the bevolution

When I was a kid, I thought I would grow up to be a bank manager. My mom was a bank manager and I wanted to be just like her (still do! xo). At playtime, you would find me sitting behind the desk in the downstairs den, smiling in greeting as pretend people came to me with their requests. “You need two hundred and thousand billioneth dollars in cash today? Okay. I’m going to need to see some I.D.”

Later, when I was old enough, I would walk down to the bank every chance I got. Full disclosure: I mostly wanted to buy candy at the store next to the bank and drive home with Mom, but hanging out at the bank was fun, too. One day in particular always stands out – the day I made the breakroom toilet overflow. This was a traumatic event in a young girl’s life! But the trauma was eased when they said I was mostly embarrassed because I was young, when I got older things like that wouldn’t be as devastating.

This team of women, all different ages with different roles and levels of responsibility, gathered around to tell stories of their own youthful traumas, laughing together and commiserating with my pain before going back to work. One of them said she would give anything to go back and do it all again. I was relatively certain she was crazy, but I totally wanted to be on this team. And I was! It was my first official job.

Mom was hired with the bank when she was only 16, straight out of high school. Starting as a teller, she worked her way up to head teller, then assistant manager, and eventually she became a manager – the first female manager of the only bank in our town. We moved shortly after I finished high school and mom managed an even bigger branch, eventually moving to mortgages and loans.

In what I’m sure felt like a blink, the bank told her it would soon be time to celebrate her 25th work anniversary. They gave her a catalogue of gifts to pick from and she chose a beautiful clock. There was to be a big party to celebrate, too, but it was unexpectedly postponed at the last minute. Then, just a few days later, some bank officials invited her into the office and told her that her services were no longer required. They stood by as she packed up her personal belongings and they walked her to the door, leaving her to find her way home in a complete state of shock.

She had done nothing wrong. Her performance and dedicatation were exceptional (I worked with her and many other managers over the years – she excelled at her job). It turned out that the bank laid off hundreds of people across the country at that time and, due to 25 years of wage increases and performance incentives, she was making significantly more than others in the same role. They called it “restructuring” in the news, but I always felt it simply came down to a line on a spreadsheet.

Something changed in my mother that day. It is her story to tell, but I know she was hurt unlike she had ever been hurt before. Something changed in me that day, too. I learned that, no matter how devoted I was to the company I worked for, fundamentally I would always be a line on a spreadsheet.

More than 30 years have passed now and, as much as I still hate the way the layoff was handled and the pain it caused back then, being a line on a spreadsheet eventually resulted in countless lives being improved, including my own. My mother went on to foster children and at-risk teenagers (along with my dad), she trained and mentored other foster parents, and later chaired the provincial foster parents association. I even got a new brother out of the deal!

Needless to say, I didn’t become a bank manager. Instead, a door opened to a life I don’t think would have been possible otherwise. A life of adventure, of success, of trying and falling and learning to get up. Not for a company, but in service to a cause. Getting better, to do better, to lead better, to teach better, to make the world better. I even got a new kid out of the deal! Lol

All this is to say, my line on the spreadsheet came up last month. Restructuring, reorganizing, revamping, reconsidering, whatever the reason, I know I gave it my all and I’m proud of what I (along with my team) accomplished. Most importantly, I am grateful to have found a purpose I’m devoted to in a career I’m good at and absolutely, outrageously love. I can’t wait to find a new spreadsheet and start doing it all again.