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Thus started my banking career!

Discussion in 'Cheeniya's Senile Ramblings' started by Cheeniya, Oct 7, 2015.

  1. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Most of you who are Wodehouse aficionados in this community would have known that he was working in Hongkong and Shanghai Bank before he started wielding his mighty pen. That brief experience must have stood him in good stead when he wrote the novel ‘Psmith in the city’. Not that he would have required anything to stand him in good or bad stead to write his novels but when it came to writing a story set against the backdrop of a Bank, some insider information would certainly come handy. Wodehouse’s description of the goings on in the dispatch department of New Asiatic Bank was something that a customer of the Bank transacting his business from across the counter could hardly become privy to. You have to be there on the spot to be able to say anything about the working of the dispatch section. Just read this:
    “The postage department was one of the last to be freed from duty. This was due to the inconsiderateness of the other departments, which omitted to disgorge their letters till the last moment. Mike as he grew familiar with the work, and began to understand it, used to prowl round the other departments during the afternoon and wrest letters from them, usually receiving with them much abuse for being a nuisance and not leaving honest workers alone. Today, however, he had to sit on till nearly six, waiting for the final batch of correspondence.”

    This was exactly the scenario in my own Bank, the State Bank! Most of you know that I joined SBI in 1965 and left it exactly 25 years later in 1990 which was incidentally my tolerance limit. But I have not told you about my early banking career. The examination for selection of probationary officers was conducted in 1964 on an all-India basis. After this, there was no communication from the Bank for nearly a year and as I sat scratching my head as was my wont when faced with uncertain situations, a call for interview came. I presumed that I must have come out successful in the written test and started preparing for the interview. I had no clue at all about what the guys might ask as this was my first ever interview. To cut the long story short, I came out successful in the interview too and my appointment letter came with lightening speed giving me barely any time to join the Bank. How true Wodehouse was when he wrote “It was short notice, but banks have a habit of swallowing their victims rather abruptly.”

    After a four-week induction course, I was asked to report at a large branch. I reported accordingly in a spotless white dress that you see only in washing powder ads with a matching tie. I reckoned that being a direct-recruit officer (as was contemptuously called by the lower cadre) I would be getting royal treatment on my entry. But no one took any notice of me and I was feeling lost and silly with the appointment letter fluttering in my hand. After some interminable length of time, an old hand approached me and glanced at the letter I was holding. He walked mournfully to the corner of the building and spat out the betel juice he was holding in his mouth. Ha walked back to me and asked ‘Joining dutya?’ I nodded my head and he took me to the Agent’s room. (Managers were called Agents those days!). He was reading a newspaper and did not like to be disturbed. He looked at the old man who took me inside his sanctum sanctorum and asked him with a touch of irritation “Don’t you know where to take him? Take him to the dispatch section” He then looked at me sternly and instructed me to be in touch with the Accountant for my further training schedule. And so I entered the Dispatch Section and started my career in the Bank.

    At the conclusion of our probationary period, we were assembled at our Staff College in Hyderabad for an interactive session with the Chairman and other heavy weights. One of the trainees asked the Chairman if it was a wise idea to put the probationary officers through dispatch section for training and snuff out their self esteem. The Chairman answered that every section in the Bank was a profit center and the probationers being the future leaders of the Bank must have complete awareness of all activities of the Bank. The profits of the Bank could drain through any section including Dispatch if we were not vigilant, he added. ‘Through over stamping of envelops?’ asked a faceless voice from the last bench. The insane Commissioner Dreyfus in the Pink Panther series would be nowhere compared to the raging Chairman at the anonymous words spoken from the last bench!
     
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  2. iyerviji

    iyerviji Finest Post Winner

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    My dear Anna

    It was nice to read how you started your banking careerand your experiences . I also joined in Mumbai after leaving Hyderabad where I worked for two years in August 1965 and worked till January 2002 when I took VRS as our company merged with another Company.

    I know in Bank you have to work in all departments and also transfers will be there. My brother's son in law works for a Bank and he gets transfers, so his wife and children have to live in Mumbai as she is also working in a bank but she did not opt for Officer post.

    My younger daughter also has been working in Bank only. Five years back she went abroad and now recently she has got a job in the bank. Elder daughter also worked for a bank before marriage
     
  3. surekhap

    surekhap Platinum IL'ite

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    Cheeniya sir u are lucky to retire in 1990. now a days bankers jobs are still more tough and have many duties to perform (as the government has connected all the aspects like adhar card , gas subsidy etc to the banks)

    my bother joined in a bank three years back as a clerk, he used to sit in the cash counter, he have to work as a peon carrying the papers from one desk to other, taking photostat copies, collecting the debts , to be there while filling the ATM's..... what not. A banker should be an one man army all the time imposing him self into the job what ever the bank requires.

    one year back he was promoted to assistant manager post . still the same work, in fact more.

    before my brother got into this job we thought that the banking jobs are the best (white collar) but once he entered we came to know how risky it is.
     
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  4. jayasala42

    jayasala42 IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Cheeniya Sir,

    It was a joyous reading about Cheeniya's auspicious Gala Entry into the bank and an interesting account of how probationary officers were treated.

    This is the experience of one and all who have joined banking service.Many new officers who could not handle franking machine,the job hitherto done by Class 1v staff also were found struggling ,franking for a higher value in covers.

    Advances Dept ,though seems to be lesser tension shows its ugly face when loans are not repaid.When oral instructions were received from Head office to sanction huge advances to politically influencial parties,the officers at the branch level were put to task.
    The work at field officers level was never less difficult.When loans were sanctioned for purchase of cows, the city brought up officers who would not have seen cows properly, had to go to cow shandy,salem, accompanied by veterinary doctors, supervise the cows and ensure that the cows had not been administered harmone injection for 48 hours to boost the yield .Necessarily they had to keep awake near the cow shed tolerating the cowdung smell.The teeth of the cows were more to do with the quantum of milk than the size of udders.
    Mostly they had to travel by road accompanying the lorry carrying the cows.It will be funny to see the cows wearing metallic SBI plates as studs on their ears.Cases were not uncommon when during inspection the debtors would show some other cow without stud stating that the plate had fallen out.In fact they would have sold the cows.
    My husband suffered a lot of torture while collecting small term loans from small scale industries and small business men like bangle sellers, toy makers etc.

    Problem of identification at Foreign Exchange counters at Airport was rather difficult and it was full of shady transactions, exchange of liquor and scents etc.It will be a hell to any soft straight forward officer to deal with such things.
    My experience in central banking institution was entirely different.When I was posted to Bombay as probationary officer in Agricultural credit Dept,it was a novel experience.After 5 weeks' trg in Staff Training college I was sent for inspection to a cooperative bank in Pune.The bank had a strange name'masala wala coop bank' essentially run by Gujarathis.
    I had a good knowledge of written and spoken Hindi. When I confidently entered the

    cash dept I was shocked to see all the ledgers written in Gujarathi and figures written in Hindi numerals.I had to seek the help of some officers working there to read out the narration of vouchers.
    I became totally upset.Fortunately I took hold of a fishy account of a charitable institution to which the bank had sanctioned a heavy advance against some gold vessels as seen from the inventory and no such gold items were seen in the locker.

    Though I had to rely entirely on what the staff said for want of Gujarathi knowledge, this particular case saved my face.
    My husband suffered a lot when he was in charge of a branch near Thiruvannamalai and it was there he met with an accident.
    As Cheeniya Sir said, bank job involves so many risky situations. My husband used to distribute loans on the road in a shady place,the debtors standing in queue according to parties( DMK, ADMK, Congress and so on) and the parties had to be identified on the strength of left hand thumb impressions and oral guarantee of panchayat heads.
    A strange case was handled by my husband.Some x repaid hi s loan against gold ornaments fully.He got a receipt for the paid amount and he requested the bank in writing to keep the jewels in their custody and that he would take back the jewels the next day.Unfortunately X died the very next day and two wives started claiming the jewels.Though by reason, the debt was cleared, the bank could not hand over the jewels until the case was decided in the court of law. My husband received lot of curses from those ladies.
    We can write pages and pages of bank experiences.

    Jayasala 42
     
  5. shyamala1234

    shyamala1234 Platinum IL'ite

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    Dear Cheeniya sir,
    Interesting.
    Inside of any organisation is different from the rosy picture it gives to outsiders.
    In spite of all the incidents you mentioned still Bank jobs are much coveted, attracts many youngsters and Coaching institutions have cropped up all over the city. I do not know much about other cities but that is the scene at Hyderabad.....especially after the stress, long long working hours of IT field. Many Engineering graduates and others are craving for bank jobs. In Nationalised banks they have stability, good salary, provide accommodation etc etc. Long working hours...they should not complain. Everywhere people are working for 12 to 14 hours a day. No 10 to 5 jobs as in my father's generation.

    My nephew is an officer in SBI, right now working in Rajahmundry. They had training for two years...as you mentioned circulated in all departments. Now the staff Training college is in Begumpet, Hyderabad...very posh it is, he says. He got married recently to another Officer in Andhra Bank. She is also posted to Rajahmundry. It seems previously only couple who work in the same bank used to be posted in the same town. Now it seems they changed the policy to couples working in any nationalised Bank. But the funny thing is wife is posted to husband's working town but not vice versa. She was working in Nalgonda and he in Bhimavaram. It would have been good if he is posted to Nalgonda SBI9 both sets of parents are stationed at Hyderabad)...but no! Policy says that wife has to be posted to husband's posting town and not vice versa. Both posted to Rajahmundry.I guess rules are made by men! Ego comes in the way of getting posted to wife's town! May be!
    Syamala
     
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  6. PriyaKathiravan

    PriyaKathiravan Silver IL'ite

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    Since i have no relatives or friends working in banks, i have always felt free to hold a very uncomplimentary opinion about bank employees , thanks to the consistently bad service and worse interaction i have been getting for my savings account in an old nationlised behemoth . In my view the automatons are incapable of reading anything beyond the humorless firstpage of "The Hindu " and completely handicapped in the " observation " department . No one can expect Writers, that too humour writers , to emerge from those dingy corridors .However, there have to be exceptions . One is PGW ( i dint know he had worked in a bank , no wonder he could create wacko characters with ease. He had plenty of models .) And the other , you . Glad that the Bank bootham could not kill off your creativity in a quarter of a century.
     
  7. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    My dear Viji
    Thank you for the first response to my Banking story! I am surprised that you took VRS after working for 37 years! Did you spend all the 37 years in the same company? When I joined the Bank, I had figured out that my service would not be a day longer than 25 years. I joined in July 1965 and left in July 1990. You may ask me why 25 years. That is the minimum service required for drawing full pension. In effect, I drew my salary for 25 years from 1965 to 1990. I have now completed drawing my pension for 25 years from 1990 to 2015! My pension is over 50 times the basic pay that I drew in 1965!
    Sri
     
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  8. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear surekha
    You are telling me that I am lucky to have retired from the Bank in 1990. When I joined the Bank in 1965, computer was unheard of. A few lucky ones had electrically operated adding machines causing a lot of heartburn and jealousy in others! Customer accounts were maintained in 1000 page ledgers in which all the transactions were posted manually. These ledgers would be 'balanced' every week with the books maintained by the Accountant. Sometimes we would be spending sleepless nights in trying to locate a mistake of 50 paise! Every day all the transactions would be posted in the Main Day Book which was called Clean Cash Book in SBI. In fact, it was the dirtiest book in the entire Branch! The debit and credit sides of this book would have to be tallied to the last paisa. By the time we finished performing these chores, it would be almost midnight!

    You have remarked that your brother continues to do the same work even after promotion. That is the beauty of the Bank. You may have heard about the Peter Principle which states that in an organizational hierarchy, every employee will rise or get promoted to his or her level of incompetence. The Peter Principle is based on the notion that employees will get promoted as long as they are competent, but at some point will fail to get promoted beyond a certain job because it has become too challenging for them. Employees rise to their level of incompetence and stay there. Over time, every position in the hierarchy will be filled by someone who is not competent enough to carry out his or her new duties.

    The Banks trick their employees into believing that they have been promoted while making them all do the same old work. As they go up in hierarchy, they do get fancy designations and that gives them all a feeling of well being!
    Sri
     
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  9. Viswamitra

    Viswamitra IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Cheeniya Sir,

    Thank you for sharing your first experience of being a probationary officer in SBI. I never knew that probationary officers have to work in dispatch section at the start of the career. I have heard some CA students were asked to add the numbers in a telephone directory to get familiar with additions. What a waste of resource to have a SBI probationary officer to work in dispatch section. It is not rocket science for a probationary officer to understand cost control in the dispatch section.

    Many of my relatives worked for various banks and their experiences were almost the same. When I was a little there was a debate between my father and mother whether to give me professional education or let him work for a bank and build an early career. My father ruled my mother out to send me to further educate myself. Having seen three generations of engineers (my brother decided to be an engineer as well), my father wanted me to pursue CA. After I finished my intermediate and final exam of CA successfully, my strong interest was in financial management. I received campus interview calls from major corporations (having completed by CA final in my first attempt) including Union Carbide, Delhi Cloth Mills (DCM), Bank of America (those were the names I could remember now). My parents were very particular that I should not leave Chennai and hence I didn't accept Union Carbide and DCM jobs. Bank of America offered a job to place me in the branch in Chennai but my father turned it down stating that he won't let me work for a bank (including a foreign bank) after finishing CA. They also ruled out the possibility of pursuing career in Dubai as they won't let me move away from Chennai.

    Therefore, I decided to pursue my career as a practicing Chartered Accountant. My parents were happy. But the first engagement I received is to do internal audit of banks in Kerala. I didn't tell my dad about it and quietly attended to my review of branches systematically.

    After I got married, my wife and I decided that it would be more prosperous future for our family if I decide to work for the industry. I was sincerely trying to get a job in the industry. The first interview letter came from Bank Nationale De Paris and I was asked to come for an interview in Mumbai with Ferguson Associates. When I went for the interview, Ferguson Associates gave me a company's Balance sheet and asked me to describe the financial status of the company within a minute. I was in a state of shock as to how is it possible to grasp everything in less than a minute. Luckily, he received a phone call and being a person who is very interested in financial management and ratio analysis, I have made mental calculation of current ratio and debt/equity ratio, Asset Coverage Ratio, etc. and was ready with the answer. He disconnected the phone call after 3 minutes and I was ready with my answer. He finally selected me for a final interview with a French man. The only question he asked is whether I would be willing to move to France.

    As I already know my parents view, I turned down that offer and decided to take a job with a public-sector company. My father died during this period. I worked for them for four years and then moved to a premier R & D organization in Pune. After four years, again I moved to work for a software company in Mumbai. I had a great experience in building offshore facilities, managing the operations of a software company, financial management of the subsidiary. That is the period when open market economy started in India and I was very creative and instrumental bringing some overseas investments into our company in India. I had to visit Ministry of Finance and Reserve Bank of India often to get permission from them to obtain foreign investment and repatriate funds outside as they were about to get familiar with new regulations. Three years later, I migrated to the US to work for the same software company that grew so rapidly. I handled their IPO in the US and later became Vice President of Mergers & Acquisition. During that phase, I traveled outside of the US to acquire companies in Australia, Canada, France, Japan and United Kingdom. In 2001, I resigned my job and became a full-time Investment Banker helping companies to buy or sell their business. My interest in financial management continues until today.

    It looks like we don't plan our lives and destiny takes us to wherever we need to be.

    Viswa
     
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  10. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear jayasala
    You are right! If I am to write about my career in the Bank in all its minute details, it will put Michael Ende's The Never Ending Story to shame! I am not that cruel to expose the ILites to such torture! I just occasionally relapse into a reverie of the fun days in the Bank.

    Being a Probationary Officer, I was made Agent (Branch Manager) rather early in my career. I was so young then that I should be actually making advances to girls but I ended up making advances to farmers and small scale industrialists! There was a scheme called DIR loans which entitled the economically backward people to borrow from Banks at 4% per annum. As this constituted the crux of the vote bank, politicians always exerted maximum pressure for sanction of such loans to their party members. There was a congress Deputy Minister of Finance by name Janardhan Poojari who would be virtually calling the Bankers names!

    As we advanced in our hierarchy, we were moved to bigger lending operations. What used to be lending on a gut feeling became more sophisticated ratio based lending. A company's financial strength was analysed on the basis of various ratios much like a cardiologist assessing our cardiac strength on the basis of various parameters. Many companies freely indulged in fudging the financials thus making all the ratio analysis a futile exercise.

    Once I yelled at a defaulter that he had stabbed me at my back by furnishing false statements, he answered quietly that he would not have done it if I were lending my personal money to him!
    Sri
     
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