Читать книгу Seeking Silver - Karen Y. Barnstable - Страница 13

Chapter 4

Accused

It was a crucial time in our relationship. Kim and I had been seeing each other for seven months, and we both wanted to see if our romance was going to move forward. We reached a fork in the road as my third year of university ended and decisions about how we would spend our summer had to be made.

Kim’s location for the summer was already determined. He needed to return home to southeast Saskatchewan and help plant the crop on the family grain farm. His career plan as a farmer was already in place. I only had one year of education studies left, and then I could begin my career as a teacher. I had worked in Saskatoon the previous summer and knew that jobs would be available to me in my university city, but staying in Saskatoon for the summer meant Kim and I would be a five-hour drive from each other.

Should I stay here, or should I chance it in southeast Saskatchewan? If I can find a job there, we could have a romantic summer together.

It was a difficult choice, but with my heart leading my head, I began the search for a summer job in the town near Kim’s family farm.

My resumé was impressive, listing the many jobs I had tackled since the age of 15. I had a continuous record of employment, often working more than one part-time job at a time. My experiences ranged from ice cream shops to high-end restaurants, shoe stores to clothing outlets, small business offices to government agencies. Two previous summer jobs had been spent as a clerk at Saskatchewan Government Insurance. That was the job my dad wanted me to keep long-term.

Estevan was a small city, but I remained hopeful I’d be able to find a job there. The options were few, but one posting for a teller at a local bank caught my eye right away. It wasn’t advertised as a summer job, but the idea of this position appealed to me. Even though I had nothing like this work on my resumé, I applied for the position and managed to get an interview. I was hired immediately.

I passed the on-the-job training in record speed. Learning how to handle all types of bank transactions seemed straightforward and easy to master. I relished the chance to be a fully qualified teller, open my own station, and greet the customers.

As tellers, we were not allowed to open our individual stations until we had balanced all transactions from the day before. It took me a bit longer than the other tellers to balance, but I was usually up and running with my station soon after the experienced tellers.

One morning, a few weeks after I completed my training, I couldn’t get my transactions to balance. I went over the statements repeatedly, but something was causing an error. My station remained closed as my supervisor scoured my transactions. No errors could be found. In total frustration, she finally let me open my station to keep up with the customers of the day despite the incomplete balancing requirement.

The same problem happened the next day. And the day after, it happened again, and again. Day after day, I could not balance. Each time, my supervisor had to set aside the demands of her regular work to comb through all my statements, trying to find an error. She couldn’t find one. Her frustration with me turned to anger. She blamed me and accused me of hiding something. I was baffled by her accusations.

Why does this keep happening? Why can’t I balance? I’m doing everything just as I was trained to do. In all the jobs I’ve worked, I’ve never caused anyone to be so angry.

The problem kept happening. I could not figure out how to balance. In exasperation, my supervisor discussed the issue with the bank manager. She filed a report about me that contained the only theory they could muster as to why I couldn’t balance. From their perspective, I was stealing from the bank. My inability to balance each day indicated small amounts of missing funds. I would have to be watched with “high alert” to avoid further theft.

The report drafted about me was devastating. It was kept on file and had the potential to scar my employment record permanently.

The last thing I wanted Kim to hear about me was that I was deceitful or distrustful. I had moved to his corner of the province for the summer so that we could continue getting to know each other and our relationship could blossom. This job was not working in my favour.

How will I tell him about these work issues and this disastrous report? Does he know me well enough to realize these accusations are not true?

To my relief at the time, Kim was distracted and didn’t realize the seriousness of my job trauma. Besides the long hours of farm work, he played fastball in a competitive league. A travelling baseball performance team arrived in Estevan and was practising with Kim’s team for a high-action public performance. Kim was the star pitcher and was drawing a lot of attention from the team.

One of the team members was an attractive, athletic female player, a few years older than Kim and me. She swooned over my athletic boyfriend, causing him to blush and fidget nervously. I was not impressed with her forwardness around him and even less impressed by his reaction to her. Kim was so preoccupied with all this admiration, he wasn’t even noticing me. My confidence in our relationship dipped to a disheartening low.

This was turning out to be the worst summer of my life. My work world was destroying my belief in myself to do a job well. On top of that, I was questioning everything about my relationship with Kim. My hopes and dreams for our future were eroding daily. I needed to pray.

Dear Lord, You know all about the predicaments I’m in this summer. You know how much I care about Kim and how worried I am about our relationship right now. You also know about the horrible accusations that have been written about me at the bank. I don’t even know how to defend myself, Lord. I read verses today that say You will fight for us (Deuteronomy 20:4) and deliver us from our troubles (Psalm 34:19). I ask for this help today, Lord. Please guide me at the bank and help them to see that I’m not a thief. And, please protect Kim and me. Help him to see past the advances of the female baseball star. I was so sure when we met that we were meant for each other. I pray that this summer will not be wasted and that we could still move forward. In Your name I ask this, Lord. Amen.

The big weekend of the baseball performance show finally arrived. I was bursting with pride as my boyfriend demonstrated his pitching abilities for the crowd. The show was a huge success, with the fans “oohing” and “aahing” at the skills of the high-performance team. A barbecue was planned to celebrate the event after the show. I tried to enjoy the festivities, but I could hardly wait for the weekend to be finished. The travelling team would leave our town and move on to the next one. I would have time with Kim again and could find out if his heart was still mine.

The following week at the bank, an unexpected discovery was made about my errors. I often displaced two numbers that were close. Instead of typing $93.48, I would enter the numbers $93.84. These mistakes were subtle errors that were hard to find. This type of number mix-up happened often in my daily life with phone numbers or other numbers I was trying to remember. I just laughed it off. At the bank, a number error like that was no laughing matter.

Fortunately, recognizing my number displacements helped to identify and prevent errors. Balancing the transactions of the previous day was no longer an issue. I managed to complete my summer of working at the bank without further accusations.

On my last day of work, the bank manager called me into his office. I wasn’t sure what to expect. He smiled and commented that it had been an interesting summer. He apologized for the harsh report that had been written about me. Now that the staff knew me better, they realized that the accusations were ludicrous. Right there, in front of me, he shredded the report. He knew I was planning a career as a teacher, and he had an important recommendation for me. We both laughed out loud as he suggested that I stick to teaching languages and avoid the subject of mathematics. I nodded in full agreement. I always knew I was better with words than numbers. That summer provided unforgettable evidence.

What a crazy summer! I am so relieved, but why did this all happen?

The end of that summer provided more evidence to continue believing in my relationship with Kim. The distractions of the female baseball star disappeared as smoothly as the shredded report. Kim and I had time with each other again and were soon back on track.

As the negative emotions of that summer dissolved and we talked more about our future, I was grateful to leave the bank job in good standing with all of the staff. If I came back to this town and worked as a teacher, it was possible that the children of the staff at that bank might be students in my future classrooms.