I love my friends and I love their adventures and I love their minds!
Does it seem to anyone else that people are having a harder and harder time empathizing with others? And I don't mean just understanding their feelings... I mean just simply stopping and thinking for just a second where the other person is coming from. This rant is coming from a recent string of beratings I've been the recipient of, due to the credit union enforcing security measures that actually have always been in place. Please, consider the following dialogue:
Credit Union Member: "Hi, I'd like to make a deposit and get cash back." (Member stands there, failing to produce anything that resembles an account number, an ID, or something that can be deposited.)
Audrey: "Okay." (I think it's funny to stand there, just like them, until they produce something that can be of any use to me. Maybe I shouldn't do it, but I'm sick of them expecting me to read their minds... So I wait.)
(Member gets debit card out. I swipe it, pulling up their account.
Member: "I'd like to deposit this check (produces it, miraculously) and get three hundred back in cash."
Audrey: "I notice there's a message on your account (that the MEMBER puts there, not us) to ask you for your password for transactions."
Member, getting irritated: "But I'm making a DEPOSIT. I don't need to give you my password."
Audrey: "The message doesn't specify, so I'm assuming the password is for all transactions."
Member: "But I'm making a DEPOSIT."
Audrey: "I still need the password."
Member: "This is rediculous. Why do I need to give you my password?"
Audrey: "If you'd like me to take the message off, I can do that, but I'd need to see your ID. I'm just following your instructions you put on your account. I'd be glad to change it if you want."
Member: "No, I want it on there. Don't do anything with it."
Audrey: "Okay, I won't change it."
(We both stand there for a minute. Apparently he's forgotten I need the password.)
Audrey: "So, I'll deposit this check and get you $300 cash. What's your password?" (I say this with renewed cheerfulness; perhaps he'll forget the previous conversation.)
Member, rolling his eyes and sighing, gives me his password. Apparently he forgot that he WAS getting cash back, and that maybe the deposit didn't cancel it out or something. But really, it took 3 minutes to argue about giving me the password, and one second to actually SAY it. Are people TRYING to be difficult?
Marjene, the lead teller (who coincidentally attended high school with James), made a good point: they should make a sitcom about us. Sure, a show about a CREDIT UNION doesn't sound too exciting, but let me tell you, we see the most ignorant/hilarious stuff every day. People try to convince you to do stupid stuff. Like when checks aren't made out to the account holder, and they say, "This person told me it was okay to deposit their check into my account." Oh, okay, I'll take your word for it! Would you like the 2 grand in cash or in your checking account? Or when people get super annoyed when I ask to see ID when they're withdrawing from their account. Um, okay, so I guess you don't CARE if anyone else takes your money? Sweet! I'm rich! Oftentimes we laugh out loud when people leave. Is this mean?
*sigh* My wish is that people, especially rich people, because they're the most entitled, would step behind the counter and do my job for one day. ...and grab an apron and be a server for a day, or pump gas for just an hour. Why don't people treat others with respect? Is everybody in a really bad mood or something?
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Bad moods and passwords
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10 comments:
I think you are terribly cruel for posting this dialogue. Your intent is to ridicule. I'm sure your eyes are twinkling everytime someone walks into the credit union, and people can TELL. They sense that you're a mean bitch. So they do it intentionally. Just to make you mad. It has nothing to do with them being oblivious to reality. Abolutely nothing.
Despite being horrified by your malicious nature, I will give you advice. Your prime defense against their sublime strategery is to confound them with small talk. For example, today I mused "scoliosis is a bizarre ailment" and all efforts to boss me ceased.
You should read the book "Somebodies and Nobodies." Seriously. I think you'd dig it. And it relates to both your post, and Kristin's comment.
I can very much identify! when I worked at the library, we would keep books that a patron had reserved behind the desk. when someone was ready to check them out, we'd need their name (the books were on shelves by last name of patron) and their library card, of course. so many people would come up to the desk and say "you're holding books for me." never their name, never with their card. when I heard this 500 times a week, and often from the same people, it made me a little crazy, too. other times, people would just come up to the desk and hand me their card without a word. so many different types of people in this world. what is going on in our minds?
Hahahahahahahahah
You crack me up Audrey. This is so relateable i think to anybody that has to deal with customers (or Patients!). Think hard- we all may even have been on the other side at some point and not realized it. people just get so caught up in their little minds and their little worlds and put little blinders on to get by. Counters are a de-humanizing phoenomonom (sp?) - cars too...
I disagree with Kristin. I don't think your intent is to ridicule. I think it's a true and honest plea for more empathy in the world, and giving an example where it can be injected.
I also agree with Kristin. People definitely feed off each other's energy. I wonder what would happen if, while they were staring at you blankly, you spoke a mantra in your mind saying to them, "I love you... I care about you... I am here to help you..." and if you really meant it. I wonder what would happen.
And by the way, killer writing.
OOo!! Thank you all for your comments! It's funny how a situation can have a strange dichotomy; it's aggrivating, but at the same time, funny. I should write an essay about how that's a metaphor for life.
aweseome. Doesn't this always happen to all of us! I could tell you jillions of stories about people getting upset that our office has the GALL to actually charge MONEY for our services. I mean, if they don't walk out the door with a new material object, our time was not worth anything. Or other things. You know.
13 years in retail. I feel your pain. I so glad that my current "customers" are teenagers. They're actually much easier to deal with than adults that should understand respect, but don't. By the way, I sense that you're a mean bitch, too.
Mr. T went over mahvelously, I have to update you.
When I work a job that has anything to do with customers, I can only be pushed so far. When it crosses that threshold, it becomes a game of "let's see what I can get away with without my supervisors finding out?"
Stories from this vein have become neigh unto legend at places I have been employed.
hilarious! laughing out loud for real! hilarious! hilarious!
I miss you audrey!
and...I'm sorry. I'm sorry to all of the bank tellers that I have done that to! I think it's cause going to the bank has been in the past such a bad thing for me...full of fees and paperwork and not enough money...and everyone is so...clean and sorry.."anal" and neat and organized and fast and efficient..I always feel like a loser at the bank cause i'm not in a suit and I'm depositing $10...but now in Korea...I intimidate them cause I'm a foreigner and I'm sending $1,000 bucks to the U.S.A. Yes! I win!
but I still get mad when they ask me for my details...cause I'm not good at details and I take it out on the poor teller. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
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