Right then, let me tell you something that still makes me chuckle on the bus home from East London. Being the one who has to keep a pack of under-twenty-fives in line at the bank feels a bit like trying to herd kittens that have just discovered energy drinks and TikTok. One minute they are staring at their screens like the numbers might rearrange themselves out of pure boredom, the next they are whispering about whose weekend was more chaotic. I draw the firm lines because someone has to, yet the second those glass doors shut behind me I slip straight back into the softer version of myself that still believes in proper Sunday roasts and the possibility of a tall dark-haired someone who knows how to give a decent foot massage. It is a proper juggling act, and I would be lying if I said it did not amuse me most days.
Picture the open-plan floor on a Monday morning. The air smells of instant coffee and faint panic. My team of eight, all still figuring out how adult life works, shuffle in with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The girls tend to arrive in clusters, already comparing outfits and last night’s messages. I have little patience for the constant low-level drama they bring, the eye-rolls when I ask for the latest figures, the quiet competition over who can look busiest while achieving the least. The guys are a different story. A couple of them have that easy confidence that makes me glance twice before I catch myself and remember company policy exists for a reason. I stay stern with everyone because fairness matters more than favourites. Numbers do not care about your mood or your hangover. Targets sit there waiting to be hit, and my job is to make sure they get hit without the whole floor descending into chaos.
People at the bank call me harsh. Strict. Sometimes they mutter that I could smile more. What they do not see is the quiet calculation going on behind the firm voice. I grew up in Basildon where you learned early that soft words alone do not pay the bills. Moving to Hackney in my mid-teens taught me the rest. You can be kind without becoming a doormat. You can demand excellence without turning into a cartoon villain. So when a report lands on my desk full of careless errors I do not sugar-coat the feedback. I point out exactly where it went wrong and exactly how to fix it. Then I walk away and let them get on with it. Most of them improve. A few sulk for a day or two. Either way the work gets done, and that is the part that keeps the competitive spark in me quietly satisfied.
Yet the moment I step outside and the city air hits my face the stern mask loosens. Suddenly I am just Dingo again, the girl who still gets excited about a good bag of chips on the way home and who texts her mum to check what time roast potatoes will be ready the following Sunday. That private side of me is protective of hope. I like the idea that somewhere out there is a man tall enough to make me look up, dark-haired, steady, who can match the fire I keep carefully banked during office hours and still know when to slow everything down into soft conversation and proper cuddles. Work never gets to touch that part. I refuse to let it. The bank pays me to lead, not to pour my softer dreams into the shared kitchen conversations.
There is a funny rhythm to the weeks. Mondays and Tuesdays are pure focus. I set the expectations early, walk the floor, answer the questions that actually matter and shut down the ones that are just noise. Wednesdays often bring the small victories, the moment a younger colleague finally nails a complicated spreadsheet and looks up with that surprised pride. I offer a short nod of approval. Nothing dramatic. They know what it means. Thursdays can tip into mild chaos if someone has a personal crisis and starts treating the desk as a therapy couch. I listen for exactly as long as is useful, then steer them back to the task. Fridays are lighter. Targets are either hit or they are not. I make sure the ones who delivered get quiet recognition and the ones who coasted get a clear reminder that next week starts fresh. Then I pack my bag, say the usual goodnights and leave the building lighter than I entered it.
The sarcasm writes itself some days. One of the girls will announce she is “literally dying” because the printer jammed. Another will claim the system is “gaslighting” her because she entered the wrong code three times. I keep a straight face and suggest they try turning it off and on again, which somehow still feels like advanced technology to half of them. The guys will joke about fantasy football more than actual football, and I will raise an eyebrow just enough to remind them the quarterly review does not care about their predicted scores. None of it is mean. It is simply the dry observation of someone who has watched enough cycles of the same behaviour to find it properly entertaining. Dark humour keeps the days moving. Without it I suspect I would have marched out years ago and never looked back.
Loyalty runs deep with me once it is earned. The few members of the team who consistently show up prepared and honest get my quiet support. If they are struggling with something outside work I will stay late to help them catch up, no lecture attached. If they make a genuine mistake I will defend them to senior management because everyone deserves one proper chance to put things right. The ones who treat the job like a temporary inconvenience or who try to play politics find the firm lines very quickly. I have no interest in performative niceness. Real care looks like clear standards and follow-through, not endless pep talks that change nothing.
Money sits at the centre of most of this. Working-class Essex roots do not fade just because you now supervise in a glass building. I watch every figure, every variance, every unnecessary cost. The young ones sometimes act as if the bank’s money is abstract. I remind them it is not. People’s mortgages and pensions sit behind those numbers. That knowledge keeps me competitive in a steady, almost private way. I do not shout about targets. I simply refuse to miss them. When the month closes clean there is a small internal nod of satisfaction that no one else needs to see. It is enough.
Outside the office the softer habits reclaim their space. I train when I feel like it, mostly long walks or an easy run that clears the head. I vape now and then when the day has been particularly ridiculous. Reality television with full commentary becomes the evening entertainment if friends are free. We laugh at the over-the-top drama because it makes our own smaller dramas feel manageable. Family remains non-negotiable. Every other Sunday I head back to Basildon for roast dinner, proper gravy, the usual gentle teasing, and the comfortable silence that only comes from people who have known you since you were small. Those hours reset whatever residual tension the week left behind.
The balance works because I treat the two sides of myself as deliberate choices rather than accidents. At work I am the supervisor who draws lines and expects them to be respected. At home and with the tiny circle I trust I am the woman who still gets properly excited about the idea of someone strong enough to throw me around a bit and then settle into quiet affection afterwards. Keeping those worlds separate protects the hope. It also stops the job from turning me into someone permanently hard-edged. I have watched that happen to other people and decided early on it was not for me.
Some evenings I catch myself smiling at the memory of a particularly absurd office moment. The intern who tried to explain blockchain to me using only emojis. The team member who arrived in full gym kit because “the vibe felt productive.” The endless debate about whose playlist should fill the background silence. All of it is temporary. All of it is human. My role is simply to keep the important parts moving forward without losing the private softness that makes the rest of life feel worth showing up for.
Leadership, at least the way I understand it, is less about being liked and more about being steady. The under-twenty-fives will roll their eyes, complain in group chats I am not meant to know about, and eventually realise the structure actually helped them. A few will even thank me later, usually after they have moved on and discovered other managers who offer only chaos. I do not need the thanks. Watching them improve is satisfaction enough. And when the day ends I get to walk out into the city, breathe, and remember that the stern version of me is only one chapter. The rest of the story stays softer, more hopeful, and entirely my own.
The city keeps changing around us. New coffee shops appear, old ones vanish, rents climb, and the young ones keep arriving with the same mix of ambition and confusion. My job stays roughly the same. Set the standards. Protect the numbers. Offer quiet support where it is earned. Leave the performance and the politics to people who enjoy that sort of thing. Then go home, put the phone on silent, and let the private side of me stretch out again. It is not complicated once you stop pretending the two versions have to merge. They do not. One pays the bills and keeps the competitive edge sharp. The other keeps the heart open and the humour intact.
I still believe ordinary steadiness wins more often than flashy gestures. Show up. Do the work properly. Draw the line when it needs drawing. Soften only when the door is closed and the people around you have earned the privilege. That approach has carried me from Basildon kitchens to East London desks without requiring me to become someone I no longer recognise. The under-twenty-fives will keep testing the boundaries. I will keep holding them. And somewhere between the firm voice and the private smile the balance holds. Most days that feels like more than enough.
