In Chapter Eleven of my work in progress, I share my experience of entering a male-dominated workforce at the age of eighteen years. It’s the period October 1969 to December 1970. The term “sexual harassment” was not yet in use to describe male sexual overtones and intimidation in the workplace. According to a Wikipedia article, the term was first used in May 1975.

In November 1969, while I entered a new phase in my life as a young woman, hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets across America to call for an end to the Vietnam War. In the United Kingdom, John Lennon of The Beatles rock band returned his MBE medal in protest to the British government’s support of the war. Richard Nixon’s inauguration as President of the United States in January 1970 eventually brought a withdrawal of all US troops in 1973.

On February 23, 1970, Guyana became the first Republic in the Commonwealth Caribbean. The country’s official name is the ‘Cooperative Republic of Guyana.’ Queen Elizabeth II, the Head of the British Commonwealth, entered her eighteenth year on the throne. Later in the year, Sir Edward Heath replaced Harold Wilson as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

On Guyana’s radio waves, Peter, Paul and Mary were “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” Simon & Garfunkel offered us a “Bridge Over Troubled Waters,” while The Beatles urged that we “Let It Be.” The Jamaican reggae artist Bob Marley & the Wailers released their first album “Soul Rebels.”  

Chapter Eleven: The Financial World of Men in Dark Suits

Mother determined that I should work for at least a year before entering the convent. I simply complied. Arguing with her would’ve been futile. Though she never expressed her hope that I would meet a young man with a promising future, Mother’s actions betrayed her intentions.

With my stellar secondary school academic qualifications, I secured a coveted position at the main branch of then Barclays Bank DCO (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas), our country’s largest foreign commercial bank with several branches in the country. The bank’s regional Head Office was in Bridgetown, Barbados. When compared to other job options for secondary school graduates in the Civil Service, teaching, and nursing, the starting salary at the foreign banks was the most competitive. Barclays had the added attractions of on-the-job training with opportunities to move up to a managerial position, a sports club with swimming pool and lawn tennis court, and health care coverage.

In October 1969 at eighteen years old, I ventured into the financial world of men in dark suits. Though Guyana was no longer a British colony, changes in our social stratification were slow to follow. At the bank’s main branch, located on Water Street in downtown Georgetown, white-skinned people still occupied most senior positions. Many of them were transfers from other branches across the Anglophone Caribbean. If I recall correctly, there was just one female supervisor. Of Portuguese-descent, the single woman in her thirties who always held a cigarette between her fingers, oversaw the Savings Department. The junior staff was more racially diverse. Auxiliary staff members were black: kitchen/lunchroom, cleaners, drivers, and security guards.

Men dressed in collar and tie with dark-colored trousers; senior staff wore suits. Female staff members wore a skirt-and-blouse uniform: the colors evade me. On Saturdays, when the bank was open to the public until noon, we could deck out in smart casual wear. Mother dressed me in her signature eye-catching fashionable designs. If her intention was for me to catch the attention of the male gaze, she succeeded with her red A-line crepe skirt with a yellow ruffled Chiffon blouse with sleeves. When I left home that Saturday morning for work, Mother didn’t mention that my bra was visible beneath my blouse.

During mid-morning, a senior member of the Administrative Department, a black guy from Saint Lucia, approached me.

“You’re not dressed appropriately for work,” the Saint Lucian told me. “Are you trying to distract our male staff with your see-through blouse?”

My face flushed with embarrassment. I couldn’t wait for the day to end to hide my shame.

I also caught George’s attention, one of the night deposit bank clerks. A local guy in his twenties. Every time he saw me, he invited me out. Each time, I politely told him that I had another engagement. That was no lie. I was a member of the parish council and still active in our youth group. But he didn’t need to know that. The day he inquired what I was so busy doing on my weekends, I had reached my end of civility towards an overbearing, persistent male.

“It’s none of your business,” I told George.

Overhearing my remark, the Saint Lucian called me aside. “That was very rude,” he told me. “It’s more courteous to have said, ‘I’d rather not say.’”

I swallowed my anger. Why didn’t he tell George to stop pestering me instead of criticizing me?

The day my bicycle suffered a puncture, I made the mistake of accepting George’s offer to give me a ride home in his motor car—a status symbol in those days. He grabbed the opportunity to invite me out…again.

“You know, I could take you all the way to Atkinson Airport until you agree to go out with me,” he told me, seated next to him in the front seat.

“Are you threatening me?” I said, turning to look at him.

“Of course not! Do I sound like I’m threatening you?”

“You don’t joke about things like that,” I said.

Atkinson Airport was over twenty miles distant from Georgetown. Terrible things happened to young women along the deserted stretches of the East Bank Demerara Public Road. Some of them did not live to expose their trauma. I got home safely that day, but never again did I set foot in George’s car. I thanked God the day he was transferred to another branch.

The Trinidadian-born white man in-charge of the Treasury Department was a different sort from George. A much older man, perhaps in his forties, the treasurer was small in stature, not much taller than my five-foot-four height. He was notorious for his sexual innuendos that I found annoying.

When Paula—the young black woman, with whom I would be working—introduced me to him on my first day at the bank, the treasurer examined my face and then looked me over.

“Fung? I don’t see any Chinese. Unless it’s down there.” He looked down at my genital area. “I hear it’s a tight fit in Chinese women.”

Paula dismissed his comments as a joke. Over time, though I dreaded having to collect paperwork from his department, I also learned to laugh at his sexual double talk.

Working at Barclays Bank also exposed me to skin color and class divisions in our country. Among the bank’s diverse savings-account holders were several Indian farmers from rural villages along the East Coast and East Bank Demerara. Dressed humbly, the men wore straw hats; the women wrapped their heads with cloth. They usually carried their money in an inconspicuous brown paper bag.

Many of the older generation were illiterate. Since they couldn’t sign their names to open an account or withdraw money from an existing account, the bank clerks at the Savings Department counter had to take their thumb print and compare it with the one on record. During my three-month stint at the Savings counter, I disliked having to check thump prints, armed with a magnifying glass like some detective. Any error of false identity could result in a financial loss for the bank and trouble for me. Whenever in doubt, I double-checked with the supervisor.

Interest time every three months was also no fun. At that time, interest on all savings accounts were calculated manually with the assistance of hand-cranked, adding machines. All junior staff members were assigned a fixed number of savings account ledger sheets. Senior staff then checked the figures before the interest earned was posted to the customer’s ledger sheet.

On one occasion, I had an altercation with the chain-smoking Savings Accounts supervisor. After finding an error on one of my accounts, she telephoned to tell me to come immediately to see her. After politely responding that I was busy and would check in with her later, I hung up the phone. The audacity of youth!

She was fuming when she arrived at my desk on the top floor.

“Don’t you dare hang up the phone again when I’m talking to you,” she said, jabbing the savings ledger sheet in my face. “Correct your mistake and return the sheet to me.”

The Saint Lucian was all ears. After she left, he just looked at me but said nothing. Thankfully, he was not my boss. At the end of the day, I had to first satisfy the demands of my supervisor, the bank’s accountant, whose desk was on the ground floor.

In having to calculate interest earnings on savings accounts, I discovered that several of our Indian farmers held five-figure balances in their accounts. Since they didn’t qualify for checking accounts, they didn’t enjoy credit or overdraft limits granted to some of our checking account customers. Nor did they apply for personal or business loans.

Those customers who frequented the Advances/Loans Department or the offices of our Deputy Manager and General Manager were mainly fair-skinned men from among Georgetown’s upper-class society.

With my limited understanding of the workings of the financial system, it struck me then that money earned and deposited by our farmers and laborers helped to fuel the grand lifestyle of the upper-class in our society, who had the required collateral to obtain credit and loans.

This unequal treatment of obtaining finance would soon change. In February 1970, our new socialist cooperative government also established a development bank, the Guyana National Co-operative Bank (GNCB). The role of the GNCB was to provide for the commercial financing requirements of our local businesses; to support investment in new business areas; and to extend badly needed financial services to our farmers and other small business owners in the rural communities.

The Bank of Guyana (BOG), established in 1965, seven months before we had gained political independence, served only as a central bank. As the fiscal agent of the government, with the sole right to issue and redeem notes and coins, BOG held responsibility for maintaining our monetary stability and promoting foreign exchange conditions conducive to our country’s economic growth.

My fifteen-month job experience at Barclays Bank proved to be invaluable in my personal and professional life. Notwithstanding the colonial mindset, I learned the best British business practices for carrying out company policies, reducing internal theft and embezzlement, minimizing errors, and money management. I also became proficient in using several types of accounting machines available at the time. I was working as a bank teller in the Current (Checking) Accounts Department when I resigned my position at the end of December 1970 to enter the convent.