Right then, let me just get this out there before my tea goes cold. People at the bank have this funny idea that I walk around like some sort of drill sergeant who eats interns for breakfast. Fair enough, I suppose. I do give the side eye when someone rocks up twenty minutes late with a half hearted excuse about the Central line playing up again. But here is the thing they never quite clock. That stern face is not because I enjoy making the under twenty fives squirm. It is because I actually give a toss about the work getting done properly and everyone getting a fair crack at it. Wild concept, I know
I grew up in Basildon where if you left the back door unlocked someone would nick the garden gnome and sell it down the market by lunchtime. That sort of upbringing sticks. You learn early that soft boundaries just invite chaos. So when I ended up supervising a little team in this big East London bank, the same rules applied. The office is open plan, full of bright young things who think a WhatsApp group chat counts as teamwork. Half of them still live with their mum and the other half are living off oat milk lattes and big dreams. I love them in my own quiet way, but if I smiled through every missed deadline the whole floor would collapse by Thursday.
Take last month. One of the lads, proper sweet face, kept forgetting to update the shared tracker. Not once. Not twice. Four times. Each time he gave me that hopeful puppy look like I was about to say no worries mate, these things happen. I did not. I sat him down, pointed at the screen, and told him straight that numbers do not care about your weekend plans. He went a bit red, mumbled something about learning curves, and then, miracle of miracles, the tracker started looking tidy. Two weeks later he actually thanked me. Quietly, after everyone else had gone. That is the bit nobody sees. The stern look does the heavy lifting so the soft conversation can happen later without an audience.
I am not made of stone. Far from it. Outside these glass doors I am the girl in the oversized hoodie who will cry at a chick flick and then pretend it was the onions. I still go home for Sunday roast every other week because nothing on this earth beats my mum’s gravy and the way dad still calls me his little terror even though I am thirty one and can calculate compound interest in my sleep. Those Sundays keep me sane. They remind me that the bank is just a building full of fluorescent lights and slightly stale air conditioning. It is not the whole of me. But while I am inside it, the team needs someone who will not let standards slide just to stay popular.
Sarcasm is my secret weapon on the floor. When one of the girls tries to explain why her client call ran over by forty five minutes because she was “building rapport”, I raise one eyebrow and ask if rapport includes discussing the latest series of Love Island for twenty of those minutes. She laughs, I laugh, and then we both know the next call will be tighter. It is not mean. It is just efficient. Life is too short for endless fluff when the monthly figures are staring us in the face. And yes, I know some of them still call me harsh behind my back. I have ears. The open plan office is basically a rumour factory with better coffee. But I would rather be the one they grumble about than the one who lets the whole team look sloppy when the higher ups come sniffing around.
Fairness sits right at the centre of it for me. I will pull up the popular lad who always gets away with things just as quickly as I will pull up the quiet girl who is still finding her feet. No favourites. That is the only way it works. I have watched other supervisors play the nice card and end up with a team that runs rings around them. Not on my watch. The numbers never lie and neither do I. If someone is putting in the graft, I notice. I might not throw a party with balloons, but I will make sure their extra effort shows up in the review. Quiet loyalty goes both ways.
Some days the competitive streak in me gets a proper workout. There is this other supervisor two floors up who thinks her team is the golden child of the building. She walks around like she invented banking. Every time our figures edge ahead of hers I feel this private little spark of satisfaction. I never announce it. I just keep my head down, keep the standards high, and let the spreadsheet do the talking. That is the Essex way, is it not? Do the work, skip the victory lap, go home and put your feet up.
I will admit there are moments when the stern face feels heavier than usual. Like when one of the younger ones is clearly having a rough time at home and still tries to power through. My first instinct is to soften. Offer a quiet word, maybe suggest they take the afternoon. But I have learned that if I do that too openly the whole dynamic shifts. Suddenly everyone thinks the rules are optional. So I keep the boundary firm in public and then later, when the floor is quieter, I will slide over a coffee and just sit. No big speech. Just presence. Most of the time that is enough. They know I am not a monster. They just need the structure more than they realise.
People outside the bank sometimes ask how I switch off. Easy. The second I step onto the street and feel the Hackney air I drop the supervisor skin like an old coat. Suddenly I am just Dingo again, the girl who will natter about nothing with her small circle of mates, vape on the balcony when the mood takes her, and dream about the kind of tall dark stranger who knows when to be firm and when to bring the foot massage. Work is work. Home is home. Mixing them never ends well. I have seen enough colleagues try it and end up answering emails at midnight with a face like thunder.
The funny part is how often the stern approach actually creates more room for the soft stuff. Because the team knows where the lines are, they stop testing them after a while. Then the real conversations can happen. The ones about career goals or the fact that someone is nervous about a big presentation. I can listen properly then, without one eye on the clock wondering if the deadlines are about to implode. Structure makes space for kindness. That is the secret nobody puts on the motivational posters.
I remember my first week in the role. I tried being the friendly supervisor. Smiles all round. Open door policy. Within ten days the shared drive looked like a toddler had been left alone with a keyboard and the client reports were arriving late more often than not. I lasted about a fortnight before I flipped the switch. Overnight the tone changed. A few people sulked. One even asked if I was alright, like maybe I had received bad news. I just carried on. Within a month the numbers improved and the sulking stopped. People adapt faster than they pretend. They just need someone willing to hold the line while they catch up.
There is a particular joy in watching a messy team become a sharp one. It does not happen with pep talks. It happens with consistent expectations and the occasional raised eyebrow that says more than a paragraph ever could. I have had new starters arrive all nervous and leave a year later with proper confidence because they knew exactly what was required and someone actually bothered to check they were meeting it. That feels better than any staff award.
Of course I am not perfect. Some evenings I get home and realise I have been a bit sharper than necessary that day. The competitive side can tip into stubbornness if I am not careful. When that happens I make a quiet note to ease up the next morning. Not soft. Just human. The team does not need a robot. They need someone who cares enough to be firm and still remembers that everyone has a life outside the building.
Sunday roast helps with that perspective more than anything. Sitting round the table in Basildon, listening to dad complain about the football and mum fussing over whether I am eating enough, I remember that the bank drama is temporary. The people who matter will still be there whether the monthly targets are green or amber. That knowledge lets me walk back into the office on Monday with the stern look firmly in place and a private smile underneath it. I know what I am protecting. The results. The fairness. The quiet knowledge that when the pressure is on, my team will not fold because someone was too busy being popular to set proper standards.
So next time you see me giving one of the under twenty fives the look that could freeze coffee, just know it is not personal. It is practical. It is the same instinct that makes me lock the back door and check the oven is off before I leave the house. Care shows up in different ways. Sometimes it looks like a soft word and a shared packet of biscuits. Sometimes it looks like a raised eyebrow and a clear instruction. Both come from the same place. I just happen to have learned that in a busy bank the second one keeps the lights on and the numbers honest. And if that makes me the harsh one, well, I can live with that. The spreadsheets seem to agree with me anyway.
