RBC employee Andrea Whitten retires after 32 years on the job

July 9, 2020 · 0 Comments

Written By PAULA BROWN

An exciting and emotional day is how Shelburne resident Andrea Whitten described her final shift at Shelburne’s Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), after retiring from a 32-year career.

Whitten called an end to her three decade long career at the bank last Thursday (July 2), where co-workers held a pop-in celebration for her, allowing clients to give her their well wishes.

“I’ve seen lots of people I haven’t seen for a while,” said Whitten touching on the experience of the day, jokingly adding, “They made me kind of work, but not too bad.”

In an interview with the Free Press to discuss her years with the bank, Whitten spoke about her journey into the Canadian banking industry, her memories throughout the years, and her plans for retirement.

“I’m happy, but at the same time know I’m not going to see some people as often as I do now,” said Whitten. “I really enjoy working with the clients and really enjoyed my customer service part – that’s the fun part.”

Andrea first joined the team at RBC back in 1988. At the time she was 27 years old. Previously working in the city in the hotel industry, Whitten says she knew a lot of the women that worked at the bank at the time, and somewhat stumbled into a position with the local bank after being called to see if she wanted a job. In her career at the bank Whitten has had many roles, from working as a teller to most recently manager of client care. Over the years she’s become a “jack of all trades” within the small branch.

Since her start in the field, Whitten says she’s seen a lot of change within the world of banking. Things are a lot different now than there were 32 years ago.

“At first there was no banking machine – that was the old printers –and everybody had their cheques, there was no automatic deposit so people stood in line every Thursday night, Friday night to cash their cheques or deposit them – so a lot different than now.”

Over the course of her career, Andrea has made many memories, bringing up the time she won the annual RBC convention cruise. Unsurprisingly, however, some of her most exciting times, she says, lie with her co-workers.

“For me some of my exciting times is just being able to do things with my colleagues,” said Whitten. “We’ve had a lot of fun.”

Beth Boyd, who was trained by Andrea and has worked with her for 14 years, spoke with the Free Press describing Whitten as her best friend. She went on record to state how proud she is of her friend’s many accomplishments over the years.

“The Shelburne community, the RBC community will miss her immensely,” said Boyd.

With the wrap of her three decade career, Andrea says that she doesn’t know what she will do in retirement but plans to just spend time at home.

“It’s more kind of relaxing and getting my bearings, look at my house, read a book and spend time with my family,” said Whitten laughing. “All the fun stuff.”