B1032-1 The Woman Who Knows...

Some years ago, when my sister-in-law was a teller at a small branch bank, she dug her heels in when they asked her to break in another branch manager. She had trained ten "snot nose kids," as she called them, to become her boss in the bank. And then, after a year or so, they would leave to go "downtown" to the main branch, where they would sit at a desk by the front windows and read The Wall Street Journal all day long. One after another, she had nurtured those young men - they were always and invariably young men - and she had to teach them that the simple-looking man who came into the bank in those crusty farmer’s overalls really had enough money to buy and sell the bank a half a dozen times over. More than once she had slapped those young men on the back of the head as if they were nine-year-olds, and called them dumb shits, when they told her they had turned down a loan for Herbie. My sister-in-law was a beautiful, feisty woman!

The "main suit" downtown was surprised when she refused to break in another man. He was surprised to the point that he requested that she come downtown to the bank in the city “to have a little chat with him." She told her husband that she was probably going to get fired. But she didn't care. "I've had it with these damn kids," she said.

Initially, the "suit" talked to her in those mushy and patronizing tones, and explained to her that it was necessary for her to break in these young men so that the bank had an adequate supply of up-and-coming managers. She nodded her head as if she agreed with him and let him babble on and on about the need to train those new managers. Finally, she told him that she was the most qualified person at her branch, and that if he wanted to train somebody to become the branch bank manager, she was the ideal candidate. "How much sense does it make for me to train some dumb kid straight out of college to become the branch manager when I know more about banking than the kid will ever know?" she asked. "Why don't you just make me the branch manager instead of wasting my time on those stupid kids you keep sending me?"

Of course, he turned in his swivel chair and looked out the window. He gave her that pensive look that he always feigned just before telling an applicant that "the bank will be unable to grant your loan request." He sat there with his fingers, interwoven together, tucked under his chin. From time to time, he would look down longingly at The Wall Street Journal lying on his desk. Then he would pinch the dial of his wristwatch between his thumb and his index finger as if he were checking the time. "So," he said, "we'll send the new trainee to your branch next Monday so you can get started on his training."

"Nope,” she said, “I'm not training another man." She folded her arms across her chest and looked him right straight in the eye. "Make me the branch manager instead."

They sat there for a moment or two, staring at each other. She was prepared to walk out the door if it came to that. But she wasn’t going to train another kid.

He ran his fingers through his hair and exhaled noisily. “Well, unfortunately we might have to terminate you if you refuse to comply with our orders.”

“Yeah. Go ahead and try it,” she said. “I’ve got thirty years at this bank and I’ve trained a truckload of dummies to be your branch managers. Still, you have to remember one thing: I’m just a teller. I’m not a professional trainer. You’d have a pretty tough time in a court of law making the case that I’m not doing my job. But if you want to rile up the big boys upstairs, just go ahead and invite an unlawful termination court case. They’ll love you for that. Why, they might even make you the branch manager out in the sticks where I work.”

Of course, I tell this little story as I imagine it might have happened. And I say that because my sister-in-law reconstructed that story for my wife and me when we went to that small branch bank to ask some advice from her about a proper place to park the proceeds from a real estate sale. When we did not see her in the bank, we asked one of the tellers where she was. The teller walked to that office in the corner and told her that "someone was here to see you."

We were shown into the room, and she looked up from her desk. She was quite surprised to see us. She was wearing a very smart suit and she almost looked like she belonged in that room. On the desk in front of her was a copy of The Wall Street Journal - her Wall Street Journal. I asked her what she was doing in that office. She seemed quite surprised by that question. "Where else would I be?" she said. "I'm the branch manager and this is my office."

There is in every company a person who comes in early in the morning and turns on the lights and makes the coffee. That same person knows where everything is kept, and how everything is done. If you really want to know how to do something, you must go to that person who turns on the lights and makes the coffee. And I've found over the years that person is always a woman. The go-to person, the depository of all corporate knowledge, resides in the person who is the first to come to work in the morning and the last to leave at night.

For years that person was my sister-in-law. But when she started wearing those smart suits to work, and sat in that fancy corner office and read The Wall Street Journal all day long, she told us how much she missed bantering with the customers at the drive-up window. "I should have trained one of their dummies and just kept my mouth shut," she said.