40. THE TABLES GET TURNED (1981)

STRESS, SUCCESS AND EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN

The Highs and Lows of A Woman’s Journey in the Corporate World

40. THE TABLES GET TURNED (1981)

CARE: This is Chapter 40 of my book Stress, Success and Everything In-Between. These are individual anecdotes but to understand the professional journey in totality, I would recommend reading the book right from Chapter 01 onwards.

When I was tormented by a rogue borrower at the MN Branch, and the higher-ups did not know how to handle it, they did the only thing they knew they could do. They promptly transferred me to another branch where I was required to manage the Personal Banking Division. It was a medium-sized branch, and I was in the third position as per the hierarchy of the branch.

What made this place a happy experience for me, despite hard work, was its leadership. The Branch Manager was different from his contemporaries in extending gender equality to women colleagues. He was comfortable with women managers and virtually handed over the reins of the branch to the three of us - two Divisional Managers and an Accountant, all women, under his benevolent leadership.

Now, fast forward to the day of the dreaded inspection and audit. In walks one Mr VB Saxena (name changed to protect his identity), for inspecting the branch.

We arranged for the inspecting official a table in the room of the Branch Manager, thinking he would be kept engaged by our boss and his every action would remain under his close observation, helping us to sail through the inspection exercise.

Mr Saxena was a textbook inspector, far away from the practical realities of everyday banking. He was ready to scrutinise every ledger, register and voucher in any nook or cranny of the branch.

Every time Mr Saxena so much as breathed a word of criticism, our Branch Manager would call us to explain, and it was like a call to arms for us. One of us would march in to defend, and before you know it, all three of us were standing in front of him, ready to take on his contention. It got to the point where poor Mr Saxena could not handle the estrogen overload. He would look self-conscious, his face would turn red, and he would try to shoo us away quickly.

He would say, "Please, please, please! You ladies, please do not come to me together. I feel trapped and cannot handle it.”

We knew we could convince him more easily by arguing collectively and making him concede his point. Eventually, he could not take it anymore. He approached our boss, asking him to rein in his "female brigade" as the trio gave him jitters. Can you believe it? The senior officer could not stand up to us as we were women! Talk about a reverse harassment situation! Hadn't the tables turned to our advantage this time?

They say there is strength in numbers. We experienced it in 1978 while fighting for the women officers' right to join the Lunch Club and again in 1982 while taking on the Inspecting Official to counter the irrational shortcomings in branch functioning pointed out by him. 

(To be continued...)

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