I’m in a hurry, a lot. I try not to be, but the adjective hectic wasn’t too hard to apply when I started to describe my life in this blog. No matter how hard I try to avoid being rushed…it happens all the time. I know I’m trying to do to much, I know that I shoulder too much responsibility, I know!
But being rushed and harried is the way my life is for now. I’m sure I’ll miss it someday, but for now I don’t have time to think about that.
Well, I usually don’t have time to think about it.
Recently we’ve had to use the drive-up banking services at two of the financial institutions in town. With ten people in the immediate family it’s no wonder that we have accounts at multiple places. And it’s no wonder that I’m the one who often offers to make deposits while the other family members are working. Hectic Grandson loves to get out, I usually have other errands to run, and I drive right by both banks on the way to many appointments. So I’ve started making a bunch of deposits every week.
I’ve done my best to keep it to one trip per bank per week, but the kids keep getting checks on odd days. I want to promote their habit of working and getting paid…especially when they’re getting paid by other people! Part of that support is making sure their deposits get made in a timely manner.
So the other day I was at our local credit union. I was the third car in line in my lane, while there were two cars in each of the other three lanes. It’s not a huge credit union, but large enough that they have four lanes, and four tellers working inside to handle the banking transactions.
If you guessed that I was going to rant about picking the wrong line (or is it queue?), you’re wrong. I’ve given up on ever figuring that out since it was posed to me as a logic and statistics problem during my undergraduate Money, Credit, and Banking class. We wrote thousands of lines of program code to predict queuing behavior…and never got it to represent the real world.
My rant is how long it takes some people at the window. I mean seriously, the number of transactions at the drive-up window are limited at our financial institutions to deposits and withdrawals. You can’t get a certified check at the drive-up window (I did that once in the 1990’s and I completely understand why they have this rule). You can’t deposit a bag full of coins. You can’t make changes to your account. You can’t do anything but put money in or take money out. Simple really. Logical even.
So why are some cars up there for minutes. I mean nearly ten minutes? I realize that the median age in our little town is near 70, and we have a lot of octogenarians and nonagenarians driving around. I’m in awe of how active these older folks are, and I would never rant against them. Well, I say never, but that’s such a strong word. We’ll stick with seldom. Regardless, most of the folks who take so long at the teller aren’t all that old. People my age, right in the middle of the spectrum. Yet there they sit, for minutes on end.
While sitting there, I’ve watched the tellers. They’re scurrying around like bank folks do. Shuffling money, counting coins, feeding the dragon (oh wait, that’s on at Gringott’s Wizarding Bank in the Harry Potter universe). But from the looks of things, the tellers at the drive-up bank are working at a reasonable pace. No slacking is apparent with them.
I’ve never been able to figure out what could be taking so long. Every once in a while I think I’ll ask the teller what took so long, but that seems kind of invasive. Yet I wonder. What the heck are they doing? I mean, my average time from start to finish is under 45 seconds every time I pull up. How could somebody take ten times longer? I just don’t get it!
So tell me folks, what the heck are they doing at the drive-up bank teller?
Oh I want to come to America to see the drive in banks!!! It’s the same at baggage check in at an airport. Go up, show your passport, drop your bags GO. Why do people need to stand there for 10 minutes??