Well my yearly review at the bank was yesterday.
Thank God it’s over.
The crazy thing is that I worry about them. I know that I am a valuable person in the department, and I feel I am well compensated for my work. I truly love my job, and can’t think of any other job that I want to do.
That being said, I hate reviews. I always get nervous, or worried that I’ve done something completely insane or wrong. The sad thing is that it’s a complete carry-over from working in the fast food/food service industry.
You see, working in fast food is a very precarious career path. Work Politics, performance, customer relations, speed of service, your ability to make change, all of this is woven into your performance review. And I have held jobs where if you fail at a performance review, you gone. Right then. No chance to work on your problems, no chance to at least see if you agree or disagree with your manager, no chance to improve your performance. The majority of fast-food managers cut their losses and find someone to replace you. It’s a very basic "If we don’t like you, you are gone” type of situation.
And even though in all my jobs, I’ve had decent to incredible reviews, there is always that sense of “I could fired today”. that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to completely shake off.
So with that being said, My review was outstanding. I’m getting a raise again this year (which will help out, now that I have medication to buy), and my supervisor gave me some interesting news.
We are foreseeing a substantial increase in the amount of work that we will be getting once the merger between Commerce Bank and TD Banknorth happens this fall. And increase of work more than likely means an increase in staff. And when that happens they will need a “Team Lead” to be the liaison between the management and the monetary staff.
And Hope told me that when (not if) the monetary department needs a team lead position, that I’d be the Number One contender for the position. Which is fantastic. It would mean the title “Team Lead”, and an increase in pay, which is always a good thing.
But to be honest, I don’t know if I’m ready for that type of responsibility. Even though there isn’t much difference between what I’m doing now, and what the Team Lead does, I don’t know if I’m up to the task.
When I was a manager at Domino’s/Burger King, I was a horrible manager. I freely admit that. The job is way to stressful for the amount of shit that goes down in a restaurant, and dealing with both idiotic customers and staff was just too much for me. Back then, I was young, immature, and very stressed out. Not exactly the ideal management material.
But now that I’ve really settled into my position at the bank, I have almost no stress, my attitude toward people has greatly improved (considering I don’t deal directly with the public, it’s easy), and I love what I do. So when Hope tell s me that I’m pretty much a shoe-in for Team Lead, I get apprehensive. I literally almost told her, “No, I don’t want it.” But I stopped myself.
“I have been getting better dealing with my stress,” I told myself.
“Yeah", my brain answered. “But you still have issues with dealing with stupid people.”
“I know,” I replied. “But I can’t stay in the monetary position forever.”
My brain thought this over for a minute. “Then you’ll need to do some learning this year.”
So I voiced to Hope my concerns (without telling her that I was arguing with the voice in my head). Which was totally the right thing to do. She also recognizes the fact that although I’ve made tremendous headway in my inter-personal relationships at work, I still have a bit to go before I take the title of Team Lead.
So, basically, I have a bit of work to do this year. I’m confident that I’ll have Team Lead by this time next year.
