NatWest - Documentary BBC 2

pinkdalek

MABLE wrote: »

In those days I use to have the greatest respect for the staff who worked in banks but now they are only sales people with the computer the brains behind any decision making.

What a narrow-minded, ignorant, selfish comment.
You could argue most industries rely on computer systems to assist them.
Take your car to a garage these days and it needs plugging into a computer for the mechanics to find out what is wrong with it.
Industry moves on, whether you like the changes or not.

MABLE

pinkdalek wrote: »

What a narrow-minded, ignorant, selfish comment.
You could argue most industries rely on computer systems to assist them.
Take your car to a garage these days and it needs plugging into a computer for the mechanics to find out what is wrong with it.
Industry moves on, whether you like the changes or not.

Must have been something I said.:rotfl:

PixelPound

So Retail banking management is very much like retail management

pinkdalek

MABLE wrote: »

Must have been something I said.:rotfl:

Yes it was, not very funny either.

Goldiegirl

MABLE wrote: »

I opened my first account with the National Provisional Bank in Dulverton in 1969 later to become the National Westminster bank. What a difference in style to those days and the way the staff are today.

However sad to read recently the branch is closing in September 2015.

In those days I use to have the greatest respect for the staff who worked in banks but now they are only sales people with the computer the brains behind any decision making.

I worked in banks and building societies for my entire working life and it was very different when I started back in 1976.

It was considered a very respectable job back then.

The branch manager always was an old bloke (well everyone's old when you are 16), and he was in a position where he could make his own decisions. But if he got it wrong, his job was on the line - my first branch manager made too many serious wrong judgement calls and he ended up as an assistant manager in a country backwater.

I've learnt many skills over the years and believe me, I got as frustrated as anyone else that what I could and couldn't do was prescribed by the computer.

Fortunately, I left the branch network in 1989, as I could never have been comfortable in the retail outlets that they have become.

I utilised my skills to the best of my ability in back office, service environments until I retired at the end of last year.

It's a shame that my 38 year career is so disrespected by Mable, but what do I care, I'm retired, so I'm sitting in the garden this afternoon!

msallen

pinkdalek wrote: »

Yes it was, not very funny either.

Maybe you didn't like it, but if these "bank managers" are only being paid £22K then it was probably pretty accurate. As mentioned upthread, if they were at all competent in managing a large team of people, or were doing a job even close to what bank managers of decades past did then they would be earning far far more than that.

Many many years ago I had a job in retail management which offered a similar level of salary (£9K in 1989). I can honestly say that a trained monkey could have done that job, and I suspect the modern "bank manager" position is pretty similar.

Anyway, I haven't watched the programme yet - will be catching up with it tonight.

pinkdalek

msallen wrote: »

Maybe you didn't like it, but if these "bank managers" are only being paid £22K then it was probably pretty accurate. As mentioned upthread, if they were at all competent in managing a large team of people, or were doing a job even close to what bank managers of decades past did then they would be earning far far more than that.

Many many years ago I had a job in retail management which offered a similar level of salary (£9K in 1989). I can honestly say that a trained monkey could have done that job, and I suspect the modern "bank manager" position is pretty similar.

Anyway, I haven't watched the programme yet - will be catching up with it tonight.

Seriosuly, move with the times, respect the people who work today and put money into the system.
The majority of the working force today won't know what it was like back in the good old days, when sexism, racism was overlooked and god forbid if you were homosexual in a working class job.
Computers basically run the industries in our country, whether it be finance, education, health, civil service, construction, manufacturing etc.
Are today's cars worse because they are not totally man made?
With finance the system works now based on your ability to repay your debts, your ability to manage credit, believe or believe it not when applying for credit, certain banks have systems in place where a human being can override a computer's decision.
You worked a generation ago, working life was different then.

polymaff

MABLE wrote: »

I opened my first account with the National Provisional Bank .....

You banked with the IRA?

MABLE

polymaff wrote: »

You banked with the IRA?

Funny you should that because in those days its certainly felt like it.

msallen

pinkdalek wrote: »

You worked a generation ago, working life was different then.

Just because I was working then does not mean I am not working now!

I am perfectly well aware of how the workplace (or rather society in general) has changed for the better, but that has diddly squat to do with the fact that "bank managers" today are not doing a highly skilled and responsible professional job requiring years of experience and a deep knowledge of local commerce - a fact which you took umbridge at it being pointed out.