Bank Wank

Luke Leslie Saturday 26th of November 2007

I sent Swasticow off to be late for and/or be binned from its first overseas festival today; The Toronto International World of Comedy Film Festival to be exact (quite a mouthful aint it?). But being a week day, I as usual had college, so I woke up extra early, figuring I could get my get my 30 dollar bank draft, pop it in the parcel and post it off... all before college started.

I patiently waited outside the Dun Laoghaire Ulster Bank tapping my head, and scratching my watch observing every single establishment in Dun Laoghaire open as 9am slowly snuck up on earthes unsuspecting inhabitants. At 20 past 9 I went to the door, made eye contact with a rather dopey looking clerk, who stood there texting a cat, flat outignoring me, it was then that the ominous realization struck, I got up early for this, that clerk will be texting his cat for the foseeable future, and the bank will not be opening any time soon...

I turned my head and saw the sign, it read stated the opening hours starting from 10 - ending at 4. This moment was about as painful for me as I might guess child birth is for women, thankfully banking doesn't sentence people to a children in quite the same way unprotected sex does.

Walking up to college I pondered that this institution, this service I avail of named college, opens loosely between the hours of 9 til 5 (actually later since it's art college where people are far too alternative to have an act let alone get it together) It seems banks don't operate in the little same universe as everyone and everything else..

I understand that 99999% of the time banks make their moolie from big business leaving us little people acting as little more then lovable scramps popping in and out for pocket change and scraps of paper with important sounding words printed on them. But I place before you this, why even offer a till based service if your going to operate in such a way that people can't even avail of it?

Now granted they offer internet banking, Atms, and sexy large credit card bills, but for a what is essentially a business that makes a huge fuss investing their time and money building physical branches, what pray tell is the point if the only time people can use them is during their lunch break?

At Lunch - the bank was over capacity and understaffed when It desperatly needed to be at full efficency. Everyone seemed to be counting cash or texting their pets. I had opted to skive off college to get my bank draft, thats right - I skipped my state and parent funded education, squandering my time in a bank Que. Oh the glory days of college have truly landed.

As I stood in that Que, fapping the time away listening to Brians ipod (which he thinks he's lost, actually just leaving it in me flat) my eyes wondered - I noticed the extra ordinate amount of signs that are digital dotting the sideways floors of the establishment, they denoted the separate teller positions. Curious I thought, as I questioned their very existance and purpose. Presumably this branch doesn't operate like the Cube in the film of the same name, presumably the teller desks are always in the same position and don't need changable labeling, or perhaps they shift around the gaff along 3 axis, but I'm making a lot of presumptions there...

It just seems like a waste of electricity and money when a good old analogue sign would have done, several other signs did the exact same wasteful job, telling us to "Que. please" in all its LCD glory... Well big spenders - perhaps if you paid your staff to operate outside your cushy and utterly fuckktarted opening hours instead of spending all your moolie on LCD screens telling us useless information then maybe you'd avoid unnessicary ill-worded articles from impatient disgruntled customers who get a little short with the one teller on duty at peak hours dealing with the masses.

Standing in line in the post office 3 hours later, which I noticed had the same opening hours as the bank, the same useless LCD screens denoting teller positions, and the same guy from the bank serving us while the rest of the staff sat in the back playing sacky sack. I then laughed noticing the sign change as "Counter number 3" become availabe alongside an illuminated arrow pointing right, counter number 3 alas was to the left...

I'll end on one final observation from todays wild life safari.

An Asian woman reached the counter just before me, she was sending a large package presumably filled with low cost Ryanair tickets home to China? - Presumebly that's Hong Kong to Dublin Innis Moore( Ryanair should start marketing the Aran Iselands as an alternative to Dublin airport right around the time they start getting rid of seats, and painting their planes with unsafe disclaimers, lowing overheads). This Lady was faced with the challenge of giving the postaman her box (I don't think she was a prostitute - so that wasn't a pun) It seemed the whole reason most people in the Que were there at all, was for sending packages too large for regular post which leads me to....

...the gap below the glass in the Dun Laoghaire post office being about 3 inches high. That's so small that Rowans ex cat Guido would have gotten himself completly Pooh beared had he tried the squeeze. She continued attempting to force her 5x10 box through the impossibly small gap, fianlly opting to throw it a whole 6 feet up over the glass hitting the postman on the head, I laughed and looking back at the 100 other people in the Que, expecting they too would see the unimangable rediculousness of designing postal service around a pass through gap 3 inches high.

I guess its meant as a joke on us... the suckers. The other Que-goers were misreble, they too it would seem had better things to do with their lunch hour, I smiled hoping for a ounce of recondition, the crowd vacantly stared back, unfazed, they'd truly been through the wars and today was yet another defeat at the clutches of a service industry crippled by moronic conventions and lazy management.

suck on that society

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