Job Description

 

Bank Intern

 

I loved banks and thought that I would spend the rest of my life in one. They’re always at the perfect temperature, have music playing, and move at a slow pace. It was my dream job. To learn more about my future, I became an intern at my local bank. Before I started the internship, the police scanned my fingerprints and checked my background. They did this to be sure that I wouldn’t steal any money.

 

The life of a teller isn’t as simple as one imagines. I had more responsibilities than I anticipated, which made me decide to no longer pursue banking as a career. The three people I had to be while on the clock were:

• Eyes

• Conversationalist

• Special Agent

I’ll explain each of these roles. 

 

Eyes

Federal law didn't allow me to touch any money due to my age and intern status. So instead of being an extra set of hands for the tellers, I was a pair of eyes. 

Job shadowing is one of the most difficult ways to learn about a new job because you’re not doing any of the work. I watched people working, had some teaching positives–it allowed me to catch mistakes. 

 

Did you know that the most important part of being a teller is balancing your money drawer? I had no idea that money randomly disappeared or appeared throughout the day. It was very unlikely to have a perfect count of money at the end of the shift. (The computer counted money during transactions. This number needed to match the same amount of physical cash). 

One day, my coworker lost a very large amount of money. She was $200 short. This means that she gave away an extra $200 during the day. Fortunately for her, she had four eyes. When she was handing a person money earlier in the day, her counting confused me. I noticed that she gave somebody two extra $100 bills. Being a pair of eyes helped her stay eligible for her bonus at the end of the year. 

My perfect vision played an important role during the three months I spent at the bank. I used them to memorize the locations of the fire extinguishers. Whenever we balanced registers, I read off the numbers from the computer. Also, I collected the banking statements and scanned them properly.

Conversationalist

Since I couldn’t complete transactions on my own, I spent a lot of time talking to customers. Customer relationships were at the center of our company’s policy. While the tellers did transactions, I was responsible for making conversation. These were the main topics we talked about.

• My future

• Gossip

• My internship

Their favorite topic was always about my future. 

One man was a frequent customer. He remembered me because I was the youngest person there. We always talked about my plans to travel the world and my hope of working for an international company. He gave me advice on countries to visit and adventures to do in Europe. Also reminding me to achieve my own goals for myself. He was the most supportive person I met while working there. I felt embarrassed when he told me that I’ll be successful in school and life. (It was weird to have a stranger predict my future.) 

 

Being a conversationalist and maintaining customer relationships was my favorite task. 

Special Agent

Bankers can't tell a lot of their secrets. The code on the security system. The combination to the vault door. Emergency protocols to prevent fraud. 

It was very hard for me to keep secrets hidden from my family because they were so interesting. Not a lot of people learn about the inner workings of consumer banking. It felt like being a secret agent because if my sister asked me any of the questions on this list:

• How much money is in the vault?

• What happens during a robbery?

• Where is the money hidden?

My response always had to be “That’s classified.” 

 

Special agents always face danger. Since I was one of them, I had to learn to be on alert for dangerous people. People love robbing banks, it's what they're known for. Most action movies with a character suffering from financial problems include bank robberies. Each day I was on shift I never knew if someone would try to take the money in our register. You might think I’m overreacting or have too big of an imagination. But, a person held the bank across the street at gunpoint one hour before my shift started. My coworker told me to be on high alert and to only allow five people into the bank at a time. Everyone seemed to be on edge.

 

My coworkers received counterfeit money a couple of times. It was the banks responsibility to take them and send it to a government agency for further analysis. One day, my coworker accepted a fraudulent $20 bill. She kept saying it was obvious that it wasn't real and laughed at her mistake. Since tellers check expensive bills with a more watchful eye, it was uncommon for anything over $10 to be fake.

Flesch Reading Ease: 69.6

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 6.5

Passive Sentences: 0%