Does anybody remember the good ol’ days, when you could walk into a bank and talk to a real person? Oh, I know banks still have “tellers,” but what they mostly “tell” you, from behind their plexiglass fortress, is to make an appointment in advance if you want to do anything more complicated than cash a check or make a deposit.
Not that cashing a check or making a deposit are simple activities these days. You need lots of identification, plus your personal bank card, and most importantly, you need to remember your PIN number. (Yeah, I know what the letters P-I-N stand for, which means I’m actually saying “Personal Identification Number number.” I don’t care. I still call it a PIN number, and I also call the device on the outside wall of the bank the ATM machine.)
In order to cash a check or make a deposit, you have to slide your bank card into the little gizmo by the teller’s window, and then type in your PIN number. This is when I start to panic and think to myself, “Umm, what is my PIN number again? Is it my birthday? My birth year? The year I graduated from high school? Oh no, I think I changed it to a random 4-digit number after reading an article that said you should never use your birthday, birth year, or high school graduation year for your PIN number.”
After a few futile attempts, I can feel my face turn red. I’m certain the teller thinks I stole the card and that I’m in the process of trying to commit a felony. I offer a nervous smile and say, “Gee, I can’t seem to remember the number. You know how it is these days, people have a zillion passwords!”
The teller gives me an exasperated eye roll, and I suspect she has reached under the counter to press the silent alarm button. Any minute now a SWAT team should be tackling me to the floor.
In order to cash a check or make a deposit, you have to slide your bank card into the little gizmo by the teller’s window, and then type in your PIN number. This is when I start to panic and think to myself, “Umm, what is my PIN number again? Is it my birthday? My birth year? The year I graduated from high school? Oh no, I think I changed it to a random 4-digit number after reading an article that said you should never use your birthday, birth year, or high school graduation year for your PIN number.”
After a few futile attempts, I can feel my face turn red. I’m certain the teller thinks I stole the card and that I’m in the process of trying to commit a felony. I offer a nervous smile and say, “Gee, I can’t seem to remember the number. You know how it is these days, people have a zillion passwords!”
The teller gives me an exasperated eye roll, and I suspect she has reached under the counter to press the silent alarm button. Any minute now a SWAT team should be tackling me to the floor.
Usually, I can show my driver’s license and ask the teller to look up my account in the computer system. After much anxiety and embarrassment, I finally cash my 87-dollar check. When the teller asks, “How would you like that?” meaning 20s or 10s or whatever denomination, I discover she is not amused at all when I say, “Hundreds, please.”
So far, I’ve discussed walking into a bank and talking to a real person — the exact opposite of my original question. If you have to do something a bit more complicated, like closing out an old account, then you are required to make an appointment in advance. I’m not sure if every bank does it the same way, but the bank I recently dealt with required me to schedule a face-to-face appointment by using their website.
I do stuff online all the time. Some tasks are fairly simple, while other tasks take hours of your time as you fill out information by clicking through an endless series of screens. The online process to make a simple bank appointment was brutal. Imagine you are on a website trying to do your tax returns, take out a mortgage, and apply for U.S. citizenship — all at the same time. That would be 100% confusing, wouldn’t it? Well, the online process I went through to make a simple bank appointment was at least 200% confusing.
So far, I’ve discussed walking into a bank and talking to a real person — the exact opposite of my original question. If you have to do something a bit more complicated, like closing out an old account, then you are required to make an appointment in advance. I’m not sure if every bank does it the same way, but the bank I recently dealt with required me to schedule a face-to-face appointment by using their website.
I do stuff online all the time. Some tasks are fairly simple, while other tasks take hours of your time as you fill out information by clicking through an endless series of screens. The online process to make a simple bank appointment was brutal. Imagine you are on a website trying to do your tax returns, take out a mortgage, and apply for U.S. citizenship — all at the same time. That would be 100% confusing, wouldn’t it? Well, the online process I went through to make a simple bank appointment was at least 200% confusing.
By the time I finished making the appointment online, the day and time for the appointment had already passed. So, now I have to start over. It would be easier if I just let the bank keep the money in my old account. Hmm, that probably was their plan all along.
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