One Year Since Getting Fired

(Once again, names of company and managers have been removed or changed for privacy reasons).

By the time this post gets published, it will have been one year since I got fired from my job. I remember when I first heard the news, I was shocked and disappointed because I completely blew it. Then as time went on, I realized that it wasn’t all that bad, and I was better off without it. Sure, I was unemployed for a long time and had difficulty finding a job, but things are starting to look up now that I found a new one. I know I already made a post about how I got fired. However, there were some things I did not say that I will cover in this post so, consider this part two of how I got fired. I won’t be recapping all the details that led up to my termination, so go back and read that post before reading this one.

Once again, I worked at a bank for my first job out of college. I thought this was going to be a fulfilling job, but it turned out to be very stressful and took a toll on my mental health. Many factors led to this including, long work hours, unsupportive managers, and dealing with rude customers (that I got blamed for). I tried to stick it out for as long as a could, but that didn’t end up working out as I obviously got fired. It could not have happened at a worser time considering it was during the holidays with a couple weeks before Christmas. Luckily, I wasn’t on planning on seeing anyone considering I just became a big disappointment to them. What I didn’t know at the time was that I was going to be unemployed for a long time due to the difficulty of the job search. Fortunately, I did other things besides job searching to keep myself occupied such as getting a digital marketing certificate, creating this blog, and relearning Excel concepts.

Before I go any further, I would like to share a secret about the company. In fact, all employees are required to not tell customers about this, or else they get confused or suspicious. However, I am about to reveal it since it was an important factor to why this job can be difficult at times. I am not sure if other banks follow these guidelines or something similar, so if you are a current/former employee of a bank you might understand what I am talking about. So, every customer’s bank account had a number, but more like a score, assigned to it. This score is dependent either on the amount of money in their account or the type of account (I am not too sure about this). Each employee that worked at a teller window was given a sheet with the scores that referenced a certain dollar amount. That meant that was the amount we can approve based on the score, and this was for check deposits. If the deposit amount was beyond our limit based on the score, then we had to get managers' approval before processing the transaction. However, we had to come up with a story to persuade the managers enough before getting approval. Therefore, we had to do a little research on a separate program that keeps track of all the customer’s electronic transactions.

We also ask the customer questions about their deposit such as, if they received the check before in a specific amount, why they received it, and if they needed the funds right away. After that, the manager decides on if the deposit should be processed, or if it should be put on a hold. When a check is placed on hold, that means it will take a few days for that deposit to go into your bank account because we need to wait for the funds to come in. Another reason why we might put your check on hold is because the amount exceeds the amount of money in the account. That is why we sometimes ask questions about your deposit prior to processing the transaction because we want to protect your account. If we don’t, then you risk losing your account and the compliance is on us. As you can see, this process was very tedious and frustrating to me as it took a lot of effort to persuade my managers to approve the check(s). Most of the time, I felt anxious confronting them about it because if I wasn’t able to answer any of their questions, they would get pissed at me. All I wanted was to process the deposits quickly so I didn't have to keep the customer waiting, but I couldn’t rush it or else I get into big trouble. I also felt uncomfortable asking the customers questions about their check, worrying they would ask why, but I couldn’t reveal them the secret because it was against company policy.

Even though getting fired was mostly caused by the terrible work environment, I have to confess that I had a part in it all because of a big mistake I made. Back to putting checks on hold, I had a good understanding when the accountholder was present, but I wasn’t sure what to do when they weren't. There was this one customer who wanted to deposit a check into her husband’s account. The only problem was that the check amount exceeded the account’s current amount, plus her husband was not present. I couldn’t tell her that the check needed to be put on hold because her name was not on the account. This is when there was some miscommunication between me and the assistant manager about how to process the transaction properly which resulted in me not depositing the check. The next day I was off, and I spent the entirety of it worrying about that check and confronting my manager about it. Then when I came back the next day, I was so anxious that I ended up avoiding the situation and deposited the check incorrectly. Unfortunately, my manager eventually found out; I tried to apologize but they wouldn’t accept it because apparently, I violated some compliance rules. I regret taking such action even it did involve some miscommunication, but sometimes you have to stand up and admit your mistakes, even if you have to face the consequences. The week after I made it up by learning from that mistake with a different customer, and followed the right procedure. However, they never let me forget it because I gotten a written warning for it.

Ever since “Sarah” came into my branch, they were constantly given me written warnings for my poor job performance (even though most of it was the customers’ fault). Plus, they also made me have daily debriefs almost every week where we discussed my latest performance and go over the “homework” they “assigned” me. There are a couple things wrong in this scenario that I didn’t spot then, but have only discovered recently. Also, this might save you from being stuck in a toxic work environment like I was. One: When I was getting written warnings, it was similar to being put on a performance improvement plan, or PIP. I also heard somewhere that getting put on a PIP is the manager’s way of “quiet firing” (when the employer does the bare minimum to get rid of its employees), and that it was also a sign to look for another job. I said this in my other post, but I should have started looking for another job when things were getting so bad, so I could just resign and be all set, but that didn’t happen. Another sign that I was about to be fired but did not see earlier was that the day before, they placed me at a teller window so they could watch me the entire shift. When I did something wrong, they would straight up bully me, and boy was I bullied a lot that day.

Two: I was the only employee that was getting weekly debriefs, and no one else. I never looked forward to these meetings because they were so stressful, and never once did I receive any compliments from Sarah. I should have known that those weekly debriefs was a sign of micromanagement (that is when bosses are excessively watching employees). Sarah also showed other signs of micromanagement such as, blaming me when the line got too long all because a customer was being difficult to me, blaming me for minor things like that one time when they thought I took their pen, but I didn’t. They also made me send screenshots of every single evidence of the customer’s account prior to approval because one time they said they didn’t trust me after “screwing up” so many times, and they kept telling me to hurry up whenever I had to go to them to get approval. That would explain why they were being such as a bully, I mean they were a combination of Ms. Hannigan from Annie and Mr. Krabs from Spongebob along with having the personality of my third-grade teacher. I don’t understand how they got to be a manager when they obviously don’t have the qualities of a good leader. Leaders are supposed to guide and support their team, not push them around and make them feel worthless. I wonder if there were other employees that worked for Sarah had a similar experience just so I don’t feel bad about myself. I also tried reporting this issue to HR, but they only said that other employees had similar issues, and that is how some managers usually act. Once again, they weren’t able to resolve the issue, and what they said to me was similar to the saying, “boys will be boys.”

The one thing that Sarah taught me was something I should have done from the first day on the job which was to openly communicate. I noticed when I was training for a few days that I was mostly quiet since I really didn’t know what to do. I think that is what caused me to make so many mistakes when I started working on the teller line. The way that Sarah told me to communicate more was to “raise my hand” so they know when I need help. The problem was that I didn’t know what I needed help on because I thought most of the procedures were self-explanatory once I got used to them. To be honest though, I really wish they didn’t use the term “raise my hand” because that reminded of being back in school as a student. I AM NOT a student, I am a working professional that is developing their skills in the workforce. I felt like Sarah was treating me like a kid when they used that type of language. They also used the term “homework” when I was assigned tasks of learning the different types of products the bank offered and present my “research” to them at the debriefings. Again, I am at a job, not a school; I know that I am learning on the job, but I am learning as a professional. Also, there was one time where I did “raise my hand” to them when I needed help on a transaction I never did, but they refused when I couldn’t answer how to do it. They assumed that I have been here for a while, and I should know how to do it, but I wasn’t here for a long time, so that explained why.

Another issue I had with my managers which was unrelated to my job performance, but still a big issue to me working at a bank was that both of them vaped. Now, this might not be a big deal for you, but let me explain why it was a problem. Prior to working at the bank, all new employees are required to do a drug test. That wasn’t a problem because working at a bank involves handling money, and you don’t want to be intoxicated while doing so. I also read in the employee manual that they can smoke/vape at least 20ft outside of the company. My managers were vaping, but they did it close to the vicinity of the bank and even took unscheduled breaks to do such activity. It was a problem to me because why are the managers allowed to take unscheduled breaks, but the rest of us can’t? Also, you are vaping so close to the bank that customers can actually see you when they go in and out. Now, I am going to sound like one of those school counselors, but if you work at a bank, you shouldn’t be smoking/vaping at all. It impacts your judgement, and you’re consuming toxic substances like metals in your lungs. The sad thing about all of this is that my managers have kids, so they are being bad role models for them by vaping while working. They didn’t even conceal their vaping devices because I saw one of them have it out in the manager’s office. One of them even said they wished they could vape in here, but they would set the fire alarms off. And I could smell Sarah’s breath of the e-cig smoke when they returned from vaping when they were very close to me. This wasn’t a problem to the rest of my coworkers because of couple of them also vaped. I tried bringing the issue up to HR, but I told them to completely disregard it because I was afraid my managers would blame me if they got caught.

After getting fired from my job, I did have a lot of time to reflect on the overall work experience. I did learn a lot of things from that job that I could apply in my future career. The most important thing I learned is that this isn’t the type of job I don’t want, and the type of manager I don’t want to work for. It was a toxic working environment where I wasn’t valued, and my managers were unsupportive at times. It was also very stressful, and I had a hard time trying to request days off. They would even schedule me to work an entire week through Saturday with no day off in between. Every day I would come home and I would feel very tired after working a long day only to wake up early and do it all over again. I could say that getting fired was a blessing in disguise because it gave me time to take care of myself from all the stress I endured. Plus, this blog would not exist if I hadn’t gotten fired. I realized after that all of this, I am better off without the company. They probably don’t even remember me, and I will be okay with that. I don’t even want to set foot into the bank as a customer because my managers and coworkers will see me and remember that I was the one who “screwed up.” Like I said earlier, things are starting to look up now that I have a new job, and I am proud that I can still try to succeed after getting fired. Even some of the famous celebrities got fired from jobs, and still come back strong. Now I just hope that this new job does not end up like my old job, but still gives me purpose. I can now move on with my career, and continue to work on developing my skills.