coalition of crime bloggers
Robbery and Responsibility
A year ago, on a Friday which also happened to be the 13th, my life started to change although at the time I just thought it was another day where I got up, went to work and then came home. It is the in-between time of going to work and coming home that events happened that would leave me scarred and forever a different person. I would come to find over time that while the events remain forever in my mind and to this day affect almost everything core to me that to others, esp. at work, that day and those events are simplified to a bad day I should be over by now. If they only knew that I might never be over it and that walking into work each day is like walking into dread. And that I know my employer failed me and how easy it is for an employer to fore go any responsibility towards their employee and actually place blame back onto the employee.
Over time I will be writing here about many things concerning this event. How I feel, what happened, who it happened to and what is currently going on in my life. And how a major industry which employees thousands of men and women are not doing enough to educate and protect these men and women who do face danger each and every day. To be clear they are doing what they must by law in most cases; although even in that, as a manager who was responsible for making sure that training was completed and made sure it was, the training that there is does not, in any way, cover what comes afterwards. And that any injury suffered that relates to emotional and mental are so easy to brush aside, to almost ignore and to push back at the injured making them feel even more guilty which in turn makes them more injured.
By now I have learned so much about who I am. About what motivates me. About what I value and what I do not. And about what I need from my employer and am not getting which is either going to change or I will find a way to make it change. And about my knowing that by finding that way I will be forced to face a corporate giant that will push back and resist. And that my life will change again. And so will that of my family if I lose my income and that guilt will reign inside me. And I hope I survive.
To start today the industry I am talking about is banking. The jobs that have risk are done by normal people, many just starting out in their first "real" job or are college students juggling work and school. Or moms and dads and grandparents who depend on their paycheck to live and take care of family. They are of all different races and creeds and have varied backgrounds and experience. The jobs they are doing are tellers, bankers, and managers and they are not trained well enough to handle the risk they face. And the men and women responsible for that training do not know that the training is not what it needs to be so they cannot be held responsible. The risk is robbery; bank robbery. A crime that is forever old and has been almost glorified in movies but that is no way anything of glory if you have been a victim of it. And it is a crime that happens every day, in every major city, to hundreds of men and women who do not know, until it happens, how it will affect them. And once it does happen they could quickly find, as I did, that responsibility of any after affects can quickly shift from that of the employer to that of the employee victim leaving the victim suffering but still expected to work at the very place the crime took place.
How does that responsibility transfer one might wonder for doesn’t it seem odd that the very industry that places the employee at risk would let that happen? But it does for banking as a whole does not recognize an injury when it is of a mental state and in fact does not even make sure that the professionals that should be on site the day of the robbery are there. In fact, if the robber shoots an employee, and the wound is visible the care would immediate for emergency professionals would be called and would be demanded to be at the bank as quickly as possible. However, even though the bank policy mandates that professional mental health caregivers be on site the day of the robbery, there is little done to make sure that happens. So if days and days pass after the robbery until the mental health professional shows up the robbery victim is still expected to feel the same way they did the day of the robbery and therefore need the same care but that might not happen. For shock might have set in and that very shock can fool you into thinking you are okay. And therefore when asked or advised that you might consider treatment you say “no” for you now feel fine. In fact, you not only feel fine you feel proud that you are handling things so well. What you do not know is that you are not handling it you have buried it and that things buried can be uncovered in the future; at a time you least expect it. The problems start when your pain is uncovered later, as mine was. The bank failed me and all the other team members at the bank by not insisting the mental health professionals were there the day my bank got robbed. In fact, not only did they not insist, they did not even notice they were not there for other care givers where there from the FBI and the local police department but that does not, in any way, negate the responsibility of the bank to their employee victims. And that is where my story starts and that is what I will be blogging about in the future. My injury is real it is just not visible. And the bank still should take responsibility.
Over time I will be writing here about many things concerning this event. How I feel, what happened, who it happened to and what is currently going on in my life. And how a major industry which employees thousands of men and women are not doing enough to educate and protect these men and women who do face danger each and every day. To be clear they are doing what they must by law in most cases; although even in that, as a manager who was responsible for making sure that training was completed and made sure it was, the training that there is does not, in any way, cover what comes afterwards. And that any injury suffered that relates to emotional and mental are so easy to brush aside, to almost ignore and to push back at the injured making them feel even more guilty which in turn makes them more injured.
By now I have learned so much about who I am. About what motivates me. About what I value and what I do not. And about what I need from my employer and am not getting which is either going to change or I will find a way to make it change. And about my knowing that by finding that way I will be forced to face a corporate giant that will push back and resist. And that my life will change again. And so will that of my family if I lose my income and that guilt will reign inside me. And I hope I survive.
To start today the industry I am talking about is banking. The jobs that have risk are done by normal people, many just starting out in their first "real" job or are college students juggling work and school. Or moms and dads and grandparents who depend on their paycheck to live and take care of family. They are of all different races and creeds and have varied backgrounds and experience. The jobs they are doing are tellers, bankers, and managers and they are not trained well enough to handle the risk they face. And the men and women responsible for that training do not know that the training is not what it needs to be so they cannot be held responsible. The risk is robbery; bank robbery. A crime that is forever old and has been almost glorified in movies but that is no way anything of glory if you have been a victim of it. And it is a crime that happens every day, in every major city, to hundreds of men and women who do not know, until it happens, how it will affect them. And once it does happen they could quickly find, as I did, that responsibility of any after affects can quickly shift from that of the employer to that of the employee victim leaving the victim suffering but still expected to work at the very place the crime took place.
How does that responsibility transfer one might wonder for doesn’t it seem odd that the very industry that places the employee at risk would let that happen? But it does for banking as a whole does not recognize an injury when it is of a mental state and in fact does not even make sure that the professionals that should be on site the day of the robbery are there. In fact, if the robber shoots an employee, and the wound is visible the care would immediate for emergency professionals would be called and would be demanded to be at the bank as quickly as possible. However, even though the bank policy mandates that professional mental health caregivers be on site the day of the robbery, there is little done to make sure that happens. So if days and days pass after the robbery until the mental health professional shows up the robbery victim is still expected to feel the same way they did the day of the robbery and therefore need the same care but that might not happen. For shock might have set in and that very shock can fool you into thinking you are okay. And therefore when asked or advised that you might consider treatment you say “no” for you now feel fine. In fact, you not only feel fine you feel proud that you are handling things so well. What you do not know is that you are not handling it you have buried it and that things buried can be uncovered in the future; at a time you least expect it. The problems start when your pain is uncovered later, as mine was. The bank failed me and all the other team members at the bank by not insisting the mental health professionals were there the day my bank got robbed. In fact, not only did they not insist, they did not even notice they were not there for other care givers where there from the FBI and the local police department but that does not, in any way, negate the responsibility of the bank to their employee victims. And that is where my story starts and that is what I will be blogging about in the future. My injury is real it is just not visible. And the bank still should take responsibility.
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