LIFE GOES ON... and on... (Part 171q)

LIFE GOES ON… and on… (Part 171q)

The new teller trainee, Dotty, was assigned to Cara for her training. That turned out to be a mistake. Trish was opposed to hiring her and, if you remember, Trish’s best friend was Cara. Added to that was the two of them had been members of the old Polish Mafia. It was Joanie, the receptionist, whose desk was right next to Cara’s teller station who brought it to my attention. I’m not going to deny that Dotty exuded sophistication and that was certainly missing among most of our staff. I was the first college graduate hired by the bank and that was only 3 1/2 years earlier. J J soon followed but there had been no females except for one young woman I’d hired knowing she was only going to be with us for about a year. She had a bit of a ‘rough patch’ after starting because of it but her goal wasn’t to make friends but to make money while waiting for her husband to finish his tour of duty at the Air Force base located just down the road. Remembering back to when she was being trained I had to keep reminding her of that and it worked. But this was different. Dotty didn’t have a time frame within which to work. I needed to put an end to the problem before loosing her.

Help came form an unexpected source… Hobie. Hobie had shown what I felt had been favoritism towards Lorie right from the time I started with the bank. It came to a head when I got permission to create a new position… chief clerk… to oversee the daily work of the tellers. It should’ve fallen to the head teller, Leticia, but she’d been promoted to the position only because she’d worked at the bank for over 25 years and the Trustees liked her. She wasn’t capable of supervising or decision making and I needed someone in that role. I wanted to promote Gina, a very good teller, who I felt was perfect for the job. But, Hobie wouldn’t let me, insisting that Lorie get the position. As it turned out she’d done a very good job even though she’d never worked as a teller or had any supervisory experience. Ironically, she was also a member of the old Polish Mafia. For some reason Hobie had had a number of conversations with Dotty and it was obvious to me that he liked her. Knowing his feelings towards Lorie I decided to approach him to speak to Lorie about the situation. He was surprised and told me that Dotty hadn’t complained so I had to explain how I’d found out. I knew I was taking a chance and could possibly make it worse for Dotty and told him of my concern. He assured me it wouldn’t be a problem. I sure hoped he was right.

Of all the scenarios I’d envisioned I hadn’t come up with the one that actually took place. I fully expected to see Lorie headed for Hobie’s area but she stayed at her desk. What I saw was Hobie walk up to Cara’s window and then saw Dotty leave the window and go with Hobie over to his desk. Of course I wasn’t a party to what was said and when I saw Dotty returning she was smiling. I was puzzled. There was no way I was going to say anything to her and thought about asking Hobie how it had gone but decided against it. The best I could do was just observe how Dotty and Cara got along. But, before I could see anything they both disappeared, heading for the back work area. I came up with an excuse to go into the work area expecting to see them talking with Lorie. But… there was no sign of either of them. Now I was completely ‘lost’ as to what was going on.

What I’m going to write here is to say that it turned out to be a valuable lesson for me. It took some time but I was able to find out that Hobie had told Dotty to take her concerns right to the source… Cara. However, what he also did was to give Dotty a brief education on the Polish way of life, at least in our geographic area, explaining that females were held back from college to ‘help out at home (or on the farm)’. He pretty much told her that what she was experiencing was a form of jealousy on the part of Cara and the best way to counter it was to tell Cara she was assigned her because she was the best teller at the bank. It worked… at least as far as Cara was concerned.

Hobie also told Dotty that it was me that had brought the situation to his attention. As I stated in the paragraph above, it took some time for it all to come out… and it was quite by accident. As you know one of my interests had always been cars. Dotty, like all the regular employees, would leave at 5pm. One night not long after the above took place, she’d stayed late to go over some things with Lorie before she was given her own cash box. When she finally left she found her car wouldn’t start and when she got back to the bank Mike had left the door to do his day ending chores. I heard the rapping on the back door and when I got there saw Dotty looking absolutely distraught.

Dotty had walked to her car with Moira. Moira was somewhat similar in age to Dotty and it was the first time they’d met. When Dotty’s car didn’t stop Moira still hadn’t gotten to her car and turned around to check on her. Moira certainly knew of my interest in cars since I’d arranged to get her’s back up and running so suggested Dotty go back to see if I could help her. I had jumper cables so I drove her back to her car. On the way she thanked me but didn’t stop there as she proceeded to tell me of the praise Moira had heaped one for having helped her. At her car she wanted to know more about me. I definitely remember looking at my watch and noted that I would be getting home after 6pm. I really didn’t want to go that route but I also didn’t want to shut her off. I tried to explain my dilemma and she accepted it but with a promise from me that we’d have a conversation and share some information about each others backgrounds. I got her car started and as she drove away I had the definite feeling that this was a special person. Not in the same sense that Mae was but, in my mind, she was already ‘a keeper’ and I’d need to keep my eyes on her.

The next day she dropped a note on my desk right after arriving. She wanted to go to lunch with me to take me up on my “promise” from the prior afternoon. It wasn’t that I was overly busy but more what might be made of it by others like Bret and Trish that I hesitated. When I didn’t respond by the time she was leaving for lunch I saw her drop another note on my desk. Reading it, she’d posted that she was going to the diner on the round about just down the street. That was all that the note contained. I don’t know how long it was before I got up and headed for my car even though the diner was within walking distance.

To be continued…