Many years ago to be specific I am talking about the year 1993, at that time I was working in the financial tower of the provincial bank in the capital of Venezuela.
I worked in the accounting area of the credit card settlement records but I only kept the daily charge records of the movements executed by the Mastercad cards, I had to make the records and balance the accounts of the previous day with respect to the chargebacks that were made. generated between banks. It was a job where you needed to see a lot of details and work with the US dollar rates of the previous day. Really a bit monotonous work but that required being very aware of each operation. Especially when the numbers were not exact, I had the obligation to find where such a difference was generated.
All the work was strictly manually with paper and pen, because I had to register all the charges and at the end I had my signature, doing those accounts together with all that accounting process was done between 6 to 7 hours to do that. It was my job. and I really enjoyed it very much.
At that time we were three people who had the responsibility of making these registrations and the reason is that I was in charge of the MasterCard cards and another colleague of the Visas cards, and another colleague of the Diners Club cards, I repeat it was a very monotonous job for Each one, the difference was the types of cards but in the end the accounting aspect was the same.
By that time the bank was already modernizing the offices and assigning new computer equipment for each employee and additionally the bank started a training program for groups of 10 employees to start using the new computers and the tools they offered such as the famous Windows and Office programs, I do not remember which version but that was something great, new and innovative.
Once I started my course, I met the fabulous EXCEL tool, someone in the office explained to me how to use it and then with the help of the course I also investigated to get more out of it. So I learned very well how to handle it, the first thing I did was to find the best way to automate my work, this automation reduced my working hours to 2 hours as it is known effective man hours, but it is necessary to clarify that to reach those two hours I had to make a design in which I worked approximately more than three months doing trial and error tests, but successfully I succeeded. It was very important for me because I learned something new and I grew professionally, I am very sure that for the company in this case the bank was also very profitable.
That improvement I made in the accounting aspect that was the functions of the position I held made me even more known in the office, but I must clarify that this was not my intention, I was just looking for how to improve my work, to make my life much easier especially for me, in view of that great tool known as EXCEL that opened a world of possibilities to improve the process and use it the best I could because I took advantage of it.
The vice president of the credit card area (credit products) called me one day to tell me that my supervisor had told him about the spreadsheet and told him how I had made improvements in accounting, which reduced the time of man-hours.
For me, it was a great joy because the vice president asked me to explain to him and other vice presidents such as the commercial area and other units, how the spreadsheet that I had designed to improve the accounting process worked.
Once I finished explaining everything I was assigned a task, that if I could do the same for the other cards and then explain to my other colleagues the operation, but the best was when the vice president told me that this task would be very well rewarded with a position as supervisor and a better salary, without thinking twice I simply said yes, there began my great odyssey of promotions in the bank to climb more and more positions because of this improvement I made I was appointed supervisor of the Visa and MasterCard chargeback.
The only thing I regret is that after finishing the assigned work, which I repeat I regret very much, is that they fired one of my former colleagues since the bank could do the work of three people with only one worker.
I do not forget that not because I feel guilty, but because they are uncomfortable moments when, due to improvements in a process, the staff was reduced.
Reading about people's backgrounds and experiences will always be interesting, as interesting is what each speaker brings up, because it's their life! It is thought that because of the monotony of numbers a job is "tiresome", but it is not completely true. I can imagine him looking for where are the 7 cents that do not allow the closing of that day!