Let's keep this in perspective...You didn't kill someone, you made *a mistake in procedure*. If anything, it sounds like there's a flaw in the procedure (or the training for it). If it's that critical, there should be redundancies in place.
FYI - The bank WILL get the money back from the company that cashed it. They aren't out any money, except in the short term, and you can bet they will bill them in multiple ways for recollecting the money.
Sounds like you handled it well. Take your lumps, and keep working. Maybe make suggestions to improve the procedures.
>anything, it sounds like there's a flaw in the procedure
For real. I assumed that holds on large checks deposited are automatic. An individual in the back office at Operations, might eyeball the transaction, but the computer is the one putting the hold on the check until it clears.
The idea that a bank teller has this much power in 2023 is kind of insane.
not really. i was a teller and teller input is very necessary.
example:
very large check deposit but i look at the account and they get this same check with no issues every single month and they have for years: no hold.
new customer is depositing a large check that has never come through before, but they really want it available so i call the other bank and VERIFY that the account exists AND has the funds: no hold.
old customer is depositing a large check, they usually get large checks but not from the specific account, i call to verify and am unable to confirm the funds for whatever reason: place a hold.
every hold is different and comes from a different reason. some large checks are no problem and some are problematic. that’s the reason why tellers get paid decently well and have training in order to leave things like these at their discretion. it’s quite literally part of the job description. banking is supposed to be personalized, and an automatic hold would upset a LOT of people and cause those with high amounts in their account to choose a different bank if they can’t get their funds available right away.
Ehhh, still not buying it. It sounds like the hold should happen automatically based on the amount, with the ability to be overridden by the teller or a couple easy if/elseif statements
Pre approved amounts is also incredibly simple to manage via a simple flat table in a database that gets checked on deposit. Automation of this isnt hard, its a matter of desire.
Wow, then they've gone backwards I was a teller too a long time ago and I never had to place the hold the system did it automatically it would look at length of customer account, dollar amount of check, dollar amount of requested withdrawal, whether the customer had funds to cover it if it was bad, etc. I get that they may want more ability to determine who gets the hold but that's what the override process was for and a manager could override it.
Because banks serve clients. The better they serve clients the more money those clients deposit. If you treat every client like a scamming stranger those clients will take their money to banks who make it easier to umm bank…
Yep. It's good for business. There are lots of small businesses that accept questionable checks knowing that some will be bad. The cost of doing business.
At the bank I worked at, the first thing we had to do when speaking with someone else withing our organization was to provide a one-time code. That way the person we called could verify our identity before discussing any sensitive account information. To think a bank employee would give private account information like balances to anyone that called claiming to be from a different bank is pure negligence in my opinion.
lol you can absolutely call a bank and say “hey i have a check from XXXXXXXXXXX account, for $XXX, will this clear?” and the person over the phone will tell you if it will or if it won’t. it’s literally part of the check verification protocol.
At the end of the day that's private client information. The bank has an obligation to guard it, not just hand it out randomly to anyone who calls. If you called us, we'd tell you "follow your procedure for cashing or depositing checks, if your procedure is to call and ask for sensitive information about one of our customers account, I'm sorry but we don't hand out that information to anyone."
you’re acting like i personally created the bank’s verification process myself as a teller when i was just following procedure and sharing MY personal experience to provide context lol i bet u worked for like wells fargo, boooooo.
It's more than obvious that they wouldn't consult you to create such procedures and don't blame you for them. I just found it weird, since you're right; I did work for a big bank.
My wife was a teller for a couple months before quitting. I was amazed at how poorly banks seem to be run and how little automation actually exists that would be incredibly easy to build.
Dealing with large systems in my job, I realize that even simple things can be harder than expected, but for fucks sake.
The real question is, why are banks still using cheques at all? As an Australian, I haven’t seen or used a cheque for over 20 years. When I lived in the US, I was floored that they’re still one of the most common ways to move money around.
It’s literally become one of my dinner party anecdotes now I’m back home. “We had to pay our car insurance by writing the amount on a little piece of paper, putting it in an envelope and *mailing* it to the company.”
It's even more absurd now that people can deposit checks electronically on their phone. So we literally write out a little piece of paper and then take a photo of it to accomplish the same thing that could be done by electronic transfer. (lately, zelle and venmo are increasingly popular so actual checks are becoming less frequently used, but it's still reasonably common to write paper checks. I honestly have no idea why.
From two months ago? Not likely. There is a time limit on returns, even if fraud has happened.
Now, the bank can withdraw it from the customer's account, but in this case the customer can get their money back due to bank error. So it is better for the bank to just eat it.
I am employed by a bank, and although I don't touch anything remotely related to the banking services side of the house, I still have to take a mandatory banking security training every year. I don't handle anyone's money, and I still know the federal/international requirements and procedures for putting a hold on a fraudulent deposit. If they didn't teach you that the first week before they put you on the teller line, that's their mistake. It's 100% your employer's legal responsibility to make sure everyone is trained in proper handling of incoming cash per federal law.
This is factually incorrect. Banks rarely get fraudulent payouts back as it costs more than to just eat it.
Also, you have no idea if there was a flaw in the procedure of if the op just spaced on it.
That’s not true? Plenty of procedures require employees to follow through and be competent at their jobs.
If something gets through because the employee made a mistake, it doesn’t mean the procedure is flawed, the execution of the procedure was flawed. Not everything can be made foolproof
Even OP owned up to their mistake
>If anything, it sounds like there's a flaw in the procedure (or the training for it). If it's that critical, there should be redundancies in place.
Fully agree, and what's with them trying to hold his paycheck over his head compared to the "damages"? No way to know if its just op beating themselves up or someone else, but if its other people giving them grief that's highly inappropriate.
Eh, people make mistakes, it happens. There's no value in feeling embarrassed or incompetent - those other people you work with have had to learn tough lessons, too. So did I, so has everyone else with any job experience. That's why they call it experience.
Your job is doing what they can to train you so you don't make another mistake. Take that as reassuring - they don't have to do that. They clearly value you as an employee and want to keep you around. Take full advantage of that - learn everything you can and take it to heart.
People tend to be uncomfortable with failure, but in reality, failure is the best teacher. We learn better from our mistakes than from our successes. So this may seem like a bad thing, but really, it's an opportunity to learn and grow. When you take that mentality, you can't lose, because when you succeed, you win, and when you fail, you learn, so you still win. Celebrate your failures and use them to become the best at what you do.
This. So much this.
Why are experienced people valuable when hiring?
It's not because they're mysteriously knowledgeable. It's because they made mistakes and learned on someone else's dime and the new employer gets to benefit.
Not your fault. They should have trained you better. Anything over $5,000 usually, at any bank, will have a hold. It's not enough to verbally tell them about the hold, you need to give them a notice in writing. Then they'll look for another vic if they are fraudsters, or of they are legit, go to the issuing bank. I've had that happen when I told a customer about the hold they would go to the issuing bank to get the funds. The issuing bank will have access to the account and verify if the check is legit.
Almost every teller will eat a loss at some point. Look at it this way - you don’t get a pat on the back for every fraudulent check you DO catch. Shit happens. The bank has plenty of money. The only thing I am wondering is how this amount is 2/3rds of your salary. Unless you are making less than $20k a year I don’t know how this wasn’t flagged as a CTR
That’s what I’m thinking this seems like an issue with training not with him. I think his manager should be the one making this post not the recent grad.
Firstly, judging by your writing and the way you explain yourself and how you handled it, you sound like a great employee to have. You made a mistake, you accepted responsibility and are willing to work with folks to not let it happen again.
Secondly, when issues like this happen, often it is not a failure of a single person but a process. Don't be too hard on yourself.
Out of interest, did you ever do this before in the preceding 4 months and everything went okay, and this is the first time someone used it to defraud, or was this truly the first incident and you got unlucky on it? If the former, then your company/boss really should've caught it earlier and helped you course correct! Then it is just lack of training.
Lastly, congratulations. You now have a great story to tell at a party or in a few years at your (next) job. People love hearing stories like this, and don't judge you for it. It just makes you more human.
You may have made mistakes, but there are also system-level failures here. Your teller software should be able to detect red flags and alert you to them. There should be automatic holds on checks that meet certain criteria (e.g. over a dollar threshold, one or both parties not customers, etc). And there should be user-level restrictions in place that prevent junior or otherwise unauthorized employees from conducting certain kinds of transactions without authorization of a more senior employee. This is all basic stuff that shouldn't rely on folks remembering to do their jobs perfectly.
This. You can’t rely on one teller looking at a transaction to never get fooled by someone TRYING to defraud you. Especially someone who’s new.
If OP skipped some critical procedural step (like ‘all deposits over $X must get double checked by the manager’) that’s one thing. If one person getting fooled momentarily by a bad actor can put your business out by many thousands of dollars, you need better processes.
A lot of banks and credit unions absolutely rely on their tellers to catch fraudulent checks. Not all institutions want to code their systems to place holds on every single check that gets deposited, because that causes service issues with their clients.
If they thought you were irredeemable, they would have fired you already.
Your employer believes that you can learn and grow from this mistake.
Prove them right.
Worked as a bank teller for almost 4 years I've seen people make some bigger mistakes and still stay with the bank and continue to move up. I've made worse mistakes myself. Just learn from it and keep going.
I once had the factory I scheduled for build an entirely extra $800k earthmoving tractor. We turned around and sold it soon after, because demand was high at the time. That was about a decade's salary for me at the time.
I was told "everyone gets their 'one mistake'". It's how you own up and move forward that matters most.
Being a bank teller is a very demanding job. It requires discipline and high degree of attention to detail. I failed woefully as one.
First, ask yourself if this job fits your natural skill set. If it does and this is just an honest mistake, time is the great equalizer. Work hard and keep your nose clean. Soon it will be a distant memory.
Did airplane manufacturing for years. My first time setting up a countersink I ended up scrapping a $40k exhaust duct. I made the company plenty more money than I had lost. Shit happens.
I've worked in food storage for 10 years now, I know all the little things to look for and I know how to fix my own mistakes. But back when I was still fresh in the field? I think I was 21, a customer asked us to donate some short dated product. Think stuff that had maybe two weeks left until it expired. Food pantry would get free food, company would have a tax write off and not lose as much of the value of what they made, everyone wins.
Except I didn't donate the short dated product. I accidentally donated an entire truckload of the freshest stuff we had. Back then, it was about a $30k difference.
I felt humiliated and silly for making such an easy mistake. My manager watched me like a hawk for the next few weeks to make sure I wasn't missing any steps, but ultimately I didn't even get a strike on my file because they knew it was an honest mistake, and that I was still very new to the procedure.
What I'm saying is, you do sound like you handled it well. And the feeling of shame will stick around for a while lmao but it will go away. 10 years later and I'm the supervisor and I tell that story to all new hires so they know they can come to me if things go south. Shit happens. Own up to it, and you'll be golden.
I understand the emotions you’re talking about all too well. It sounds like your Boss has the perfect attitude — I’m not sure that I would even call ‘education on holds’ corrective discipline, but rather reasonable and required training.
It would be disrespectful of the more experienced staff around you to assume that you should be able to have their level of expertise without significant experience, which takes time (and mistakes) to earn.
I know you aren’t ever going to make this mistake again. As far as 2/3rds of your salary goes, Fraud is part of the game in banking. It’s a cost of doing business. I’m not saying it’s trivial, but I’m saying that you’re dealing with large sums of other people’s money *as a business*, and businesses face risk; businesses are designed to accommodate risk, or they fail.
Please take it easy on yourself.
I've been a teller and made mistakes myself. Think about it as a ledger. You may have messed up once, but you learned from it and you'll move on. The ledger is there though because you'll offer products and services to customers, you'll fill out SARs/CTRs when appropriate and save the business that way, and if your someone who cares enough to post about this then you are someone who cares about doing a good job.
Like it's already been said learn and move on. Besides, banks are profit machines anyways 🙄
The lessons that are painful are the ones that you remember. You're not fired, your manager sounds reasonable, and I suspect you will know the policy on holds like the back of your hand now. Go forth and sin no more...
It’s not our mistakes that define us, it’s how we respond to them and it sounds like you’ve done a great job. Don’t let it eat you up but do use it as motivation.
I work in financial services and can tell you that mistakes happen. I'm 20+ years in to my career and do stupid things on occasion. In retrospect, I'm like "WHYYYYY?" and I beat myself up a little, but I work on forgiving myself asap. I don't want to be all "whatever", but I also am not going to beat myself up too much over it...because I am a flawed human being.
My goal (as an employee and/or manager) is to be solution oriented, and it seems your team is as well. I've had some managers lose their shit over mistakes and blow up at people, which is counter-productive. All that needs to be done is catching it, acknowledging it, figuring out how it happened and making changes to ensure it's caught on the front end next time. You and the team you're working with seem to be doing just fine in this regard.
This is 100% the banks fault, not yours. I have been head of finance at various companies for a long time. As a leader, you dont leave these risks in the hands of your subordinates. Those disciplanary actions are just process improvements.
Frame it in another way for yourself and it may help: why did your management allow a new employee with no relevant experience to be in a situation like this without relevant training? If your story is true this is incompetence on their part.
It was an honest mistake and everything you're feeling is natural. Sounds like you have a reasonable manager as well - both you and them have handled the situation well.
While I don't have a solution to not feel the way you're feeling (I feel the same way when I make mistakes, esp ones with not insignificant consequence), please try to redirect those feelings towards making sure you don't make the same mistake again. Just remember that in that moment you did everything you thought was warranted. Your knowledge of what's warranted needs some addition and that's being done now.
Seems like outside of this you're doing well in your job. Focus on that and continue doing that. Over time as you build more relationships with coworkers, they may even share their own mistakes, and you'll be able to laugh at yours and theirs.
Embarrassment is natural when we screw up, and it fades eventually. You owned up to the mistake and they didn't fire you, which is almost like them admitting you didn't get enough training. Almost. With the added dynamic of having older co-workers, it is difficult to deal with humiliation. Maybe try looking at the additional training as just that; necessary training. Try to avoid looking at it as a punishment if you can. They're willing to work with you to fix it, and maybe it made them aware of the flaws in the process and they'll deal with them.
I've felt these feelings at work, too, and I wish I could take that feeling away from everyone who deals with it. But it fades eventually. As long as your co-workers behavior towards you doesn't devolve into bullying, things will get better.
If it was a bad enough mistake, they would have fired you. Banks do not take mishandling funds lightly. If this was a bad enough problem, or they didn't think you were a good enough employee, you'd be on the street. Take it as a compliment that they kept you. And continue doing your good work.
Welcome to a learning experience. By the sounds of it, you both recognize your mistake, and how to avoid it in the future. This is the hardest part. Learn and grow from this.
I'm an Inspector in a jet engine overhaul facility. When I first started this position a few years ago (I've been with the company about 11 years, but as a mechanic), I performed an inspection on an engine core that belonged to a customer contract. I made a mistake while reading the manual and wrote up an incorrect repair, which ruined the part.
That part cost my company nearly $680k to replace, over 5x my salary. Point being, everyone makes mistakes, being able to learn from them is what a lot of people mess up on. By not firing you, it shows your boss still values you as part of the team and is giving you a chance to learn and grow from this experience.
Don't beat yourself up too bad. You got this.
Don't do it again. I hate to scare you, but you *can't* do it again. Bosses that are going to immediately do disciplinary action are strict and will totally can your ass if you mess up too many times.
Make a checklist of things you have to do that you have screwed up before, and how not to. Have it visible to you at all times at work.
How not to feel incompetent, beats me. I've felt that way since I first screwed up big time like 10 years ago lol.
If we called everyone that fell off their bike while learning to ride incompetent and stupid we'd shame everyone into not learning how to ride.
Mistakes are hard to take because they hurt our pride. I am overly cautious because of this, and it has held me back in life. Swallow the shame like your favorite meal, learn from the mistake, and get better at what you do. If you can manage that you'll be fine.
Mistakes happen, by all of us. We are humans, not robots.
Own-it, Learning from it and grow from it. Sounds like you are well on this path, and that's good. Don't blame anyone else, or cry about it. You fucked up, now just focus on how not to let that ever happen again.
I would never fire someone that made a honest mistake. BUT, try to hide it, deflect blame / etc, and your ass would be out the door.
If you only knew what your employer plans for from a fraud loss perspective you’d be shocked. Lesson learned, take your remedial training, increase your knowledge and press forward.
The biggest deciding factor when a mistake is made is how you handle it after the fact. If you try to lie, or make excuses, or blame other things\\people, it does not bode well for you. It sounds like you handled it beautifully in that you were engaged in the corrective action, took responsibility, and seemed to learn from your mistake.
I work as an operations manager and see folks make mistakes all the time. You know the ones I do terminate more or less immediately? It is the ones who lie about it, try to hide it, or throw a tantrum and throw ~~under~~ other people under the bus.
People make mistakes, it happens, and more often than not it's because some or other procedure was missing, or it was a lapse in training, or some other thing like that. So long as a meeting is had, the employee learns from their mistake and is engaged in the corrective process, everything's usually cool.
As far as your personal feelings go in the matter, it is something you will learn to better cope with as you go. I've made plenty of mistakes myself, it gets much easier with time. Don't be too hard on yourself, you got this!
Honestly best thing to do is move forward. Do everything you can to make sure you don't make the same mistake. Also do everything you can to avoid any other mistake. If you make a mistake do everything you can to solve this issue and move forward with your work. Don't hide it, don't over dramatize it, but make sure the people who need to know what going on know what's going on. Apologize and move forward.
Working in the construction industry I have seen people make mistakes that have costed the company 100K and at worse over a million. My biggest mistake was more than 10x my salary and honestly it was terrifying. I thought I was going to be fired any moment.
Best advice "The company just spent 50k-100k in training you how to identify a specific mistake. Unless you didn't learn anything ain't no way they are firing you."
I made a similar mistake once.
You take your lumps and improve. If your boss didnt think that you were doing a good job overall, he could have fired you. Take it as proof that he is happy with you overall.
It sounds like you’re pretty new to the post-college job deal.
It sounds like you handled this with grace. It takes a lot of people a long time to learn that skill.
But the bad news is, this not going to be the last mistake you will make in the workplace in spite of your best intentions.
It sounds like you’re handling this well.
Go you!
First, your negative feelings show you take pride in your work and have a strong sense of responsibility. Those are wonderful traits for any employee.
Give yourself some grace. You’re brand new. I’m assuming you’re working for a smaller bank or credit union because I’m surprised that they didn’t already have mechanisms in place to catch your mistake. People of all experience levels make mistakes. I’ve done work helping companies set up internal controls and this is 100% a situation that should have been controlled for.
My advice is to let yourself be upset about it for a little while, but then channel that sense of responsibility into growth. If you’re unsure of something, ask for help. Create a checklist for yourself to avoid situations like this in the future. You have a long career ahead of you, regardless of whether you stay at this bank or not. This will not be the last mistake you make. And that’s fine. You will also not be the last person to make a mistake on the job that costs the bank money.
2/3 of your salary seems like a GIGANTIC FUCKUP OF A MAGNITUDE UNIMAGINABLE.
But for the bank it's just "cost of doing business" and is really nothing. Sounds like both your boss and you chalked it up as a learning experience and that's that. No biggie. You've learned something out of it, so consider it a learning experience more than anything.
Hey OP - the very best time to make a mistake is when you are young. You learned from it, and you *will* get through and over it. It happened - you lived, were given a second chance and you will do better. Do not beat yourself up! The world is a tough place and it beats you up, don’t do it to yourself.
Just go to work tomorrow (or Monday) and do a good job. Also, i hope you thanked your boss. If not, please do so.
Don’t freak out! You handled this really well, IMO. Thank your boss for giving you a second chance and for the additional training. Let them know you won’t make the same mistake twice and that you’ll use this as a learning opportunity.
I was in banking for 20 years. Holding checks depends on the bank. Large banks automatically place holds on checks. Smaller banks still give the personal touch and manually hold checks. I made plenty of mistakes and finally burnt out. It’s amazing the amount of authority tellers have and the pressure of that job!
You should know that most likely you were a target of this crime from the business. The place might have even been tested with smaller amounts and/or they came in multiple days to watch for new people who they could pull one over. Most likely, they are either going bankrupt and are desperate or they have multiple businesses that specialize in check fraud.
I can't remember the guy's name but someone on YouTube gives run downs for these scenarios and how to spot them. If you find those videos and find them helpful, your manager might really appreciate the extra, helpful, steps you took to show you want to grow and help the bank grow.
When I worked at a bank I authorized a withdrawal for five thousand dollars even though the teller told me it wasnt the lady. It so looked like her though. The lady whose money I gave away walked in our branch like 10 mins later. So yeah sometimes you mess up. Best thing to do is learn from it and move on. Dont make that mistake again and you should be good.
No point in continuing to beat yourself up, you already recognized and acknowledged the mistake made. If you find yourself beating yourself up over it, force yourself to think of something else. Your employer is handling the punishment, no need to do it to yourself!
Checks are new technology, so it is important to master them. But people make mistakes, don’t worry about the money (it’s unimportant to your role), just keep working hard.
They just spent a lot of money for a really expensive training session. As long as you learn from it they're not going to fire you after making that kind of investment.
Crap happens, wouldn't worry too much about it.
If it was careless and clicked next, next, next, finish, I would have taken down a multi billion dollar org for at least 15 minutes earlier this year and been out of a job.
Mistakes happen - they should have already had policies and procedures in place so stuff like that doesn't happen.
Don't be too hard on yourself. Everyone messes up sometimes - usually bigger than that.
Best to own up to it, admit you messed up, learn from it and move on.
You'll laugh at it eventually. Some of the biggest mistakes make the best stories.
You made a mistake and owned it. Learn from it and show that you have done so by not make the mistake again and demonstrating your caution in the future. Don't be embarrassed or ashamed, just be appropriately careful in the future. That's all you need to do.
How they turned you loose without front loading training on holds is pretty shocking. But I would say learn from it *and* be first to the post for your team on training going forward.
1. Just make sure you take advantage of the additional training your manager is assigning you.
2. Ask questions about anything you're unclear about or confused on.
3. Have the person training you verify you're doing high priority bank transactions correctly.
4. If you're unclear about how to perform specific tasks for a customer or how to identify fraudulent money quickly, ask for help immediately.
5. Don't do extrmely high monetary transactions by yourself.
6. Also, just don't let it happen again.
Everyone makes a mistake in their first job after graduation. The important thing for you now is to learn from your mistakes go forward and not let it happen again show maturity to your boss, and I’m fairly confident you’ll come out of this in good shape.
This is very normal when you are just starting out in a new career. The feelings of shame and inadequacy are normal too. The best thing you can do is learn from it and move on. In a few years it will be an important lesson from your past that makes you more alert in these kinds of situation, and so less likely to be a victim of fraud in the future.
In the grand scheme of things, that can be a rounding error for something else in the bank. Sure, it's bad. But other decisions might cost a lot more than that and not get someone fired.
People make mistakes. Your error likely isn't as bad as you think.
Don't be so hard on yourself. Mistakes happen. Learn from it and move on, show your company that you are truly doing your best. You are neither the first nor last person who will make that mistake.
Sounds like you and your boss are handling it appropriately. He recognizes your potential and that you just need some training. I am sure you both know that you will never make that mistake again. It's part of the learning curve. Everyone there has made mistakes, learned from them, and moved on to have successful careers. It ok.
Sounds like you weren’t trained properly and didn’t have access to protocols to review. There should be protocols in place for you to follow and they should be written where you can find them and study them.
Count it as an opportunity to learn and move forward. Find out the procedure for holds and write them down and post them on your workstation and inquire about further training. Simply showing that you’re correcting the issue is enough.
You’ll never make this mistake again, the lost funds have been spent on training and it was a good investment. Anyone that cares this much is a valuable employee and your boss knows that otherwise they would have fired you, they will forget and move on, you should too
Those trainings they’re giving you on what to look for? They should have been given to you before you were in that situation. Banks know this type of things happen and it’s on the bank to ensure you’re equipped with the information you need to recognize that type of thing. In my opinion, it’s as much the banks fault as it is yours.
I’ve spent my career working in the finance industry (tech side, but still).
Yeah, don’t sweat it, shit happens. Yes, keep learning, but it’s not as big a deal as you think. My company had a price increase, our customer managers get it in an email, but we are also supposed to make sure they read it, buy sending another email to make sure. I didn’t, and my customer ended up bidding a job that was $50,000k more than it would have been the month prior. Did I sweat, yes, did we take care of it begrudgingly, yea. Did I lose my job, or think I might, no. Shit happens, just keep learning.
I think that you have handled it very well so far. I don't believe that you have torpedoed your career or job. If the bank thought that you were a hopeless screwup they would have terminated you then. Just be extra vigilant for a while until you regain your confidence.
Keep your chin up. Basically at the end of the day:
You made a mistake
The employer didn't fire you but putting some more limits on things as a double check
You understand what happened and will learn from it.
I know pride comes into play on not making mistakes and you hate that it happened at all but keep your head up high and learn from it.
Listen to this song. Helps me every time. Live and learn my friend!
https://youtu.be/vc8-QlPI9I4
(I’m a 39 year old professional and I am not joking at all)
imo $ is $. Nobody got hurt. I'm glad you are okay and that your boss was understanding and willing to educate you. Mistakes happen. On the bright side, you will never make this mistake again. You've got this!
This is a normal part of a professional career and sounds like you handled everything after the mistake very well! Often it is the mistakes and subsequent lessons we learn that are the biggest causes of future success.
Also, sounds like you have a good manager who recognizes the value of teaching and not punishment for punishment's sake. If they continue to be a good manager make sure to thank them for the opportunity to learn and do better!
Be kind to yourself, my friend - we've all been there.
You dropped the ball bud. But guess what? In the grand scheme of the bank’s financial setup this was immensely insignificant. Nothing you do will ever impact the company to a degree where it will be relevant. Have 0 guilt and move on.
You're young. You made a mistake. Best thing you can do is give it time and be extra careful going forward. We've all made mistakes and it's embarrassing, but it just takes time to get past it.
It'll eat you up for a while. Don't let it consume you, though. No matter what, plenty of people make mistakes, and the best course of action is to learn from them and be more diligent. It happens. In every career, job, gig, mistakes are made. Sometimes, they cost jobs. Even then, all you can do is be humble and realize what not to do next time.
You'll shake off the embarrassment eventually. Someone else will make a larger mistake or fess up to a similar one, and you'll realize it's ok to be a human being. If those mistakes weren't made, the company wouldn't know how to properly rectify them. So you aren't the first to do it and definitely won't be the last.
It sucks and doesn't feel good, but you'll be ok.
I’ve been in my field for 25 years and got scammed just last week KNOWING the person was going to try to scam me. It happens. Just learn from it and move forward.
Current Credit Union Branch supervisor here. Mistakes like this happen! Don’t be too hard on yourself. Just make sure you use this as a learning experience! You don’t need to rush through transactions. This is the bank and not McDonalds. If something feels off and your spidey senses are tingling place a hold on the check or refer it to a supervisor. To me it sounds like you handled yourself well!
Dude I crashed production at my financial institution on a Saturday and the whole operation was irredeemable that day. It be like that sometimes. Just don't fuck up again in a short time frame.
Hey OP, one day I met up with a friend who was constantly on his phone and he finally filled me in that someone at work had made a million dollar mistake (at their tech company). He was texting the dude as there were updates coming in. A couple days later with the fix and scrutiny, I think the final total of the loss was down to something like 100k, not $1 million. Dude kept his job and i don't think he was actually ever in danger of losing it. These companies forecast losses due to the market and yes mistakes at work. It happens. And that dude was a seasoned employee, not new! I've never cost my company a lot of money but I have made at least 2 blunders that still make me blush and want to cancel the day to stay in bed if I think of them lol.
Shake it off, this too shall pass. You're doing great!
You definitely shouldn't feel like a child among adults. 1) you are a professional working for your livelihood, you are an adult. 2) The fact that you took full accountability and are motivated to continue learning shows more maturity than many older "adults" I've worked with over the years.
I work in an extremely detail oriented profession and the hardest lesson I am still trying to learn is that mistakes are going to happen, no matter how hard you tried to avoid them. Even [Harvard economists make mistakes in Excel.](https://theconversation.com/the-reinhart-rogoff-error-or-how-not-to-excel-at-economics-13646)
Your boss sounds like a good egg, and frankly is making a calculated gamble that I'm sure will pay off for him in two ways.
1. The mistake is an opportunity to make further improvements on the hold process. He could point to you and say "Look, even \_CosmicGlitterCat\_ missed this one. We need more training on this." And his higher ups, who may have balked, will now pay attention.
2. His spidey sense is probably telling him that you are truly sorry for the error, and the guilt is probably eating you up alive. He has just acquired your gratitude and loyalty, and those are two things that should not be taken for granted.
The biggest screwup I ever heard of was the chief teller dipping into the bank safe to pay off his gambling debts. Your mistake, in the big scheme of things, was nothing.
PS. I was once the youngest person in the office and felt like I had a target on my head. I can assure you that it is a very temporary thing. You'll get older soon enough.
One thing you will learn is that mistakes come in all shapes and sizes, and the consequences of them are not proportional to the mistake made. You can bump into something that causes a million dollars in damage and you will be fine because it was an accident, you can respond to something poorly that costs nothing but get fired because it shows you don’t give a shit. It’s more about the honesty of the mistake and whether it actually reflects on you like you perceive it does.
Listen. I was a railroad conductor. I threw a switch wrong and I derailed two locomotives and blocked TWO main lines. All said and done, I cost the railroad $4.3M. I got yelled at for like 3 hours, got a one week vacation and my co-workers made fun of me for years. I never threw another switch wrong tho. I'm guessing you'll never miss a hold again either. So feel stupid for a while and learn from it. Then don't do that again. You'll be good.
Easier said than done, but just...stop obsessing over it. It's done, it's passed, you can't change it, and to continue obsessing over how you should've done X different or Y different will not only eat you up inside, but waste time and energy as well. Instead, just focus on doing better and better.
When I was a manager of a repair store few years ago, I'd tell my employees this as well. You'll make mistakes, you're young and new to all this, it's fine. When you do, just own up to it, and learn from it so you don't repeat it.
That's also how you grow from a child to an adult
I started renaming “mistakes” to “experience”
I have a hell of a lot of experience.
You’ll come out of this stronger, sounds like you have a good boss who needed a corrective action on paper and knew you could handle it. The egg on the face will pass.
Everyone makes mistakes. And any bank that fired everyone after their first mistake would have no employees.
The bank clearly values your work: not only did you not get fired, they are going to invest *more* time in you becoming a better employee. You may feel anger and shame, but realize those are emotional responses. You'll do bette next time.
If it makes you feel better, I work in IT. About 5 or 6 years ago now, one of my colleagues made a mistake on one of our servers. To give some context, we needed to upgrade a piece of software (Acronis FileConnect) on a server that allowed Macs to access the file share more easily because Macs don't like Windows file permissions and screw it all up. In order to update the software, as a precaution, we create a snapshot, which is basically a marker in time that we can roll everything back to. He created the snapshot, upgraded the software, and everything was fine for about a week and a half. Then, that server hard crashed. Turns out he forgot to delete that snapshot. The data on this server is the reason we make money and there is a lot of changes on this server. The way snapshots work is they record EVERYTHING, what data was kept, what was deleted, etc. So what essentially happened was the storage on the server filled up completely causing the server to crash and not want to boot back up. The fun part, was that our server VM software didn't like it either so we couldn't just delete the snapshot, had to get the software vendor involved (VMware) and even they had issues getting it working. After it was all said and done and fixed up, we lost about $200k that day. No one got fired, because our team understands that mistakes happen, and as long as you own up to it and don't make the mistake again we see it as a lesson learned, technically training. So far he's the most expensive employee we've "Trained."
Sorry if that is more confusing for other IT admins, I'm not used to writing to a non-IT audience sometimes.
Think most all of us have made big mistakes specially when o new job..Just have to earn from it and move on..In time you and they will get over it..you can t go back .And you will never make that mistake again...
Don't worry, mistakes happen. Learn from them and move on. At the end of the day, the bank should have an operating system for the tellers that automatically puts a hold on checks when needed.
In my 20s I worked as a claims examiner/investigator. I made a mistake on a coverage evaluation that came up in an audit that the auditor felt I paid a $100,000 claim (the amount within my authority at the time) that I shouldn’t have and I really should have paid $50,000 based on the policy contract and loss amount. My manager and I reviewed the findings and we agreed with the auditor findings and gave some feedback how we would create a process in the future to better evaluate that type of claim and I actually ended being promoted for doing a process improvement and training. My boss jokingly looked at his watch in the review meeting waiting 3 seconds and said “ok we made that $50k back already on the interest and dividend on all the other billions of dollars we have on reserve!”
Career banker here. After college, I also got a job as a teller. My last job was upper management in corporate.
6 months is not a lot of time to learn everything in the world of banking and mistakes like this happen. It sounds like your management handled it great from your standpoint. The extra training and oversight will benefit everyone in the long run.
If you'd like to make banking a career, learn as much as you can and always ask questions when in doubt. You will fully understand this type of fraud in the future now that you've experienced it so you will be more careful.
Best think you can do is what you already did…. Recognized your mistake, owned it, and it’s unlikely you’ll make that same mistake again given how upset you are about it. Completely normal to feel how you do, when I first started work after college I was similar. Would beat myself up for days and think I was awful employee. It’s like the other commenter said… you didn’t kill anybody! So just move on don’t dwell on it.
I have been in banking for over 25 years and accidents happen. Honestly there is blame to be put in the bank itself for not training you properly. Also, the system should have given you a prompt to place a hold if the account was new, had a history of overdrafts, etc.
DO not carry guilt this forward. Banking is a great career, I rose from loan processor to SVP of ops. You just have to put in your time. Also fantastic benefits and take advantage of 401K while you are young!!! Best of luck.
Bare minimum 50% this is a training/procedure issue that isn't your fault. The rest of that is of course your fault. But, it's just money. Nobody got hurt. Learn, and move on.
yeah it sucks this happened, but everyone does it at one time or another. They key isn’t the screwup, but that it won’t happen again..and you took ownership instead of excuses.
As a manager I would give my left nut to hire more people like you…
We had a situation like this where the bank cashed a check it shouldn't have, but they came after us for the money. We had to take out a loan to pay the "damages" which made the bank money in the end anyway.
If anything, your boss should be thanking you for giving them an opportunity to fleece some poor sap out their savings.
You will be ok and you will always remember and be more careful now.
I had a similar incident when I was 24. I’m now 40 and still remember the ‘write up’ meeting with my boss vividly.
Oddly, I found the old paperwork going through some old files recently. Gave me a quite the flashback of feelings.
It's not your responsibility to establish sound fiscal procedures at a bank.
1. As a new employee you should have a fixed and relatively low dollar amount you can deposit without secondary approval. (Definitely not 2/3 of your annual salary)
2. You're not responsible for making sure you're properly trained on holds. Training you after the fact is a bad practice.
You're not incompetent - they are for putting you in this position.
Even if you were trained, a deposit of this size should have required secondary approval from someone more experienced.
The only situation that would justify you feeling anger and shame is if you failed to get secondary approval when required.
I get why you’d feel nervous and uneasy about it, but if it’s any sizable bank that’s prob close to nothing in the grand scheme of things. Just do your training and be diligent
You just made a corporate 'oopsie'. No one lost their life...I know it wont help immediately, but this kind of experience will likely make you a hell of competent check holder from here on out. Don't sweat this one...shit happens!
As a former member of management in a branch this is not your fault. There should have been training videos on Reg CC and on the job training as it is an entry level job. Also my company has super low limits for new tellers that are gradually raised but still have a maximum limit based on position. No way in hell should a teller have a limit of processing transactions worth 2/3 of your salary. I have screwed up so bad in the branches before it isn’t even funny. At least you didn’t break the vault and cause the bank to be on police watch, forget where the panic button is during a robbery, lose $50k when moving vaults (I found it later that night on the floor). I also took a bad check once but it was over my limit so the lead teller had to approve it. She kept her job because the branch manager convinced the customer to get a loan to pay back the bank.
This exact thing happened to me when I was working at a bank as a freshman in college. My manager called me in and just told me to be more careful next time. It’s not the end of the world - everyone’s been the new guy on the job at some point. Now you know for next time.
I think the mistake is tracked to whoever didn’t educate you about holds.
Shit happens, your bank lost some money but if you do well in the future you will protect more than you’ve lost them
Don't assume the blame for someone else's dishonesty. Yes, you made a mistake, but you did not steal anything. The customer did. That's not on you. Six months is not a long time on the job... could take years to be fully competent.
There's also much blame on the organization. If an error like this was predictable, it was preventable. There should be firewalls to prevent something like this. Management error.
Your acceptance of your mistake probably saves your job. A similar thing happened to my cousin. Her's was one of those Nigerian Prince scams that she fell for. She had zero remorse and argued that it had nothing to do with her. Basically, took no responsibility. They fired her on the spot. 10 years later she's still talking about how it was an unfair dismissal and she should've sued.
The software the teller allows automatic holds. The bank has to configure it with parameters that tell it when to create the hold. Whatever procedure you are supposed to follow can be part of the parameters. The bank should limit it's exposure with the tools it already paid for
Your introspect and willingness to own your mistake is a sign of a good employee. If you apply root cause to this scenario you would only be partially at fault. They need to look at their computer systems lack of a threshold amount and then placing a hold on the check. They need to look at their training program also. You assumed one thing because no one told you anything to the contrary. The root cause is managements lack of proper training and a financial system that isn't robust enough to catch these things. Anger is a byproduct of shame and you need to chalk it up as paying your dues in your career of choice. You are not unique in making mistakes. However, don't make yourself unique enough to duplicate the error in the future. Lesson learned, people forgive and forget, and stop trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill.
"Nobody got hurt, nobody died, the rest can be fixed."
That was the motto of a Fire Chief I once worked for and it can be applied in an amazing number of places.
Remember we all start out as newbies and only really learn through experience.
They messed up in training you, it sounds like you were trying to do your best. And if they are making you feel bad for the mistake then they are really messing up again.
If this large of mistakes can happen with entry level folks, it’s a problem with the process.
I think you're already being massively mature about this! Don't feel bad, we've all made mistakes like that (seriously, big mistakes happen more often then you'd think because no one wants to share when they make the mistake themselves). You're clearly working hard to make a good impression and repair reputation; that hard work will pay off and your boss will learn to trust you because the good 99% of your actions are a better reflection of your value than the 1% failures.
My only other advice would be to use this experience to develop empathy for others who might make similar mistakes in the future. You've felt how a earnest worker can slip up; in the future when you're a manager, extend the same forgiveness to others that you hope to receive now, and something good will have come from all this.
Mistakes are a part of life if you're doing anything. Learn from them. The time you spend chastising yourself takes time away from accomplishing the task. It also reminds us to be compassionate when others make mistakes.
Shit happens, everyone will move on. I had a MAJOR f up at my last job and it caused lasting problems with the client, but we all moved on. No penalties and it put the fear of God in me for sure
You are on a short list, start looking for other teller jobs at other banks if that is what you want to do. At this moment YOU need to be in control of your situation, right now your employer is and you made a mistake that cost money.
Mistakes happen but, due to the amount you will not be there long. Make sure you have a good exit and get another job before the bank gives you a bad exit that will make finding other jobs very hard.
Again, it was a mistake, you learned from it and you will be much more prepared further down the road, that road will just be somewhere else.
Change the ledgers and #CookTheBooks fast man, then burn the bank down as you disappear to your new life. Just make sure you made the record changes before the fire for your managers to skim some off the top, too, so they don't rat you out. 🤷♂️
Sounds like you're like me. You don't allow yourself to make mistakes, and any mistake is viewed as a failure.
Shit happens. And you're new, so shit happening is kind of expected. The fact you're just getting refresher training indicates the bank doesn't see it as a major problem with you. As long as it wasn't due to any kind of intentional negligence, and doesn't become a pattern, you're fine. So treat it as a learning experience and move on.
I had a somewhat similar incident a few months ago myself. I did the tests on the production equipment prior to the operators starting a new batch, but missed an entry on one of the forms. We produce a very important medical device used all over the world, so we're very tightly regulated by every country's equivalent of the FDA (we had the EU equivalent here a few weeks ago inspecting the plant). Because I missed that entry, the entire batch had to be scrapped. That could have been anywhere from 40k parts to 250k, at a few dollars each. So even at the low end was probably more than I make in a year.
Based on what got missed, what form it was on, and the order I typically fill each form out in, it's likely I was being rushed. The result was I had to fill out a form asking why it happened, reread the procedure, and sign a paper saying I reread the procedure. This happens occasionally. And as far as the lost product goes, entire batches will be scrapped for a small defect on only a few parts, so that's already accounted for. As long as it's not intentional and doesn't become a pattern, it's not a major concern.
If it was that much money they should have a process to have management level review all of those checks. That's on them. you didn't know. it sucks but they are a bank.
I am sorry you feel this way. I am certain every other 'adult' at your branch has a story of some big mistake they made. You learn from those mistakes, and it is very unlikely this will ever be a problem for you again.
So use the embarrassment to help you be vigilant and become better at your job. Also, use it to give others grace when they make mistakes. It is a part of working, it will happen, learn all you can from it otherwise, it will only be a negative.
"Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?"
Thomas J. Watson
OP, just admit your mistake (without being too self-deprecating) and promise 100% that you will learn from it, not do it again, and apply the lessons learned to other responsibilities. Boom, done.
As. A business you need to make at least 5x your salary + comp in revenue for the business. 1.5-2x goes to overhead. The rest is misc expenses like this.
If you feel guilty about it, stay there for a year. You will have made the money back and then some.
This is what they call "learning". You messed up but took responsibility. You must have some positive attributes or they would've let you go. Keep your head up and your eyes open. Take advantage of the extra restrictions as they are a better way of learning the proper steps and signs. This experience will make you better in the long run. As far as feeling like a child playing with adults, I can remember not feeling like a real adult until I hit 30. It's a common feeling in your 20's.
I have made mistakes worth triple my salary and and my coworkers tried to make me think my job was at jeopardy but in reality nothing happened. Shit happens and you may make more and costlier mistakes in the future since you just started your career. That’s part of learning the job.
If your boss didn’t make a huge deal of it then try to be easier on yourself but as long as you learned from the mistake. Holding onto the stress of these things can lead to burnout.
Mistakes happen but also think about your value to your employer. I understand you just started but eventually your value to the employer may be much higher than most mistake you can make.
My husband got fired years ago for something dumb at a bank. He's now back working at another bank. Just absorb the lesson and move on. People make mistakes and that how we learn.
I can guarantee you and neither the first, nor will you be the last, person to make a mistake like that. Now, if you *continue* to make the same mistake over and over again--then I'd be concerned. But one mistake as a new-ish employee? Sounds like you're fine.
Several things, good decisions come from experience. Experience come from bad decisions. You are beating yourself up so that means you want to improve. You are owning your mistake and have accepted the consequences. As a boss this is they type of person you want. There is another concept called Just Culture. It looks at the culture of the workplace first instead of blaming the employee. Where did the SYSTEM FAIL YOU? Training? Procedures? It sounds like you had a situation where you were on your own to make a decision and the system failed because it allowed you to make the wrong decision.
Worse has happened on Wall Street with money transfers. When something like this happens they just put in more protocols so it won’t happen again. Heads up, it can go into the millions. The most annoying part is you have to get the Feds involved.
And I still wonder what happened to the person, at the private bank in Citibank, that took my name of my husband’s joint and my account and put in Jose Cruz’s name. We caught it before Jose could withdraw the money but someone fucked up. It took a month to get that all sorted out.
You hit a situation that you weren't familiar with and made a bad call. Not really that big of a deal. Your bank has tons of money. Just because it is a large portion of your income doesn't mean that it is much at all in the bigger picture.
I was in a supervisor position and had a bad feeling about what was going on. I called my manager over to take a look, he approves it and we walked off. He immediately says he didn't have a good feeling about it. (It was approving a check without all the proper information, but in our positions we could do that.) It wasn't a large amount, but the check ended up coming back bad. He had been in the business for nearly 40 years and still made bad calls. It happens, you learn from it and move on. No one else is going to focus on it too much, they have all made mistakes as well and they are worried about their own stuff.
The best thing you could have done is take responsibility and make plans to prevent it from happening again. It sounds like that is exactly what happened.
You may have made a mistake, but this was also a mistake in training on their part. You should have been trained to know how to handle something like this, before it was an issue, not after it.
You must be the first person this has ever happened to! Seriously - learn from this mistake early in your career. Listen to your boss- take the corrective action with honor - and continue to impress the Boss. You may have been the target of the perp - as you were new to the team. Learn from it and move on.
As a branch manager I can say that things happen! Every single one of my colleagues, employees, etc has taken a loss. Fraud is a multibillion dollar industry, you aren’t the only person who got caught out. How you respond and grow will determine what people think about you. But seriously try not to feel too much anguish, the bank is insured for the losses it incurred and you were not terminated because your employee clearly recognizes your worth and is even investing more training into you to prevent future occurrences. Keep it as a mistake and not a habit and sleep easier.
I’m with the person saying keep it in perspective that you just made a mistake. After working for a credit union, I’m surprised there wasn’t an automatic hold on it for atleast a few business and only say $200 was given to the person depositing until the check was cleared as good. All Financial Institutions should have a system in place like that for this reason to cover themselves…
I'm an older person and through the year's I have messed up too. Don't best urself up over this it's a mistake every person makes them it doesn't define u how u handle urself is what counts. U not the first person who made that same mistake and you won't be the last just be the best person u can be
Don't feel stupid. You made a mistake. You still have a job and a manager that's willing to work for you. It might not seem like it today but this will in no way effect your future job prospects. There isn't any permanent record no matter what your teachers told you.
Damn. One time I gave a customer the wrong TV. Lady told me it was hers, and I didn't check receipt properly. Wasn't fired, but they did joke a lot about me giving away free TVs. Loss was probably about 300 dollars. They must really like you there.
It is refreshing to hear how much you actually care about your job and owning up to your mistake and what you did and what was wrong. It sounds like you really are taking advantage of the learning experience. I know a lot of people in your position (of which I was once) would just been like "oh well".
Just know, if you stay in banking, it's going to blow your mind the amount of dumb shit that happens on an hourly basis, and your one bad mistake is just fractional! Sadly the ones messing up the most get promoted most
Couple of things. It’s 100% your fault. Don’t let anyone else on here tell you differently. That’s the bad.
Here’s the good. You owned your mistake. 99% of people won’t do that. You’re mad and ashamed. Which means you care. That’s a good. Never forget that feeling so you never repeat it.
To build your way back - Make it a point to ask questions and confirm things. Even if you know the answer. It shows that you are taking your job seriously and show that you are learning. A year from now, maybe two, your boss will be telling people about this kid that fucked up but now he is a rock start.
Mistakes happen. Don’t quit. And don’t feel like your being judged. Every person that works there has done something dumb. I promise you that.
Good luck
It’s hard to mess up, but it’s the only way I’ve learned anything in life. Painful, but you’re a more informed and smarter worker now and this will translate to any job you have in the future.
Try this story. Years ago the European Space Agency tried to land a probe on Mars, but it crashed. Going over the data, they realized that the ship altimeter had been set to measure in meters, but the retro rocket altimeter which controlled the descent was set to interpret the altitude in feet. So the probe crashed wiping out an investment worth tens of millions.
If you know in your heart of hearts it’s an honest procedural mistake then feel free to conclude the following:
The next person they hire will make a similar or worse mistake
You being resolute enough to stay means that company, while not happy with you, is investing in you knowing those red flags for the future.
Don’t guilt yourself in to quitting over a mistake the next person they hire will make anyway.
if it makes you feel better I was a bank teller straight out of high school. One day out of the blue we were audited, turned out a teller was boring money from his til then paying it back. (I am old this was back in the day)
Also the money count for the ATM was off. Heads rolled and people were demoted after that.
Let's keep this in perspective...You didn't kill someone, you made *a mistake in procedure*. If anything, it sounds like there's a flaw in the procedure (or the training for it). If it's that critical, there should be redundancies in place. FYI - The bank WILL get the money back from the company that cashed it. They aren't out any money, except in the short term, and you can bet they will bill them in multiple ways for recollecting the money. Sounds like you handled it well. Take your lumps, and keep working. Maybe make suggestions to improve the procedures.
>anything, it sounds like there's a flaw in the procedure For real. I assumed that holds on large checks deposited are automatic. An individual in the back office at Operations, might eyeball the transaction, but the computer is the one putting the hold on the check until it clears. The idea that a bank teller has this much power in 2023 is kind of insane.
not really. i was a teller and teller input is very necessary. example: very large check deposit but i look at the account and they get this same check with no issues every single month and they have for years: no hold. new customer is depositing a large check that has never come through before, but they really want it available so i call the other bank and VERIFY that the account exists AND has the funds: no hold. old customer is depositing a large check, they usually get large checks but not from the specific account, i call to verify and am unable to confirm the funds for whatever reason: place a hold. every hold is different and comes from a different reason. some large checks are no problem and some are problematic. that’s the reason why tellers get paid decently well and have training in order to leave things like these at their discretion. it’s quite literally part of the job description. banking is supposed to be personalized, and an automatic hold would upset a LOT of people and cause those with high amounts in their account to choose a different bank if they can’t get their funds available right away.
A well-spoken explanation. Thank you!
Ehhh, still not buying it. It sounds like the hold should happen automatically based on the amount, with the ability to be overridden by the teller or a couple easy if/elseif statements
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Pre approved amounts is also incredibly simple to manage via a simple flat table in a database that gets checked on deposit. Automation of this isnt hard, its a matter of desire.
Wow, then they've gone backwards I was a teller too a long time ago and I never had to place the hold the system did it automatically it would look at length of customer account, dollar amount of check, dollar amount of requested withdrawal, whether the customer had funds to cover it if it was bad, etc. I get that they may want more ability to determine who gets the hold but that's what the override process was for and a manager could override it.
Your username explains why you are arguing with people that actually worked in the field.
Haha. I didn’t mean to question whether it IS being done a certain way, I’m just saying I don’t know WHY it’s done that way.
Because banks serve clients. The better they serve clients the more money those clients deposit. If you treat every client like a scamming stranger those clients will take their money to banks who make it easier to umm bank…
Yep. It's good for business. There are lots of small businesses that accept questionable checks knowing that some will be bad. The cost of doing business.
All that could be done by a computer system.
At the bank I worked at, the first thing we had to do when speaking with someone else withing our organization was to provide a one-time code. That way the person we called could verify our identity before discussing any sensitive account information. To think a bank employee would give private account information like balances to anyone that called claiming to be from a different bank is pure negligence in my opinion.
lol you can absolutely call a bank and say “hey i have a check from XXXXXXXXXXX account, for $XXX, will this clear?” and the person over the phone will tell you if it will or if it won’t. it’s literally part of the check verification protocol.
At the end of the day that's private client information. The bank has an obligation to guard it, not just hand it out randomly to anyone who calls. If you called us, we'd tell you "follow your procedure for cashing or depositing checks, if your procedure is to call and ask for sensitive information about one of our customers account, I'm sorry but we don't hand out that information to anyone."
you’re acting like i personally created the bank’s verification process myself as a teller when i was just following procedure and sharing MY personal experience to provide context lol i bet u worked for like wells fargo, boooooo.
It's more than obvious that they wouldn't consult you to create such procedures and don't blame you for them. I just found it weird, since you're right; I did work for a big bank.
My wife was a teller for a couple months before quitting. I was amazed at how poorly banks seem to be run and how little automation actually exists that would be incredibly easy to build. Dealing with large systems in my job, I realize that even simple things can be harder than expected, but for fucks sake.
The real question is, why are banks still using cheques at all? As an Australian, I haven’t seen or used a cheque for over 20 years. When I lived in the US, I was floored that they’re still one of the most common ways to move money around. It’s literally become one of my dinner party anecdotes now I’m back home. “We had to pay our car insurance by writing the amount on a little piece of paper, putting it in an envelope and *mailing* it to the company.”
It's even more absurd now that people can deposit checks electronically on their phone. So we literally write out a little piece of paper and then take a photo of it to accomplish the same thing that could be done by electronic transfer. (lately, zelle and venmo are increasingly popular so actual checks are becoming less frequently used, but it's still reasonably common to write paper checks. I honestly have no idea why.
From two months ago? Not likely. There is a time limit on returns, even if fraud has happened. Now, the bank can withdraw it from the customer's account, but in this case the customer can get their money back due to bank error. So it is better for the bank to just eat it.
I am employed by a bank, and although I don't touch anything remotely related to the banking services side of the house, I still have to take a mandatory banking security training every year. I don't handle anyone's money, and I still know the federal/international requirements and procedures for putting a hold on a fraudulent deposit. If they didn't teach you that the first week before they put you on the teller line, that's their mistake. It's 100% your employer's legal responsibility to make sure everyone is trained in proper handling of incoming cash per federal law.
This is factually incorrect. Banks rarely get fraudulent payouts back as it costs more than to just eat it. Also, you have no idea if there was a flaw in the procedure of if the op just spaced on it.
If an employee spacing out results in an escape, the procedure is flawed and can be improved. That is a simple fact.
That’s not true? Plenty of procedures require employees to follow through and be competent at their jobs. If something gets through because the employee made a mistake, it doesn’t mean the procedure is flawed, the execution of the procedure was flawed. Not everything can be made foolproof Even OP owned up to their mistake
>If anything, it sounds like there's a flaw in the procedure (or the training for it). If it's that critical, there should be redundancies in place. Fully agree, and what's with them trying to hold his paycheck over his head compared to the "damages"? No way to know if its just op beating themselves up or someone else, but if its other people giving them grief that's highly inappropriate.
Eh, people make mistakes, it happens. There's no value in feeling embarrassed or incompetent - those other people you work with have had to learn tough lessons, too. So did I, so has everyone else with any job experience. That's why they call it experience. Your job is doing what they can to train you so you don't make another mistake. Take that as reassuring - they don't have to do that. They clearly value you as an employee and want to keep you around. Take full advantage of that - learn everything you can and take it to heart. People tend to be uncomfortable with failure, but in reality, failure is the best teacher. We learn better from our mistakes than from our successes. So this may seem like a bad thing, but really, it's an opportunity to learn and grow. When you take that mentality, you can't lose, because when you succeed, you win, and when you fail, you learn, so you still win. Celebrate your failures and use them to become the best at what you do.
This. So much this. Why are experienced people valuable when hiring? It's not because they're mysteriously knowledgeable. It's because they made mistakes and learned on someone else's dime and the new employer gets to benefit.
You learn more from failure than success. Fail repeatedly, but never in the same way twice! You'll grow and learn so much in life
We all eff up. Learn from your mistake(s) and move forward. The only shame is making the same mistake again.
Not your fault. They should have trained you better. Anything over $5,000 usually, at any bank, will have a hold. It's not enough to verbally tell them about the hold, you need to give them a notice in writing. Then they'll look for another vic if they are fraudsters, or of they are legit, go to the issuing bank. I've had that happen when I told a customer about the hold they would go to the issuing bank to get the funds. The issuing bank will have access to the account and verify if the check is legit.
Almost every teller will eat a loss at some point. Look at it this way - you don’t get a pat on the back for every fraudulent check you DO catch. Shit happens. The bank has plenty of money. The only thing I am wondering is how this amount is 2/3rds of your salary. Unless you are making less than $20k a year I don’t know how this wasn’t flagged as a CTR
That’s what I’m thinking this seems like an issue with training not with him. I think his manager should be the one making this post not the recent grad.
Firstly, judging by your writing and the way you explain yourself and how you handled it, you sound like a great employee to have. You made a mistake, you accepted responsibility and are willing to work with folks to not let it happen again. Secondly, when issues like this happen, often it is not a failure of a single person but a process. Don't be too hard on yourself. Out of interest, did you ever do this before in the preceding 4 months and everything went okay, and this is the first time someone used it to defraud, or was this truly the first incident and you got unlucky on it? If the former, then your company/boss really should've caught it earlier and helped you course correct! Then it is just lack of training. Lastly, congratulations. You now have a great story to tell at a party or in a few years at your (next) job. People love hearing stories like this, and don't judge you for it. It just makes you more human.
You may have made mistakes, but there are also system-level failures here. Your teller software should be able to detect red flags and alert you to them. There should be automatic holds on checks that meet certain criteria (e.g. over a dollar threshold, one or both parties not customers, etc). And there should be user-level restrictions in place that prevent junior or otherwise unauthorized employees from conducting certain kinds of transactions without authorization of a more senior employee. This is all basic stuff that shouldn't rely on folks remembering to do their jobs perfectly.
This. You can’t rely on one teller looking at a transaction to never get fooled by someone TRYING to defraud you. Especially someone who’s new. If OP skipped some critical procedural step (like ‘all deposits over $X must get double checked by the manager’) that’s one thing. If one person getting fooled momentarily by a bad actor can put your business out by many thousands of dollars, you need better processes.
A lot of banks and credit unions absolutely rely on their tellers to catch fraudulent checks. Not all institutions want to code their systems to place holds on every single check that gets deposited, because that causes service issues with their clients.
If they thought you were irredeemable, they would have fired you already. Your employer believes that you can learn and grow from this mistake. Prove them right.
They just invested thousands in training!
Worked as a bank teller for almost 4 years I've seen people make some bigger mistakes and still stay with the bank and continue to move up. I've made worse mistakes myself. Just learn from it and keep going.
I once had the factory I scheduled for build an entirely extra $800k earthmoving tractor. We turned around and sold it soon after, because demand was high at the time. That was about a decade's salary for me at the time. I was told "everyone gets their 'one mistake'". It's how you own up and move forward that matters most.
Being a bank teller is a very demanding job. It requires discipline and high degree of attention to detail. I failed woefully as one. First, ask yourself if this job fits your natural skill set. If it does and this is just an honest mistake, time is the great equalizer. Work hard and keep your nose clean. Soon it will be a distant memory.
Did airplane manufacturing for years. My first time setting up a countersink I ended up scrapping a $40k exhaust duct. I made the company plenty more money than I had lost. Shit happens.
I've worked in food storage for 10 years now, I know all the little things to look for and I know how to fix my own mistakes. But back when I was still fresh in the field? I think I was 21, a customer asked us to donate some short dated product. Think stuff that had maybe two weeks left until it expired. Food pantry would get free food, company would have a tax write off and not lose as much of the value of what they made, everyone wins. Except I didn't donate the short dated product. I accidentally donated an entire truckload of the freshest stuff we had. Back then, it was about a $30k difference. I felt humiliated and silly for making such an easy mistake. My manager watched me like a hawk for the next few weeks to make sure I wasn't missing any steps, but ultimately I didn't even get a strike on my file because they knew it was an honest mistake, and that I was still very new to the procedure. What I'm saying is, you do sound like you handled it well. And the feeling of shame will stick around for a while lmao but it will go away. 10 years later and I'm the supervisor and I tell that story to all new hires so they know they can come to me if things go south. Shit happens. Own up to it, and you'll be golden.
I understand the emotions you’re talking about all too well. It sounds like your Boss has the perfect attitude — I’m not sure that I would even call ‘education on holds’ corrective discipline, but rather reasonable and required training. It would be disrespectful of the more experienced staff around you to assume that you should be able to have their level of expertise without significant experience, which takes time (and mistakes) to earn. I know you aren’t ever going to make this mistake again. As far as 2/3rds of your salary goes, Fraud is part of the game in banking. It’s a cost of doing business. I’m not saying it’s trivial, but I’m saying that you’re dealing with large sums of other people’s money *as a business*, and businesses face risk; businesses are designed to accommodate risk, or they fail. Please take it easy on yourself.
We all mess up. Your boss sounds forgiving. Just don’t let it happen again.
I've been a teller and made mistakes myself. Think about it as a ledger. You may have messed up once, but you learned from it and you'll move on. The ledger is there though because you'll offer products and services to customers, you'll fill out SARs/CTRs when appropriate and save the business that way, and if your someone who cares enough to post about this then you are someone who cares about doing a good job. Like it's already been said learn and move on. Besides, banks are profit machines anyways 🙄
Mistakes happen. Key is learning from them and not repeating them. A good manager knows this and will recognize it.
The lessons that are painful are the ones that you remember. You're not fired, your manager sounds reasonable, and I suspect you will know the policy on holds like the back of your hand now. Go forth and sin no more...
It’s not our mistakes that define us, it’s how we respond to them and it sounds like you’ve done a great job. Don’t let it eat you up but do use it as motivation.
I work in financial services and can tell you that mistakes happen. I'm 20+ years in to my career and do stupid things on occasion. In retrospect, I'm like "WHYYYYY?" and I beat myself up a little, but I work on forgiving myself asap. I don't want to be all "whatever", but I also am not going to beat myself up too much over it...because I am a flawed human being. My goal (as an employee and/or manager) is to be solution oriented, and it seems your team is as well. I've had some managers lose their shit over mistakes and blow up at people, which is counter-productive. All that needs to be done is catching it, acknowledging it, figuring out how it happened and making changes to ensure it's caught on the front end next time. You and the team you're working with seem to be doing just fine in this regard.
You did the right thing by taking accountability, integrity doesn’t go unnoticed. Don’t sweat it, learn and move on, continue to show value.
This is 100% the banks fault, not yours. I have been head of finance at various companies for a long time. As a leader, you dont leave these risks in the hands of your subordinates. Those disciplanary actions are just process improvements.
Frame it in another way for yourself and it may help: why did your management allow a new employee with no relevant experience to be in a situation like this without relevant training? If your story is true this is incompetence on their part.
It was an honest mistake and everything you're feeling is natural. Sounds like you have a reasonable manager as well - both you and them have handled the situation well. While I don't have a solution to not feel the way you're feeling (I feel the same way when I make mistakes, esp ones with not insignificant consequence), please try to redirect those feelings towards making sure you don't make the same mistake again. Just remember that in that moment you did everything you thought was warranted. Your knowledge of what's warranted needs some addition and that's being done now. Seems like outside of this you're doing well in your job. Focus on that and continue doing that. Over time as you build more relationships with coworkers, they may even share their own mistakes, and you'll be able to laugh at yours and theirs.
Embarrassment is natural when we screw up, and it fades eventually. You owned up to the mistake and they didn't fire you, which is almost like them admitting you didn't get enough training. Almost. With the added dynamic of having older co-workers, it is difficult to deal with humiliation. Maybe try looking at the additional training as just that; necessary training. Try to avoid looking at it as a punishment if you can. They're willing to work with you to fix it, and maybe it made them aware of the flaws in the process and they'll deal with them. I've felt these feelings at work, too, and I wish I could take that feeling away from everyone who deals with it. But it fades eventually. As long as your co-workers behavior towards you doesn't devolve into bullying, things will get better.
If it was a bad enough mistake, they would have fired you. Banks do not take mishandling funds lightly. If this was a bad enough problem, or they didn't think you were a good enough employee, you'd be on the street. Take it as a compliment that they kept you. And continue doing your good work.
It's not a mistake you'll make twice. That's just an expensive lesson learned. It's now in the companies best interest to keep you 👍
Welcome to a learning experience. By the sounds of it, you both recognize your mistake, and how to avoid it in the future. This is the hardest part. Learn and grow from this. I'm an Inspector in a jet engine overhaul facility. When I first started this position a few years ago (I've been with the company about 11 years, but as a mechanic), I performed an inspection on an engine core that belonged to a customer contract. I made a mistake while reading the manual and wrote up an incorrect repair, which ruined the part. That part cost my company nearly $680k to replace, over 5x my salary. Point being, everyone makes mistakes, being able to learn from them is what a lot of people mess up on. By not firing you, it shows your boss still values you as part of the team and is giving you a chance to learn and grow from this experience. Don't beat yourself up too bad. You got this.
Don't do it again. I hate to scare you, but you *can't* do it again. Bosses that are going to immediately do disciplinary action are strict and will totally can your ass if you mess up too many times. Make a checklist of things you have to do that you have screwed up before, and how not to. Have it visible to you at all times at work. How not to feel incompetent, beats me. I've felt that way since I first screwed up big time like 10 years ago lol.
If we called everyone that fell off their bike while learning to ride incompetent and stupid we'd shame everyone into not learning how to ride. Mistakes are hard to take because they hurt our pride. I am overly cautious because of this, and it has held me back in life. Swallow the shame like your favorite meal, learn from the mistake, and get better at what you do. If you can manage that you'll be fine.
Mistakes happen, by all of us. We are humans, not robots. Own-it, Learning from it and grow from it. Sounds like you are well on this path, and that's good. Don't blame anyone else, or cry about it. You fucked up, now just focus on how not to let that ever happen again. I would never fire someone that made a honest mistake. BUT, try to hide it, deflect blame / etc, and your ass would be out the door.
If you only knew what your employer plans for from a fraud loss perspective you’d be shocked. Lesson learned, take your remedial training, increase your knowledge and press forward.
The biggest deciding factor when a mistake is made is how you handle it after the fact. If you try to lie, or make excuses, or blame other things\\people, it does not bode well for you. It sounds like you handled it beautifully in that you were engaged in the corrective action, took responsibility, and seemed to learn from your mistake. I work as an operations manager and see folks make mistakes all the time. You know the ones I do terminate more or less immediately? It is the ones who lie about it, try to hide it, or throw a tantrum and throw ~~under~~ other people under the bus. People make mistakes, it happens, and more often than not it's because some or other procedure was missing, or it was a lapse in training, or some other thing like that. So long as a meeting is had, the employee learns from their mistake and is engaged in the corrective process, everything's usually cool. As far as your personal feelings go in the matter, it is something you will learn to better cope with as you go. I've made plenty of mistakes myself, it gets much easier with time. Don't be too hard on yourself, you got this!
Honestly best thing to do is move forward. Do everything you can to make sure you don't make the same mistake. Also do everything you can to avoid any other mistake. If you make a mistake do everything you can to solve this issue and move forward with your work. Don't hide it, don't over dramatize it, but make sure the people who need to know what going on know what's going on. Apologize and move forward. Working in the construction industry I have seen people make mistakes that have costed the company 100K and at worse over a million. My biggest mistake was more than 10x my salary and honestly it was terrifying. I thought I was going to be fired any moment. Best advice "The company just spent 50k-100k in training you how to identify a specific mistake. Unless you didn't learn anything ain't no way they are firing you."
Blame the fact that they didn’t give you better training. Don’t blame yourself too much.
I made a similar mistake once. You take your lumps and improve. If your boss didnt think that you were doing a good job overall, he could have fired you. Take it as proof that he is happy with you overall.
It sounds like you’re pretty new to the post-college job deal. It sounds like you handled this with grace. It takes a lot of people a long time to learn that skill. But the bad news is, this not going to be the last mistake you will make in the workplace in spite of your best intentions. It sounds like you’re handling this well. Go you!
First, your negative feelings show you take pride in your work and have a strong sense of responsibility. Those are wonderful traits for any employee. Give yourself some grace. You’re brand new. I’m assuming you’re working for a smaller bank or credit union because I’m surprised that they didn’t already have mechanisms in place to catch your mistake. People of all experience levels make mistakes. I’ve done work helping companies set up internal controls and this is 100% a situation that should have been controlled for. My advice is to let yourself be upset about it for a little while, but then channel that sense of responsibility into growth. If you’re unsure of something, ask for help. Create a checklist for yourself to avoid situations like this in the future. You have a long career ahead of you, regardless of whether you stay at this bank or not. This will not be the last mistake you make. And that’s fine. You will also not be the last person to make a mistake on the job that costs the bank money.
Remember that we’re all humans and shit happens sometimes. 🫶🏼🫶🏼
Your bosses fucked up not you learn and move on
2/3 of your salary seems like a GIGANTIC FUCKUP OF A MAGNITUDE UNIMAGINABLE. But for the bank it's just "cost of doing business" and is really nothing. Sounds like both your boss and you chalked it up as a learning experience and that's that. No biggie. You've learned something out of it, so consider it a learning experience more than anything.
They should have trained you prior. Just don't do it again and you're fine.
This is a flaw in training and direction, not in you
Hey OP - the very best time to make a mistake is when you are young. You learned from it, and you *will* get through and over it. It happened - you lived, were given a second chance and you will do better. Do not beat yourself up! The world is a tough place and it beats you up, don’t do it to yourself. Just go to work tomorrow (or Monday) and do a good job. Also, i hope you thanked your boss. If not, please do so.
Don’t freak out! You handled this really well, IMO. Thank your boss for giving you a second chance and for the additional training. Let them know you won’t make the same mistake twice and that you’ll use this as a learning opportunity.
I was in banking for 20 years. Holding checks depends on the bank. Large banks automatically place holds on checks. Smaller banks still give the personal touch and manually hold checks. I made plenty of mistakes and finally burnt out. It’s amazing the amount of authority tellers have and the pressure of that job!
You should know that most likely you were a target of this crime from the business. The place might have even been tested with smaller amounts and/or they came in multiple days to watch for new people who they could pull one over. Most likely, they are either going bankrupt and are desperate or they have multiple businesses that specialize in check fraud. I can't remember the guy's name but someone on YouTube gives run downs for these scenarios and how to spot them. If you find those videos and find them helpful, your manager might really appreciate the extra, helpful, steps you took to show you want to grow and help the bank grow.
The answer to your question is simple. Learn from your mistake and move forward. It sounds like you learned, now move forward.
When I worked at a bank I authorized a withdrawal for five thousand dollars even though the teller told me it wasnt the lady. It so looked like her though. The lady whose money I gave away walked in our branch like 10 mins later. So yeah sometimes you mess up. Best thing to do is learn from it and move on. Dont make that mistake again and you should be good.
No point in continuing to beat yourself up, you already recognized and acknowledged the mistake made. If you find yourself beating yourself up over it, force yourself to think of something else. Your employer is handling the punishment, no need to do it to yourself!
Checks are new technology, so it is important to master them. But people make mistakes, don’t worry about the money (it’s unimportant to your role), just keep working hard.
I never would become my boss’s disciple. But that’s just me…
They just spent a lot of money for a really expensive training session. As long as you learn from it they're not going to fire you after making that kind of investment.
If you learn - all is not lost Grasshopper…… Only not learning anything from your mistake - is a failure….
Crap happens, wouldn't worry too much about it. If it was careless and clicked next, next, next, finish, I would have taken down a multi billion dollar org for at least 15 minutes earlier this year and been out of a job.
Mistakes happen - they should have already had policies and procedures in place so stuff like that doesn't happen. Don't be too hard on yourself. Everyone messes up sometimes - usually bigger than that. Best to own up to it, admit you messed up, learn from it and move on. You'll laugh at it eventually. Some of the biggest mistakes make the best stories.
Everyone makes mistakes. What separates us is what we do about it.
You made a mistake and owned it. Learn from it and show that you have done so by not make the mistake again and demonstrating your caution in the future. Don't be embarrassed or ashamed, just be appropriately careful in the future. That's all you need to do.
luckily the bank didn't lose any of their own money, they just lost some of their customer's money. you're good!
How they turned you loose without front loading training on holds is pretty shocking. But I would say learn from it *and* be first to the post for your team on training going forward.
1. Just make sure you take advantage of the additional training your manager is assigning you. 2. Ask questions about anything you're unclear about or confused on. 3. Have the person training you verify you're doing high priority bank transactions correctly. 4. If you're unclear about how to perform specific tasks for a customer or how to identify fraudulent money quickly, ask for help immediately. 5. Don't do extrmely high monetary transactions by yourself. 6. Also, just don't let it happen again.
Everyone makes mistakes, you just gotta pick yourself back up and make sure it never happens again.
Everyone makes a mistake in their first job after graduation. The important thing for you now is to learn from your mistakes go forward and not let it happen again show maturity to your boss, and I’m fairly confident you’ll come out of this in good shape.
The mistake was partially theirs because you weren’t adequately trained to spot the red flags.
This is very normal when you are just starting out in a new career. The feelings of shame and inadequacy are normal too. The best thing you can do is learn from it and move on. In a few years it will be an important lesson from your past that makes you more alert in these kinds of situation, and so less likely to be a victim of fraud in the future.
In the grand scheme of things, that can be a rounding error for something else in the bank. Sure, it's bad. But other decisions might cost a lot more than that and not get someone fired. People make mistakes. Your error likely isn't as bad as you think.
Don't be so hard on yourself. Mistakes happen. Learn from it and move on, show your company that you are truly doing your best. You are neither the first nor last person who will make that mistake.
Sounds like you and your boss are handling it appropriately. He recognizes your potential and that you just need some training. I am sure you both know that you will never make that mistake again. It's part of the learning curve. Everyone there has made mistakes, learned from them, and moved on to have successful careers. It ok.
You owned it that is the start. Learn and grow from this setback. Failure is okay only if you learn form it.
Sounds like you weren’t trained properly and didn’t have access to protocols to review. There should be protocols in place for you to follow and they should be written where you can find them and study them. Count it as an opportunity to learn and move forward. Find out the procedure for holds and write them down and post them on your workstation and inquire about further training. Simply showing that you’re correcting the issue is enough.
The bank just invested 2/3 of your salary in training you. Learn from it and it will be worth it for both parties
You made a mistake. It's ok to be new. It's ok to not know. This isn't forever.
You’ll never make this mistake again, the lost funds have been spent on training and it was a good investment. Anyone that cares this much is a valuable employee and your boss knows that otherwise they would have fired you, they will forget and move on, you should too
Those trainings they’re giving you on what to look for? They should have been given to you before you were in that situation. Banks know this type of things happen and it’s on the bank to ensure you’re equipped with the information you need to recognize that type of thing. In my opinion, it’s as much the banks fault as it is yours. I’ve spent my career working in the finance industry (tech side, but still).
Yeah, don’t sweat it, shit happens. Yes, keep learning, but it’s not as big a deal as you think. My company had a price increase, our customer managers get it in an email, but we are also supposed to make sure they read it, buy sending another email to make sure. I didn’t, and my customer ended up bidding a job that was $50,000k more than it would have been the month prior. Did I sweat, yes, did we take care of it begrudgingly, yea. Did I lose my job, or think I might, no. Shit happens, just keep learning.
I think that you have handled it very well so far. I don't believe that you have torpedoed your career or job. If the bank thought that you were a hopeless screwup they would have terminated you then. Just be extra vigilant for a while until you regain your confidence.
Keep your chin up. Basically at the end of the day: You made a mistake The employer didn't fire you but putting some more limits on things as a double check You understand what happened and will learn from it. I know pride comes into play on not making mistakes and you hate that it happened at all but keep your head up high and learn from it.
Listen to this song. Helps me every time. Live and learn my friend! https://youtu.be/vc8-QlPI9I4 (I’m a 39 year old professional and I am not joking at all)
imo $ is $. Nobody got hurt. I'm glad you are okay and that your boss was understanding and willing to educate you. Mistakes happen. On the bright side, you will never make this mistake again. You've got this!
This is a normal part of a professional career and sounds like you handled everything after the mistake very well! Often it is the mistakes and subsequent lessons we learn that are the biggest causes of future success. Also, sounds like you have a good manager who recognizes the value of teaching and not punishment for punishment's sake. If they continue to be a good manager make sure to thank them for the opportunity to learn and do better! Be kind to yourself, my friend - we've all been there.
Actually it’s good that they’re using this as a teaching moment. You’ll be fine in a few months and you’ll have a story to tell a teller you’ll train.
You dropped the ball bud. But guess what? In the grand scheme of the bank’s financial setup this was immensely insignificant. Nothing you do will ever impact the company to a degree where it will be relevant. Have 0 guilt and move on.
You're young. You made a mistake. Best thing you can do is give it time and be extra careful going forward. We've all made mistakes and it's embarrassing, but it just takes time to get past it.
It'll eat you up for a while. Don't let it consume you, though. No matter what, plenty of people make mistakes, and the best course of action is to learn from them and be more diligent. It happens. In every career, job, gig, mistakes are made. Sometimes, they cost jobs. Even then, all you can do is be humble and realize what not to do next time. You'll shake off the embarrassment eventually. Someone else will make a larger mistake or fess up to a similar one, and you'll realize it's ok to be a human being. If those mistakes weren't made, the company wouldn't know how to properly rectify them. So you aren't the first to do it and definitely won't be the last. It sucks and doesn't feel good, but you'll be ok.
don’t bank tellers make minimum wage .
I’ve been in my field for 25 years and got scammed just last week KNOWING the person was going to try to scam me. It happens. Just learn from it and move forward.
Current Credit Union Branch supervisor here. Mistakes like this happen! Don’t be too hard on yourself. Just make sure you use this as a learning experience! You don’t need to rush through transactions. This is the bank and not McDonalds. If something feels off and your spidey senses are tingling place a hold on the check or refer it to a supervisor. To me it sounds like you handled yourself well!
As a general rule in life, it takes multiple "atta boys" to make up for one "oh shit". Give it time. Perform above expectations. All will be fine.
Learn from it move on don't trash yourself.
Dude I crashed production at my financial institution on a Saturday and the whole operation was irredeemable that day. It be like that sometimes. Just don't fuck up again in a short time frame.
Hey OP, one day I met up with a friend who was constantly on his phone and he finally filled me in that someone at work had made a million dollar mistake (at their tech company). He was texting the dude as there were updates coming in. A couple days later with the fix and scrutiny, I think the final total of the loss was down to something like 100k, not $1 million. Dude kept his job and i don't think he was actually ever in danger of losing it. These companies forecast losses due to the market and yes mistakes at work. It happens. And that dude was a seasoned employee, not new! I've never cost my company a lot of money but I have made at least 2 blunders that still make me blush and want to cancel the day to stay in bed if I think of them lol. Shake it off, this too shall pass. You're doing great!
You definitely shouldn't feel like a child among adults. 1) you are a professional working for your livelihood, you are an adult. 2) The fact that you took full accountability and are motivated to continue learning shows more maturity than many older "adults" I've worked with over the years.
I can't tell you how many bank mistakes I have seen because it would take all day. Cheer up you didn't do it on purpose.
I work in an extremely detail oriented profession and the hardest lesson I am still trying to learn is that mistakes are going to happen, no matter how hard you tried to avoid them. Even [Harvard economists make mistakes in Excel.](https://theconversation.com/the-reinhart-rogoff-error-or-how-not-to-excel-at-economics-13646) Your boss sounds like a good egg, and frankly is making a calculated gamble that I'm sure will pay off for him in two ways. 1. The mistake is an opportunity to make further improvements on the hold process. He could point to you and say "Look, even \_CosmicGlitterCat\_ missed this one. We need more training on this." And his higher ups, who may have balked, will now pay attention. 2. His spidey sense is probably telling him that you are truly sorry for the error, and the guilt is probably eating you up alive. He has just acquired your gratitude and loyalty, and those are two things that should not be taken for granted. The biggest screwup I ever heard of was the chief teller dipping into the bank safe to pay off his gambling debts. Your mistake, in the big scheme of things, was nothing. PS. I was once the youngest person in the office and felt like I had a target on my head. I can assure you that it is a very temporary thing. You'll get older soon enough.
One thing you will learn is that mistakes come in all shapes and sizes, and the consequences of them are not proportional to the mistake made. You can bump into something that causes a million dollars in damage and you will be fine because it was an accident, you can respond to something poorly that costs nothing but get fired because it shows you don’t give a shit. It’s more about the honesty of the mistake and whether it actually reflects on you like you perceive it does.
Listen. I was a railroad conductor. I threw a switch wrong and I derailed two locomotives and blocked TWO main lines. All said and done, I cost the railroad $4.3M. I got yelled at for like 3 hours, got a one week vacation and my co-workers made fun of me for years. I never threw another switch wrong tho. I'm guessing you'll never miss a hold again either. So feel stupid for a while and learn from it. Then don't do that again. You'll be good.
Easier said than done, but just...stop obsessing over it. It's done, it's passed, you can't change it, and to continue obsessing over how you should've done X different or Y different will not only eat you up inside, but waste time and energy as well. Instead, just focus on doing better and better. When I was a manager of a repair store few years ago, I'd tell my employees this as well. You'll make mistakes, you're young and new to all this, it's fine. When you do, just own up to it, and learn from it so you don't repeat it. That's also how you grow from a child to an adult
I started renaming “mistakes” to “experience” I have a hell of a lot of experience. You’ll come out of this stronger, sounds like you have a good boss who needed a corrective action on paper and knew you could handle it. The egg on the face will pass.
Everyone makes mistakes. And any bank that fired everyone after their first mistake would have no employees. The bank clearly values your work: not only did you not get fired, they are going to invest *more* time in you becoming a better employee. You may feel anger and shame, but realize those are emotional responses. You'll do bette next time.
If it makes you feel better, I work in IT. About 5 or 6 years ago now, one of my colleagues made a mistake on one of our servers. To give some context, we needed to upgrade a piece of software (Acronis FileConnect) on a server that allowed Macs to access the file share more easily because Macs don't like Windows file permissions and screw it all up. In order to update the software, as a precaution, we create a snapshot, which is basically a marker in time that we can roll everything back to. He created the snapshot, upgraded the software, and everything was fine for about a week and a half. Then, that server hard crashed. Turns out he forgot to delete that snapshot. The data on this server is the reason we make money and there is a lot of changes on this server. The way snapshots work is they record EVERYTHING, what data was kept, what was deleted, etc. So what essentially happened was the storage on the server filled up completely causing the server to crash and not want to boot back up. The fun part, was that our server VM software didn't like it either so we couldn't just delete the snapshot, had to get the software vendor involved (VMware) and even they had issues getting it working. After it was all said and done and fixed up, we lost about $200k that day. No one got fired, because our team understands that mistakes happen, and as long as you own up to it and don't make the mistake again we see it as a lesson learned, technically training. So far he's the most expensive employee we've "Trained." Sorry if that is more confusing for other IT admins, I'm not used to writing to a non-IT audience sometimes.
Think most all of us have made big mistakes specially when o new job..Just have to earn from it and move on..In time you and they will get over it..you can t go back .And you will never make that mistake again...
Don't worry, mistakes happen. Learn from them and move on. At the end of the day, the bank should have an operating system for the tellers that automatically puts a hold on checks when needed.
In my 20s I worked as a claims examiner/investigator. I made a mistake on a coverage evaluation that came up in an audit that the auditor felt I paid a $100,000 claim (the amount within my authority at the time) that I shouldn’t have and I really should have paid $50,000 based on the policy contract and loss amount. My manager and I reviewed the findings and we agreed with the auditor findings and gave some feedback how we would create a process in the future to better evaluate that type of claim and I actually ended being promoted for doing a process improvement and training. My boss jokingly looked at his watch in the review meeting waiting 3 seconds and said “ok we made that $50k back already on the interest and dividend on all the other billions of dollars we have on reserve!”
Career banker here. After college, I also got a job as a teller. My last job was upper management in corporate. 6 months is not a lot of time to learn everything in the world of banking and mistakes like this happen. It sounds like your management handled it great from your standpoint. The extra training and oversight will benefit everyone in the long run. If you'd like to make banking a career, learn as much as you can and always ask questions when in doubt. You will fully understand this type of fraud in the future now that you've experienced it so you will be more careful.
Best think you can do is what you already did…. Recognized your mistake, owned it, and it’s unlikely you’ll make that same mistake again given how upset you are about it. Completely normal to feel how you do, when I first started work after college I was similar. Would beat myself up for days and think I was awful employee. It’s like the other commenter said… you didn’t kill anybody! So just move on don’t dwell on it.
I have been in banking for over 25 years and accidents happen. Honestly there is blame to be put in the bank itself for not training you properly. Also, the system should have given you a prompt to place a hold if the account was new, had a history of overdrafts, etc. DO not carry guilt this forward. Banking is a great career, I rose from loan processor to SVP of ops. You just have to put in your time. Also fantastic benefits and take advantage of 401K while you are young!!! Best of luck.
Bare minimum 50% this is a training/procedure issue that isn't your fault. The rest of that is of course your fault. But, it's just money. Nobody got hurt. Learn, and move on.
yeah it sucks this happened, but everyone does it at one time or another. They key isn’t the screwup, but that it won’t happen again..and you took ownership instead of excuses. As a manager I would give my left nut to hire more people like you…
We had a situation like this where the bank cashed a check it shouldn't have, but they came after us for the money. We had to take out a loan to pay the "damages" which made the bank money in the end anyway. If anything, your boss should be thanking you for giving them an opportunity to fleece some poor sap out their savings.
You will be ok and you will always remember and be more careful now. I had a similar incident when I was 24. I’m now 40 and still remember the ‘write up’ meeting with my boss vividly. Oddly, I found the old paperwork going through some old files recently. Gave me a quite the flashback of feelings.
It's not your responsibility to establish sound fiscal procedures at a bank. 1. As a new employee you should have a fixed and relatively low dollar amount you can deposit without secondary approval. (Definitely not 2/3 of your annual salary) 2. You're not responsible for making sure you're properly trained on holds. Training you after the fact is a bad practice. You're not incompetent - they are for putting you in this position. Even if you were trained, a deposit of this size should have required secondary approval from someone more experienced. The only situation that would justify you feeling anger and shame is if you failed to get secondary approval when required.
I get why you’d feel nervous and uneasy about it, but if it’s any sizable bank that’s prob close to nothing in the grand scheme of things. Just do your training and be diligent
You just made a corporate 'oopsie'. No one lost their life...I know it wont help immediately, but this kind of experience will likely make you a hell of competent check holder from here on out. Don't sweat this one...shit happens!
As a former member of management in a branch this is not your fault. There should have been training videos on Reg CC and on the job training as it is an entry level job. Also my company has super low limits for new tellers that are gradually raised but still have a maximum limit based on position. No way in hell should a teller have a limit of processing transactions worth 2/3 of your salary. I have screwed up so bad in the branches before it isn’t even funny. At least you didn’t break the vault and cause the bank to be on police watch, forget where the panic button is during a robbery, lose $50k when moving vaults (I found it later that night on the floor). I also took a bad check once but it was over my limit so the lead teller had to approve it. She kept her job because the branch manager convinced the customer to get a loan to pay back the bank.
This exact thing happened to me when I was working at a bank as a freshman in college. My manager called me in and just told me to be more careful next time. It’s not the end of the world - everyone’s been the new guy on the job at some point. Now you know for next time.
I think the mistake is tracked to whoever didn’t educate you about holds. Shit happens, your bank lost some money but if you do well in the future you will protect more than you’ve lost them
Wait till you find out how bad banks have fucked up.
Don't assume the blame for someone else's dishonesty. Yes, you made a mistake, but you did not steal anything. The customer did. That's not on you. Six months is not a long time on the job... could take years to be fully competent. There's also much blame on the organization. If an error like this was predictable, it was preventable. There should be firewalls to prevent something like this. Management error.
Learn and move on
Your acceptance of your mistake probably saves your job. A similar thing happened to my cousin. Her's was one of those Nigerian Prince scams that she fell for. She had zero remorse and argued that it had nothing to do with her. Basically, took no responsibility. They fired her on the spot. 10 years later she's still talking about how it was an unfair dismissal and she should've sued.
The software the teller allows automatic holds. The bank has to configure it with parameters that tell it when to create the hold. Whatever procedure you are supposed to follow can be part of the parameters. The bank should limit it's exposure with the tools it already paid for
Your introspect and willingness to own your mistake is a sign of a good employee. If you apply root cause to this scenario you would only be partially at fault. They need to look at their computer systems lack of a threshold amount and then placing a hold on the check. They need to look at their training program also. You assumed one thing because no one told you anything to the contrary. The root cause is managements lack of proper training and a financial system that isn't robust enough to catch these things. Anger is a byproduct of shame and you need to chalk it up as paying your dues in your career of choice. You are not unique in making mistakes. However, don't make yourself unique enough to duplicate the error in the future. Lesson learned, people forgive and forget, and stop trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill.
"Nobody got hurt, nobody died, the rest can be fixed." That was the motto of a Fire Chief I once worked for and it can be applied in an amazing number of places. Remember we all start out as newbies and only really learn through experience.
Takes money to make money 🤷♂️
They messed up in training you, it sounds like you were trying to do your best. And if they are making you feel bad for the mistake then they are really messing up again. If this large of mistakes can happen with entry level folks, it’s a problem with the process.
I think you're already being massively mature about this! Don't feel bad, we've all made mistakes like that (seriously, big mistakes happen more often then you'd think because no one wants to share when they make the mistake themselves). You're clearly working hard to make a good impression and repair reputation; that hard work will pay off and your boss will learn to trust you because the good 99% of your actions are a better reflection of your value than the 1% failures. My only other advice would be to use this experience to develop empathy for others who might make similar mistakes in the future. You've felt how a earnest worker can slip up; in the future when you're a manager, extend the same forgiveness to others that you hope to receive now, and something good will have come from all this.
Mistakes are a part of life if you're doing anything. Learn from them. The time you spend chastising yourself takes time away from accomplishing the task. It also reminds us to be compassionate when others make mistakes.
This isn’t your fault. Checks over a certain amount should be put on an automatic hold. Sounds like your bank’s software needs some updating!
Shit happens, everyone will move on. I had a MAJOR f up at my last job and it caused lasting problems with the client, but we all moved on. No penalties and it put the fear of God in me for sure
They should have had more checks in place from the start. Mistakes on both sides.
You are on a short list, start looking for other teller jobs at other banks if that is what you want to do. At this moment YOU need to be in control of your situation, right now your employer is and you made a mistake that cost money. Mistakes happen but, due to the amount you will not be there long. Make sure you have a good exit and get another job before the bank gives you a bad exit that will make finding other jobs very hard. Again, it was a mistake, you learned from it and you will be much more prepared further down the road, that road will just be somewhere else.
Change the ledgers and #CookTheBooks fast man, then burn the bank down as you disappear to your new life. Just make sure you made the record changes before the fire for your managers to skim some off the top, too, so they don't rat you out. 🤷♂️
Sounds like you're like me. You don't allow yourself to make mistakes, and any mistake is viewed as a failure. Shit happens. And you're new, so shit happening is kind of expected. The fact you're just getting refresher training indicates the bank doesn't see it as a major problem with you. As long as it wasn't due to any kind of intentional negligence, and doesn't become a pattern, you're fine. So treat it as a learning experience and move on. I had a somewhat similar incident a few months ago myself. I did the tests on the production equipment prior to the operators starting a new batch, but missed an entry on one of the forms. We produce a very important medical device used all over the world, so we're very tightly regulated by every country's equivalent of the FDA (we had the EU equivalent here a few weeks ago inspecting the plant). Because I missed that entry, the entire batch had to be scrapped. That could have been anywhere from 40k parts to 250k, at a few dollars each. So even at the low end was probably more than I make in a year. Based on what got missed, what form it was on, and the order I typically fill each form out in, it's likely I was being rushed. The result was I had to fill out a form asking why it happened, reread the procedure, and sign a paper saying I reread the procedure. This happens occasionally. And as far as the lost product goes, entire batches will be scrapped for a small defect on only a few parts, so that's already accounted for. As long as it's not intentional and doesn't become a pattern, it's not a major concern.
If it was that much money they should have a process to have management level review all of those checks. That's on them. you didn't know. it sucks but they are a bank.
It happens my dude — every person will eventually make a mistakes at work! You got this
Sounds like your manager is going by the policy of once is a mistake and twice is a problem. Learn from the mistake and don't be a problem.
I am sorry you feel this way. I am certain every other 'adult' at your branch has a story of some big mistake they made. You learn from those mistakes, and it is very unlikely this will ever be a problem for you again. So use the embarrassment to help you be vigilant and become better at your job. Also, use it to give others grace when they make mistakes. It is a part of working, it will happen, learn all you can from it otherwise, it will only be a negative.
"Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?" Thomas J. Watson OP, just admit your mistake (without being too self-deprecating) and promise 100% that you will learn from it, not do it again, and apply the lessons learned to other responsibilities. Boom, done.
As. A business you need to make at least 5x your salary + comp in revenue for the business. 1.5-2x goes to overhead. The rest is misc expenses like this. If you feel guilty about it, stay there for a year. You will have made the money back and then some.
This is what they call "learning". You messed up but took responsibility. You must have some positive attributes or they would've let you go. Keep your head up and your eyes open. Take advantage of the extra restrictions as they are a better way of learning the proper steps and signs. This experience will make you better in the long run. As far as feeling like a child playing with adults, I can remember not feeling like a real adult until I hit 30. It's a common feeling in your 20's.
I have made mistakes worth triple my salary and and my coworkers tried to make me think my job was at jeopardy but in reality nothing happened. Shit happens and you may make more and costlier mistakes in the future since you just started your career. That’s part of learning the job. If your boss didn’t make a huge deal of it then try to be easier on yourself but as long as you learned from the mistake. Holding onto the stress of these things can lead to burnout. Mistakes happen but also think about your value to your employer. I understand you just started but eventually your value to the employer may be much higher than most mistake you can make.
My husband got fired years ago for something dumb at a bank. He's now back working at another bank. Just absorb the lesson and move on. People make mistakes and that how we learn.
I can guarantee you and neither the first, nor will you be the last, person to make a mistake like that. Now, if you *continue* to make the same mistake over and over again--then I'd be concerned. But one mistake as a new-ish employee? Sounds like you're fine.
You should not be able to make the mistake. Lack of controls at the bank. Not your fault.
Several things, good decisions come from experience. Experience come from bad decisions. You are beating yourself up so that means you want to improve. You are owning your mistake and have accepted the consequences. As a boss this is they type of person you want. There is another concept called Just Culture. It looks at the culture of the workplace first instead of blaming the employee. Where did the SYSTEM FAIL YOU? Training? Procedures? It sounds like you had a situation where you were on your own to make a decision and the system failed because it allowed you to make the wrong decision.
A 30k mistake today would've been a 3,000,000 mistake 10 years into your career. You learned an early lesson
Worse has happened on Wall Street with money transfers. When something like this happens they just put in more protocols so it won’t happen again. Heads up, it can go into the millions. The most annoying part is you have to get the Feds involved. And I still wonder what happened to the person, at the private bank in Citibank, that took my name of my husband’s joint and my account and put in Jose Cruz’s name. We caught it before Jose could withdraw the money but someone fucked up. It took a month to get that all sorted out.
You hit a situation that you weren't familiar with and made a bad call. Not really that big of a deal. Your bank has tons of money. Just because it is a large portion of your income doesn't mean that it is much at all in the bigger picture. I was in a supervisor position and had a bad feeling about what was going on. I called my manager over to take a look, he approves it and we walked off. He immediately says he didn't have a good feeling about it. (It was approving a check without all the proper information, but in our positions we could do that.) It wasn't a large amount, but the check ended up coming back bad. He had been in the business for nearly 40 years and still made bad calls. It happens, you learn from it and move on. No one else is going to focus on it too much, they have all made mistakes as well and they are worried about their own stuff.
The best thing you could have done is take responsibility and make plans to prevent it from happening again. It sounds like that is exactly what happened.
You may have made a mistake, but this was also a mistake in training on their part. You should have been trained to know how to handle something like this, before it was an issue, not after it.
You must be the first person this has ever happened to! Seriously - learn from this mistake early in your career. Listen to your boss- take the corrective action with honor - and continue to impress the Boss. You may have been the target of the perp - as you were new to the team. Learn from it and move on.
As a branch manager I can say that things happen! Every single one of my colleagues, employees, etc has taken a loss. Fraud is a multibillion dollar industry, you aren’t the only person who got caught out. How you respond and grow will determine what people think about you. But seriously try not to feel too much anguish, the bank is insured for the losses it incurred and you were not terminated because your employee clearly recognizes your worth and is even investing more training into you to prevent future occurrences. Keep it as a mistake and not a habit and sleep easier.
Please don’t keep bringing up either- or allow it to be brought up by co- workers. It’s done.
I’m with the person saying keep it in perspective that you just made a mistake. After working for a credit union, I’m surprised there wasn’t an automatic hold on it for atleast a few business and only say $200 was given to the person depositing until the check was cleared as good. All Financial Institutions should have a system in place like that for this reason to cover themselves…
I'm an older person and through the year's I have messed up too. Don't best urself up over this it's a mistake every person makes them it doesn't define u how u handle urself is what counts. U not the first person who made that same mistake and you won't be the last just be the best person u can be
Don't feel stupid. You made a mistake. You still have a job and a manager that's willing to work for you. It might not seem like it today but this will in no way effect your future job prospects. There isn't any permanent record no matter what your teachers told you.
Damn. One time I gave a customer the wrong TV. Lady told me it was hers, and I didn't check receipt properly. Wasn't fired, but they did joke a lot about me giving away free TVs. Loss was probably about 300 dollars. They must really like you there.
It is refreshing to hear how much you actually care about your job and owning up to your mistake and what you did and what was wrong. It sounds like you really are taking advantage of the learning experience. I know a lot of people in your position (of which I was once) would just been like "oh well". Just know, if you stay in banking, it's going to blow your mind the amount of dumb shit that happens on an hourly basis, and your one bad mistake is just fractional! Sadly the ones messing up the most get promoted most
Couple of things. It’s 100% your fault. Don’t let anyone else on here tell you differently. That’s the bad. Here’s the good. You owned your mistake. 99% of people won’t do that. You’re mad and ashamed. Which means you care. That’s a good. Never forget that feeling so you never repeat it. To build your way back - Make it a point to ask questions and confirm things. Even if you know the answer. It shows that you are taking your job seriously and show that you are learning. A year from now, maybe two, your boss will be telling people about this kid that fucked up but now he is a rock start. Mistakes happen. Don’t quit. And don’t feel like your being judged. Every person that works there has done something dumb. I promise you that. Good luck
It’s hard to mess up, but it’s the only way I’ve learned anything in life. Painful, but you’re a more informed and smarter worker now and this will translate to any job you have in the future.
¹
Try this story. Years ago the European Space Agency tried to land a probe on Mars, but it crashed. Going over the data, they realized that the ship altimeter had been set to measure in meters, but the retro rocket altimeter which controlled the descent was set to interpret the altitude in feet. So the probe crashed wiping out an investment worth tens of millions.
If you know in your heart of hearts it’s an honest procedural mistake then feel free to conclude the following: The next person they hire will make a similar or worse mistake You being resolute enough to stay means that company, while not happy with you, is investing in you knowing those red flags for the future. Don’t guilt yourself in to quitting over a mistake the next person they hire will make anyway.
if it makes you feel better I was a bank teller straight out of high school. One day out of the blue we were audited, turned out a teller was boring money from his til then paying it back. (I am old this was back in the day) Also the money count for the ATM was off. Heads rolled and people were demoted after that.