This is for any potential CSRs - if you got accepted stay there for the first 3 months of training to collect a cheque and then RUN!
Let's go through the journey that existing teammates and those before us have gone through. First you start your training playing wonderful games for team building; cute children's games that pit your teammates against eachother. You learn about how management loves to boast about different teams one-upping each other. You have wonderful long lunches and breaks. You sit in front of a computer and read all day over procedures. When you start your job shadowing and get a taste you quickly realize how much a facade everything is. The procedures you read are still not sufficient enough for you to understand how to deal with client's accounts. But everything is okay because you deal with basic procedures. And look at that nice cheque that the union snatched some of your money from. Look at that cheque that the other 4 major banks would give you a higher dollar amount but alas, you are at CIBC. Remenber all the amazing competitive benefits that again, the other 4 major banks would outperform.
When you are inducted to the next level, there are high risk procedures involved. You are pulled back into training for a WEEK and then are thrown out back onto the floor to perform complex procedures. Management tells you that a support leader must watch over you while doing these procedures. But you'll have one, if you're lucky TWO, to handle a whole team of people which can be anywhere between 13-25 team members.
When you get a couple audits for performing procedures wrong. They'll tell you that your probationary period will be extended. If you find yourself late one day due to the transit system, they'll mark you late (even one minute late). If you fall sick you will have a sit down with your manager and upper management about your attendance. They will call you incessantly even if you're in the hospital. They must hear your voice.
Now when you're there expect for everything to fall apart before your eyes. You go to the washroom too much because you drink the recommended amount of water? They'll watch you. You decide to take your time while servicing clients? They'll say you talk too much. You decide to speed things up? You're too fast; you're not promoting enough useless services. You were told one thing about how to perform a procedure? You do what was told to you like a studious worker - now you're not empathetic enough. Or why didn't you offer them free money for the abuse you take? Someone is calling you useless? You can warn them and hang up but you can't really. So you'll end up crying.
You'll then start to remember the signs given to you during training, your trainers, agents on the floor of how horrifying it is to work in CIBC. You'll see people come to work when their children are seriously ill. You'll find out after a year a team of 19 can become 1 or 2.
All the while you're sitting in front of your computer looking at how outdated the procedures at that even 'til this day you can't perform a PIN reset over the phone unlike the other 4 MAJOR banks. You'll realize this when you're apologizing for old systems that can't do much. Or when clients call in yelling because CIBC is investing in ipads and humanless branches instead of getting some real powerhouse engines, forward think engineers, programmers, data analysts to change the way the bank is perceived. Maybe you'll realize when you're popping pills for anxiety, or when your coworkers drop like flies, or when CIBC is the fifth bank on the top 5 list.
Heed this warning.
