By BEINOMUGISHA GODFREY
Kampala: For many who have friends, brothers and sisters who are bankers, may understand the life full of pressure and commitment, they leave.
As one is at high school campus admires a banker, after graduation luckily enough you are called for an interview and posted to one branch in soroti, or any other up country.
You go thru training and after a month you are earning a seven digit figure, a modest pay of about UGX1.5 million. The first three months you are spending to make your house a nice home, a nice flat screen, a huge bed, now you are corporate!!
The trouble is that if you are a bank teller, you have to clock in or report to work before 7 am in the morning, you are still a youth and you have to forego that sweet morning good sleep.
The Human Resource Manager’s manual strictly states that you have to report early by 7 am or else loose your job. Most people are given warning letters and for more than 3 warnings you face disciplinary action. You can adjust to that slowly and catch up with the rest.
If you are a teller, you go to the volt to receive cash with your supervisor. If you are late, the bank will open. Customers want money and the manager will not tolerate that.
In this process after six months, your friends will not understand why you have chucked them. If you are a teller in a big branch, you will not know it is break, you will be overwhelmed by the long ques every day Monday to Saturday.
You used to love Manchester United but you only hear Manchester was beaten, Arsenal is on top of the table but you will never have time again to watch games like you used to at campus.
If you are a teller, you must deliver by 8 PM. The branch manger want to leave, he is very tired, if you have made a cash shortage, you are supposed to make a police statement, meaning that your job is gone. A teller has to be very careful even when the ques are very long, students are going back to school, on average you received 100 million – 200 million, and you made a cash shortage of 2million. At 8PM, most tellers are scrolling their phone and calling that brother or boyfriend girl friend to bail or else the job is gone, this is the life a bank teller lives.
Some people who have been in banks with families never get chance to be with their children. My sister narrates to me that her child calls the house girl her mother because she comes home when her children are asleep and she goes before seven when they are still asleep. Such mothers never have chance to be with their children. Worse off still the flat screen you bought, you never enjoy it. The house girl enjoys it Monday to Friday. Most bankers will get leave for only 10 days, they will divide your leave days and you will take your leave in beats. A good and successful banker will go thru all these challenges 256 days.
The worst challenge is that your social network will be limited. You will never have chance to socialize because you do not have time. You will miss those parties, you will not attend burials of relatives, the HR will not entertain absenteeism.
Banks need to adopt a system of working in shifts so that at least for people who have children can take them to school, monitor them grow and also get enough rest.
Many Bankers leave their jobs stating that they are bored and do not have time to socialize with their families and to do business. When they leave their jobs most end up with nothing and with no where to begin from.
BEINOMUGISHA GODFREY Banker
