on the stairs that the hem of her skirt blocked me from seeing anything. What was sort of unbelievable was that even when she reached the bottom of the stairs she was oblivious to the fact that I was there. Hobie brought me out of my trance when he said that he still didn’t understand the process but the data center would send someone out to oversee it once we had our lights back up. As he was telling me this I was still following “upstairs Sandy” out of the corner of my eyes as she headed for the mortgage teller at the far end of the teller line.

I checked with Lorie to see how the tellers were handling the situation. It was then that I realized that the drive-up window was inoperable. I’d never given it a thought so I headed in that direction. Peggy and Woody were sitting at a table and were working on the school savings program. Peggy had taken it upon herself to get Woody involved in it even though the prime focus was to teach her all the nuances of being a teller. When I approached them I still wasn’t looking at what Woody was wearing but was thinking of how proud of Peggy I was for taking that initiative rather than to just sit around to wait for the lights to come back on. I couldn’t help but to think of how Peggy had grown as a person since she’d started. It also triggered something that Woody had said when I dropped her off the previous afternoon. She had used the word  “special” in referring to Peggy but I hadn’t taken the time to ask why. When I looked at Woody I could see she was wearing a plaid skirt with more blue in it than the traditional colors. I think she was wearing a pale blue blouse to go with it. I spoke to them collectively so as not to single Woody out but used the opportunity to praise Peggy for getting Woody involved in the school savings program. In leaving them I remember wondering just how short her skirt was.

A cheer went up when the lights went back on. Fortunately, it had been a sunny day so working without lights wasn’t all that bad. Another call went in to the data center to let them know we had power and to take them upon their offer to send someone out to guide us on the reentry procedure for the transactions that had been completed during the outage. I was told someone would be there at 9am. I didn’t ask who it would be because it didn’t matter as long as they knew what they were doing. An effort was made to do something of ‘proof’ to make sure all the debits equalled the credits. I left that up to Liz and Laura to handle. That was when I finally got a good look at Woody’s skirt and I have to tell you I was a bit surprised. It was at least two inches above her knees.The skirt she’d worn every day since I’d first seen her was knee length and really didn’t do anything for her except make her look older than she was. Seeing her dressed in the shorter, more colorful skirt made her look like the young girl she was.. I was looking forward to seeing her progress.

To be continued…