Chapter 33: 032 Xia He's Worry

Cao Ting's words immediately drew the attention of everyone in the office, who asked her one after another what news she had seen.

"The municipal branch sent a document on the official-document platform. I'll print it out for you to see." After saying that, Cao Ting clicked the mouse a few more times.

The printer let out a "squeak-squeak" sound, and within a few minutes a red-header document was printed out.

Liu Meili was an impatient sort. She immediately ran over to Cao Ting, leaned in and took a look, then chimed in:

"Sure enough, it's big news. A client manager at a business hall under Pingdong Sub-branch secretly diverted 500,000 yuan of a depositor's funds for gambling and has been criminally detained by the police. The relevant leaders and cadres of the sub-branch received various punishments: Deputy President Zhang, who was in charge of this line of business, was removed from his post; the top leader, President Xue, was demoted and reassigned as Deputy President of Zhongxiang County Sub-branch! Oh my... what a mess this has caused."

Liu Meili was a local, and she always liked to speak in Northeastern dialect — probably influenced by Uncle Benshan's skits.

The document was passed from hand to hand among a few people, and finally reached Fang Qingye.

He glanced at it; the content was roughly as described, though what was written above was naturally more detailed.

This client manager surnamed Li was addicted to gambling, which left his family destitute. His wife divorced him, he owed debts everywhere, and in the end he reached into depositors' funds.

As a client manager, he spent all day in the lobby dealing with various depositors. Some elderly people, because of their age, couldn't operate the ATMs, so they would sometimes ask the client manager to help, and even tell him their passwords.

This Mr. Li took advantage of that to quietly transfer 500,000 yuan from a retired old lady's savings into his own account for gambling — and ended up losing everything.

Not long ago, the old lady came to the bank to withdraw money, discovered that 500,000 yuan was missing, and immediately called the police. It didn't take long for the police to trace it to Mr. Li, and he fully confessed himself; only the 500,000 yuan he had diverted could not be recovered.

The old lady was of course unwilling to accept that, so to smooth things over, the sub-branch dipped into its own funds to pay her back the 500,000 yuan.

The old lady's side of the matter was considered resolved, and client manager Li was criminally detained by the police for further investigation — but the 500,000 yuan hole in the bank's books could not be filled.

The municipal branch held those responsible to account for this matter, dealing with a batch of people from the president down to the head of the client department, and then circulated a notice to the entire system in the form of an official document.

According to the office's rules for receiving and sending documents, Cao Ting first had to number and register this document, then hand it to Wu Shengli, who would take the document to find Xia He — for some documents a subordinate would be sent to make the trip, to wait for her to write instructions on the document's distribution scope.

Of course, for some classified confidential documents, Cao Ting would, in accordance with the confidentiality rules and regulations, deliver them straight into Xia He's hands without letting anyone else read them along the way.

This document was not a confidential one, and it also had to be conveyed and studied throughout the entire branch, so after registering it Cao Ting took it to find Wu Shengli.

Within a few minutes, Wu Shengli came over with the document, and seeing Fang Qingye reading materials, said: "Xiao Fang, take this document to President Xia's office."

The leader was just grabbing able-bodied men at random.

He himself had arrived last, so the odds of being grabbed were highest.

Fang Qingye grumbled to himself, but still took the document and went upstairs.

Xia He's office was on the third floor. Fang Qingye went upstairs, knocked, and went in, and saw Xia He sitting behind her desk reading documents, with a thick stack of various materials piled on the desk.

"President Xia, this is a document just sent from the municipal branch." Fang Qingye set the document on the desk.

According to normal procedure, the president first had to carefully read the document's contents, and then write instructions on it specifying which leaders and sections were to read and circulate it.

Generally, leaders would set a document aside for a while, and after reading it, call the general office to have someone come up and fetch it, to be circulated as required.

During this period, the person who delivered the document naturally had to leave and wait for the leader's phone call. Today, just as Fang Qingye was about to leave, he was stopped by Xia He.

"Don't rush off. Sit down for a bit first," Xia He said.

Fang Qingye obeyed and sat down on the sofa beside her.

"I already knew the contents of this document long ago. To tell the truth, when I first learned of this matter, I felt quite uneasy about it." Xia He said, holding the document in her hand.

Fang Qingye understood — she wanted to have a chat with him about something off the record.

So he too dropped his all-business tone, and asked with a smile: "Senior, what's up?"

"This President Xue is someone I'm quite close with. He's thirty-five this year. As you know, Pingdong Sub-branch is our biggest sub-branch in Jinghai — every line of business is number one across the whole branch. For a thirty-five-year-old to become the top leader of that sub-branch is no small feat. But sadly, because of this incident he's been demoted and exiled to the remote Zhongxiang County. His future is pretty much over."

Fang Qingye understood in his heart: the reason President Xue was dealt with so harshly was that the 500,000 yuan could not be recovered!

All banks at every level have a rule: "Regarding the penalties for economic cases — in cases where funds are not lost, the punishment of the responsible personnel will be relatively light. But if the funds are lost in large amounts, the punishment of the responsible personnel will be heavier."

Xia He's emotions were running so high today — not only because of the municipal branch's handling of President Xue, but also because she was thinking of herself, wasn't she?

Thinking of this, Fang Qingye tentatively asked: "Senior, are you worried that something similar might happen at our Nanxin Sub-branch?"

"Yes, Xiao Fang. You're my junior, and I trust you, so let me speak my mind. I am indeed very worried. Although the employees in our branch all seem quite conscientious and responsible, you can never read anyone's heart — who can guarantee that someone won't stab you in the back? Something like what happened at Pingdong Sub-branch would be fatal."

At the end, Xia He let out a deep sigh.

"So, Senior, you want to take preventive measures — what approach are you going to take?" Fang Qingye asked again.

"Besides strengthening professional ethics training and strictly enforcing all disciplines, I want to do a survey — targeting the people in important positions in our branch, investigating their hobbies and interests outside of work, whether they have bad habits... and also their immediate family members! Some husbands gamble and drag the family into poverty, and their wives at the bank are forced to take desperate risks — this kind of thing has been reported in the news too. These people are not suited to stay in important positions; they need to be transferred away!"

Hearing Xia He say all this, Fang Qingye's mouth curved into a slight smile, and he started to joke:

"Senior, you're doing the work of the disciplinary committee — not only managing cadres within their eight working hours, but also outside those eight hours; not only looking at their performance on the job, but also investigating their circle of friends, hobbies and interests, and so on."

Hearing the slightly teasing tone in Fang Qingye's voice, Xia He knitted her delicate brows: "You don't think it's workable?"

"Not workable," Fang Qingye answered very bluntly.

"First, how much manpower and material resources can you put in? And what you call bad habits — how do you define them? Take playing mahjong, for example — how big does the stakes have to be before it counts as gambling? And how would you investigate how much other people are playing for? Then there's buying lottery tickets, stock trading... all of these are legal and permitted!"

"More importantly, our bank is not a Party or government organ, and certainly not the disciplinary committee. Although as president, disciplinary inspection work is also part of your duties, the question is:"

"How do you investigate a person — even their family? That involves personal privacy. And is the data you come up with accurate? If you judge whether an employee is suited to a certain position based on inaccurate data, wouldn't that be biased?"

Fang Qingye's string of counter-questions left Xia He momentarily dumbfounded.

It seemed her thinking really was a bit simple and naive.

Seeing Xia He fall silent, Fang Qingye leaned back, shifted into a more comfortable position, and smiled: "I do have a relatively simple method that can address your concern."