The Suitnoob Banker - Part III

Today marks one week since I began my slow rise towards actually doing my job. Had I the opportunity to work as long on the front lines serving clients as my fellow trainees, perhaps I would feel more confident in my abilities to perform the expansive myriad of daily tasks required to make me successful. The others have had a few weeks to learn the basics, but Due to technical hiccups however, tomorrow will mark only the first official week of part-time client serving. And what a week it has been.

My first week of on-the-job training has been severely bitter-sweet. It has thrust me into the public eye in a way I have never before experienced. Everything from angelic pre-teens to little old men with expectations of routine and sullen dispositions have marched through our doors. And how many have I had the opportunity to serve? All told, about eighteen. It’s been wonderful to learn, to have conversations with such a wide range of people, and to perform the duties I’m being paid to perform. But the unfortunate reality is, while my mentors are very good about guiding me while they are sitting with me, their first priority is to the clients. This is a great thing! But it lessons the amount of hands-on time I get learning the ins and outs of my job. And how I feel I need to learn. Clients are very patient nine times out of ten. But every once in a while a client comes along who wants his business conducted yesterday. That’s what my insecure sub-personality keeps telling me will happen anyway. While it’s true I haven’t run into that particular lady or gentleman yet, I know it’s only a matter of time.

By this point in my training, I am more or less comfortable doing basic deposits, withdrawals, dispensing and receiving of cash and bill payments. I feel like posting a sign at my wicket that says “training in progress, this way for basic transactions” or something to that affect. At least then I can get practice doing the basics while my mentor is otherwise engaged. Unfortunately I’m not yet permitted to handle even the most rudimentary transactions without supervision. And while intellectually and technically I understand the vast majority of what I’m doing, I realize that from a  visual standpoint I’m not yet ready to be on my own.

For one thing, people’s handwriting remains a serious obstacle. While I am slowly getting better about deciphering the layouts of cheques and bills, translating the squat and sprawling squiggles into a language my hampered eyes can actually interpret is very difficult. Their written numbers aren’t so bad so far. But their printed name, and the written-out numbers all cheques require are another matter entirely. I’ve found that by first reading the numbered digits and comparing them to their hand-written counterparts I can usually see that I’m looking at the same number. The numbers have to match too, otherwise there are steps that need to be taken to ensure the cheque is legit. By comparing the name on the account with that of the “payee to the order of” section, I can usually ensure the names are also the same. Reading signatures on the other hand is like trying to decipher words written by a child who’s never learned their alphabet.

Reading cash on the other hand usually ends up being pretty simple. I’m not very fast at it, but I’m usually accurate. That goes for Canadian money at any rate. Don’t even get me started on the nightmare that is American money. Sorry my dear American readers, but whoever designs your bills needs a serious lesson in the necessity of CONTRAST!

All in all, it hasn’t been a bad week. I believe I have a reasonable ability to interact with the clients. Most have been very understanding. One of them even shook my hand and called me by name, which was a nice gesture. I’m trying to train myself to focus on the client experience, rather than worrying about the speed with which I complete their transaction requests. Engage a client enough and they might not even realize you’re a snail. That’s what I keep telling myself at any rate. Everyone seems to say I’m doing a pretty good job. Barb, my trainer in New West has told two separate people that I am the best trainee she’s ever had. I think she’s just being nice. Maybe it’s because I talk more than most of them. Or perhaps she’s trying to give me a greater sense of personal security. Either way, it was nice to hear.

I have been able to install all the software I could possibly want in order to make my work station’s computer accessible however. There are many programs already available on RBC’s server which help me greatly. Unfortunately there’s an inordinate amount of beaurocracy to circumvent in order to get certain things installed. The decisions whether certain RBC programs are accessible by programs such as JAWS (A program which translates on-screen text into speech) and Zoomtext (which magnifies the computer screen to the point that even a blind man can see it) are made very high up. Certain programs are considered incompatible, even if I as a noob do not feel they are, or find ways to make them compatible. I’m sure that the people who make these decisions do the research and know what they’re talking about. But it’s hard to have others who have never experienced my eye condition for themselves make that decision for me. That said, I have a lot of access technology in place. My only hope is that I’ll be able to find a better way to read printed material. At this point that wonderful piece of hardware the Smart View works, but the closer I get to the screen the fuzzier the image seems to become. Perhaps it is due to the shadow I cast on the paper, but I really don’t know.

RBC continues to be a very nice place to work. If I can manage to find my way around (or dislodge) the personal and accessibility barriers that are impeding my progress, I think I will do alright here. After all, I’m not the only blind person doing this job. There are others, and one of them, a man named Michael has advanced to the point that he’s got a very corporate sounding name.

The Sootnoob Banker - Part II

Have you ever had one of those jobs which fills you with palpable dread and foreboding the minute you begin thinking about the next day of work? I have. But I’m pleased to say this entry isn’t going to talk about that. In truth, my first weeks of training at RBC have been educational, interesting and, dare I say actually rather enjoyable?
    It took a long time to get established at RBC. Due to all the accommodations, paperwork and vacation to Michigan, I ended up starting training a month after my original start date. I mentioned in passing the accommodations assessment. Essentially it was an hour of me explaining every facet of myself and my blindness to a lady who took meticulous notes and asked a lot of questions. In the end, we established that I would need three things. A screen reader (Jaws in this case) to read the vast flow of information. A screen magnification program  which will allow me to navigate, and read everything on my computer screen. And a desktop magnifier. This will allow me to read the various evil works of paper handed to me, such as cheques, bills, pieces of ID and sloppily written robbery notes. Here’s hoping that last doesn’t happen. In addition the bank also ordered me not one, but two 24 inch computer monitors. I’m not sure why they did two, and in truth I wasn’t sure how helpful even one would be. But I’ve found it makes things a great deal easier, and I am very thankful to have it.
    Special mention must be made to my Smart View desktop magnifier. It’s essentially a large computer screen with a swivel arm-mounted camera which pans 360 degrees. With it I am able to see straight across a room or down a long hallway in vivid detail. I can pick out the details of someone walking thirty feet away. To put it in perspective, I I’d be able to see a person at five feet. I’d know their gender and a few general features. Ten feet and I’d only be able to tell you there was a person standing there. This piece of equipment revolutionizes how I see. It also acts as a means of reading text and seeing the minute details in objects. Imagine thinking a piece of cloth is a solid color with no pattern, only to zoom in and discover a spectrum of vivid designs you didn’t even know it held. It’s a whole new way to see, and if they ever succeed in miniaturizing it to the point where it becomes completely portable, life might just get a whole lot simpler.
    I am pleased to report that there was enough put in place at the dawn of my first day at RBC to make participating in the e-classroom learning programs more or less accessible. I am still waiting for a screen reader, but the magnification program I use does have reasonable screen-reading capabilities which I’ve been able to adapt to.

    My first few days of training were spent familiarizing myself with the branch, new accessibility software and pieces of RBC communication software – Microsoft Outlook, Office Communicator (Like Messenger) and a program called SABA. This last is a program which coordinates our e-classroom learning. We have thirty-two students in BC, Alberta, Ontario and somewhere in the North-west Territories. We meet via voice over IP for one to two classroom sessions every day. These sessions, while primarily educational are extremely interactive. We are encouraged to ask questions and discuss the answers. There is a fair bit of book learning too via an online E-campus. But some of that is out-of-date, and so we’re asked to focus primarily on the class notes and learning binder. The material started off simple enough, but more on that later. The only problem is that good old SABA uses a lot of features which a totally blind person would be lost with, such as an interactive white board which can show anything from notes, to power-point slides, to the instructor’s computer screen itself. This means I usually have to read text visually, which is something I don’t do very fast.
    It’s been a little difficult getting accustomed to everything. But that’s alright. Before I even started I had the opportunity to talk to a lady in Kamloops who has worked for RBC for two years. She too is visually impaired, though to a lesser extent. It’s been really great talking to her. I felt a great deal better after doing so. She also introduced me to the Reach program, which is a sort of support group for RBC employees with disabilities. But it gets better. My instructor is extremely understanding and willing to accommodate anything I need. She sends me documents electronically, and though they’re in PDF format, they are pretty easy to navigate through. In addition I am in contact with an IT specialist in Ontario who knows a fair bit about JAWS, and Zoom Text. Knowing I can have accessibility questions answered makes me feel much more confident. That knowledge that if something really doesn’t work, RBC will attempt to find ways to make it work is something I’ve never had before.
The support doesn’t stop there. In truth, I have been overwhelmed by how supportive and genuinely interested people in the branch are with me. Everyone is incredible there. They aren’t just people who work at the same place. They’re people who work together. Cheesy perhaps, but accurate. I’ve never experienced a positive environment quite like this. It’s miles away from my time at NCO. They treat me like a human being – a co-worker who is valued an interesting as a person. They are interested in my blindness too, and I’m completely okay with answering their questions.
    The training program itself is really as easy as we make it. At least that’s what I’d like to think. I’ve learned a great deal about how to facilitate day-to-day transactions. In truth I understand the how of the job reasonably well. The when on the other hand is certainly a brain-full. They teach you in a very black-and-while manner. This is what you need to conduct this transaction, this is how you obtain it, this is when you ask for that, and this is how you recognize this. Was that confusing in a vague, uninformative sort of way? Well that’s sort of how I feel. I soon learned that there is a lot of gray to this job, and a lot of it has to do with common sense. We’re quickly taught to act on instinct when dealing with suspicious transactions. This is money. And because money makes many people’s worlds turn we’re taught the various ways to recognize fraud and money laundering. And all that is pretty easy. But the sheer amount of information and policy is staggering! There are forms to fill out, and forms detailing how to fill out those forms … Okay, perhaps I’m embellishing a little. But you get the idea. The information is vast, and many times I find myself drowning in it. And even in that everyone’s been very supportive. It’s been drilled into me that there’s no way to accumulate all that information without experiencing transactions first hand. All of this will come in time, and it’s important to step back at times and realize you don’t need to memorize everything.
    And so we come to the other aspect of the training: on-the-job experience. I’m beginning my fourth week of training on Tuesday, and already I’ve had a reasonable amount of experience dealing with living, breathing RBC clients. Of course at this time I’m only an active observer. I can interact with the clients who come in, but because I don’t yet have any equipment set up on the front lines, I can’t process any transactions. I just know that as soon as I can do so, many of the concepts I’m learning will fall into place. For now, I’m learning to just be me. I have been told I am pleasant and interact well with the clients. That makes me feel good, because this is one of the most important aspects of my job. Anyone who dislikes working with a wide variety of people need not apply, let me tell you.
    While I have been unable to perform transactions on the front lines, I have had the opportunity to play around with some of the tools which RBC employs to perform various tasks. They are all quite straight-forward and intuitive. They’re also very keyboard and screen-reader friendly, which makes navigating and utilizing them much easier than I ever dreamed it would be. There are hotkeys and other commands which allow for easy and swift keyboard navigation. I’m quite confident that after some time I will be as fast as anyone else on the technical side of the job.
    This brings me to my only real concern with the job, and it is the one that many of my visually impaired readers may be wondering about. This would be the sheer amount of paperwork involved in the job. We’re talking cheques, money-orders, bills, bank statements, forms, bills, cheques, cash, cheques and of course, that ever daunting robbery note. Now, I haven’t written anything aside from a few slight notes and general signatures since I was in grade 1. After that I began reading and writing Braille, and now that I’m out of high school, everything’s electronic. I find myself needing to relearn how to write, or even print. There won’t be a ton to write, but there will be enough to make relearning necessary. I’m concerned about this because I don’t write well, and I don’t write fast. It’s also hard for me to write, even when the paper is magnified because the way my magnifier works, a camera is pointed at the piece of paper, and when I move my hand to write, my hand obscures the page. It’s writing blind in a different way! More daunting yet is the sheer amount of penned writing I’ll need to read visually. Signatures, dollar amounts, messages,. It doesn’t sound like much, but when you’ve got a client waiting, and you can’t read their writing, you can’t really act fast. And let me tell you dear readers, nearly all the people who come in might see better than me, but you wouldn’t know it with their penmanship! When you get to the point where you can’t even read your own printing, you might want to consider other options.
    Many of my previous fears were laid to rest when I realized this isn’t a job that demands immediate action. It’s okay to take a moment to look over everything. Better that then cashing a fraudulent cheque because you didn’t make sure the cheque was authentic. Everyone I’ve shadowed there takes their time, and rarely do clients get impatient. I think after a while I’ll be alright.
    There’s just one more thing for me to tell you, dear readers. Last week was “Employee appreciation week”. Every day we spin a wheel to win prizes. The first two days I one two paid hours off. Perfect for going to get myself a much-needed haircut! They also fed us Tim Horton’s breakfast on Tuesday, A Pizza lunch on Wednesday, and a delicious barbecued lunch on Friday, a day where we all had the opportunity to strip off our suits and skirts (at home) and come into work wearing jeans and only semi-dressy shirts. It was great!
    That Friday night a number of us hopped on a multi-seated bike and rode around the Woodgrove vicinity to raise money for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. The bike had three columns of seats, with maybe ten or more seats to a column. They put me, the resident blind guy front and center on the bike. Had they also expected me to steer us around the streets, the night might have ended quite differently. But the steering was done by the man to my left, and so together we all raised a few thousand dollars. Not bad for a hard twenty-minutes peddling.
    There’s little more I can think to say. The past few weeks have been very interesting. I am pleased to call myself an RBC employee, and I look forward to the weeks ahead. I’m sure it won’t always be as great as it has been, but for now it’s been a great experience, and I’m excited to see where it will all lead.