I remember the years when I was serving as an assistant manager at a nationalized bank in a small town. I was doing the daily commute from a distance of 65 kilometers along with other colleagues. The day would be long with heavy workload and whilst my staff would promptly leave by 5.30-6pm, there was no fixed time for the officer cadre. When the manager was on leave, I would be called upon to be one of the joint custodians and be entrusted with the key to the double locker where the entire stock of money and pledged ornaments were stored. There was a register protocol wherein the change of hands holding the key was noted down.
On such days, until the cash was tallied by the cashier and everything was kept inside, the ornaments verified and the big door of the double lock safe was locked I could not leave. On one such occasion, the manager rejoined duties and took the key but as he was fully occupied with a flow of customers and my nose was buried in work, the register protocol was forgotten and at 7 pm I left the branch after my work.
The next morning , the cashier surprisingly got a shortage of twenty thousand rupees although the cash had been tallied the previous day by him.
The sweeper had mysteriously cited the reason of illness and had left halfway through her work. It did not take long to add two and two and when the staff located her at her house the money was found and she admitted to having found it near the safe and silently putting it in her bag, instead of bringing it to the notice of the officials. She begged for mercy, but a report had to be sent and she approached the union for help as her job was at stake.
To my shock I was mentioned as one of the officers holding the key although it was the manager who had it on that day. The register had my name because the protocol, as mentioned earlier, had been forgotten. The smug union representative, although in the clerical cadre, had the
attitude of a CBI officer and began his questioning of the joint custodians. Although the manager admitted that he and another officer were the ones who had negligently dropped the 20s bundle, the union sleuth took special pleasure in quizzing me and said menacingly, “ I say that you stole the money and put the blame on the sweeper”.
I wanted to laugh on his oily face but could not. I replied that I was well to do and did not have the need to steal office money and reminded the oily face that the sweeper (name withheld on purpose) had admitted to her crime. What was more disgusting to me was that I knew that person in my social circles and could not digest that he could speak to me like this,
knowing my affluent background. A sadistic streak in him may have prompted him to do it. The manager later had some understanding with him that their negligence should not be put on record and the sweeper was let off with a severe warning. It was a lesson not to overlook routine protocol however mundane it may seem.
