A day in the life of a loan officer at a small, local branch of an Ohio Credit Union

7:50AM: Walked into an interesting time this morning. The boss isn’t here today…working Saturday. The teller who is quitting as of Friday this week called off, so the boss for some reason called another teller to come in (who was supposed to be off today) just to look at the schedule. And then, between the boss and the teller, they decided that the teller really didn’t need to be here right now but would be on call for the rest of the day. This didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me because the boss could have just as easily called me to figure out whether to have the teller come in to cover or not. But then I guess I shouldn’t be surprised…this is the same boss who, whenever on vacation even for just one day, tells me everything I’m responsible for as if I were 5 years old and/or had just been hired yesterday and/or have a learning disability. I don’t like people who act like they’re indispensable…

While I’m on the subject of my boss…I’d like to say that the boss spoils the hell out of the tellers down here. Our branch go opened 10 minutes late today because I was busy and not watching the time and the tellers are so used to the boss opening the door that they all sat reading books and not paying attention to the fact that we should have been open. Lovely.

8:30AM: Discovered a member has “disobeyed direct orders” as it were. We told this member we needed to physically see and take a photo of his newly financed vehicle or the approval for the loan would be revoked. We also told this member we needed a copy of a certain insurance document. The member brought a photo of the vehicle to us, told the person working on Saturday that the car wasn’t being driven presently, and gave us the wrong insurance form. The member isn’t driving the car in preparation to tearing it apart and restoring it and also because it doesn’t have plates yet. And the thing that annoys me the most? The member said the boss knows all about it and is fine with it. Now, I know the boss would not be fine with it and I am also pretty damn sure the boss knows nothing about this situation. One hopes the member has not ripped the vehicle apart yet so we can get this resolved.

10:00AM: So, for some reason, the Columbia Gas website killed my compy. I can’t figure it out…it wasn’t an image-rich website. It wasn’t a flash-dependant website. It was just a regular, garden variety utility company website. But when I minimized my IE window, my on-screen time clock disappeared and my entire computer froze. Not only that, but it took me 5 minutes to get the computer to shut itself off, and a further 15 minutes to get it back up and running correctly. I’m not tempting fate though…I’m not even so much as looking at IE unless I absolutely have to for the rest of the day.

10:45AM: I’m bored enough that I’m blogging at work again. Well…not exactly blogging. Our web filter blocks blog websites, so I’m composing a blog in word (hi) and then I’ll attach it to an email to my home email address and delete the blog off the system at work. I’ve done my last three blogs like this, I believe. It gives me something to do at work when I’m done with all the busy work and can’t stand to do any more CUU courses.

So I’ve decided I’m going to Burger King today for lunch. The plan is to get a chicken club with extra mayo and no tomato, a medium fry, a medium coke, and a York peppermint pie. If you haven’t had one of them smexy pies, you totally need to eat as many as you can before they take them off the market dude. Apart from the hot fudge (I’m not a hot fudge fan) they’re DELICIOUS! I hope they don’t cook the fries with a fish patty like last time…there’s nothing worse than fishy fries. {They did---ed.}

It’s probably too cold outside to eat in the car, but I’m gonna give it the old college try anyway. I didn’t bring a book with me to work and I like listening to Women of Grace every day. Not because I agree with the Catholics, but because I like listening to Catholics being stupid. Lol. Ooo…I need to get gas though. And I don’t have time on lunch to do that. Maybe I will eat inside today after all…I could always buy a newsrag.

11:00AM to 12:00AM: Lunch break

11:51AM: You know what makes me laugh? Thinking critically about religion. In simple terms (because I haven’t fleshed out the idea yet), religion was started because we as humans needed a way to explain what we really couldn’t explain. As our knowledge grew, and our educational opportunities grew, the things we chalked up to “god” or “the gods” became less numerous in…um…number. Now-a-days we can explain almost everything in one way or another (and they’re reasonable explanations based on observable facts) and the need for religion as an explanation is shrinking. The need for religion as a crutch if you will is still there…we still don’t know why we’re here or why bad things happen to good people or all that emotional stuff…but the need for explanations as to why the sky is blue or what a thunderstorm is or anything like that is greatly diminished. And Religion doesn’t want to release its collective stranglehold on human life. It’s amusing. I thought of this while listening to the Catholics bitch about some demon movie thingy. They were saying it’s frightening that at this movie’s promo website a kid can sign up to have their own personal demon (kinda like on the Harry Potter movie site where you could have your own mandrake root to care for) because that means “the evil one” isn’t hiding anymore and is really making a push to get all these kids’ souls. And without even thinking about it, the words “You idiots are the only people who believe demons are fucking real” burst from my lips as I laughed. So yeah…I was highly amused.

12:53PM: I’ve been emailing back and forth with an online friend today so I’m not as bored as I could be yay!

You know what annoys the snot out of me? People who don’t smile back at you when you smile at them. Especially if they suddenly become highly interested in the floor tile after they see you look up and smile at them. It’s like “what, am I not good enough for you to smile at?!” It’s pathetic. I’m taking 2 seconds out of my time to try and brighten your day a little bit and you can’t take those same 2 seconds and return the favor?! Bite me then, dude, I didn’t want to tear my eyes away from Wikipedia anyway! Excardon me for trying to give good Customer Service. I mean, that’s what this whole industry is about, dude, is customer service. And we both know if you didn’t GET good customer service you’d be in my office like a damn shot complaining about the tellers or you’d be in the boss’s office if not mine.

3:06PM: Played a lot of solitaire today. I really like Spider Solitaire better than regular solitaire. I did have a sort-of busy snap there for a hot minute. I scanned and indexed signature cards (but I didn’t file them because I effing hate filing and I get tired of seeing the tellers sit around reading books all day when they complain about being too busy to do CUU courses) and helped a member cancel their credit card insurance. Then I went to the post office and I got a title I’ve been waiting for in the mail from another financing corporation yay! FINALLY! I swear, apparently places like GMAC and Huntington and whatnot don’t like losing loans so they drag their heels sending title work and stuff when someone refinances. It’s slightly annoying because meanwhile, while I’m waiting and waiting for the stupid title, my loan manager is on my butt asking me why the loan hasn’t been on our loan list yet. And I can’t get mad at my loan manager because honestly, the loan manager's right. It shouldn’t take over a month to get a title sent to me when I pay off a loan for a member. I mean, I’d rather the loan manager called GMAC or whoever and complained instead of calling me, but they're right to be annoyed about it.

So anyway, I got my title work done and scanned an insurance document that cause my compy to freeze again ugh. I don’t know what’s wrong with my work compy today but it’s being a right bitch. Maybe it’s her time of the month too lol.

So now I’m just waiting for 4:00 to roll around so I can finally close my albatross loan. I call it that because this loan (and really, this member) is like an albatross around my neck. Technically, it should have been withdrawn because it’s over 30 days old but as long as the member comes in today I’m not going to quibble about it. I’ve been on the phone with this person back and forth about this loan for the whole 30 days…I’ve left this member 2 phone messages a week (when I could…for a while the voicemail box was full and I couldn’t leave messages). And the thing is…during that time the member has called me several times asking questions about the account. When the member’s on the phone with me, though, I can’t get a word in edge-ways lol. It takes this member forever to ask whatever the question is and as soon as I answer the question they’re like “kthxbai” and hang up before I can get the info I need and/or relay the message I need to relay. It’s ridiculous. But hopefully, this here member will actually make good on their word and come in to close today.

3:43PM: Think I’ll close it out for the day. Not because I’m done, but because my loan will be here at 4:00 or so and I don’t want to waste time after I’m done with the loan blogging my heart out lol. I have to stay after with the tellers tonite and I’d like to get out of here at a decent time because the hubs is home cooking for me lol. I got the vault counted already so that’s a leg up anyway. I just hope all the tellers balance and don’t stand around doing nothing. Guess we’ll see!

Addendum: In that last hour, I finally became DONE with the albatross. Woo-hoo! Though the member will probably be calling me soon asking about the debit cards and/or credit card they're supposed to receive.

I also proofed, printed, and scanned a teller's checks and verified another teller's drawer and basically stayed bored. But we got out of there at a decent time so it's all good.

I would like to point out to any CU compliance person who happens to stumble upon this or any of the other blogs I'm going to put this into that I have not mentioned my credit union by name, I have not mentioned any credit union employee or member by name OR gender, I have not outlined in detail any policy or procedure of my or anyone else's credit union, and therefore I have not violated any secrecy/privacy policy. And considering most people violate that policy every day (at least in my branch they do) one hopes that you will go after the ones who mention names and not this humble blogger.

Mood: Bored and annoyed

Music: random radio hits on canned radio

Location: My office