you thought you knew me

I am a bad person. No really, don’t try to argue the point. I know I am horrible. Don’t tell this to anyone, but *whispers* I don’t even rate my transactions on Amazon. I delete the emails they send with no remorse.

That’s not all. I have more proof of my bad behavior. And it’s shocking, I know.

It has gotten to the point in my life where recently I had to make a bet with a coworker in order to be nice to them. 

This is true. 

I will do almost anything I am not prone to do if there is a reward at the end.

breakfast disaster

Let me start by saying – don’t touch my oatmeal. Ever.

Maybe I should give some background for my opening statement. This morning I had to open at work, and normally I bring my breakfast with me when I open so that I can sleep in five minutes longer. (I love sleep!) Today, I brought one of those instant oatmeal packets (berry flavored) and a green ceramic bowl to prepare it in. In our lobby next to the coffee maker, we have a fancy water machine with a few different options to choose from. There is a regular cold water button, a hot water button, and a boil water button.

I had never used the boil option before, so I was following the instructions for it while discussing it with my co-worker. As we were trying to figure out how to get the water to boil, the phone rang and I went to answer it – foolishly leaving my oatmeal under the supervision of my co-worker. After I took the call, and also helped an early morning customer who pulled up in the drive thru, I walk back out to finish making my breakfast, only to stop when I saw my co-worker attempting to make it for me.

After I saw him fiddling around with the the water machine and my green bowl, I got a sinking feeling something was wrong. I asked, “Is everything ok?”

no piggy banks, please

We have a coin counting machine, like many other banks, and our machine gets used every day. I wish we had rules posted for customers who want to utilize it. It would make life so much easier. There are certain things that tend to tick me off when I run coin for people. If I were to create a sign of posted rules for the machine, I would add the following guidelines:

1. Only US coins accepted
(I mean really, this is America. Speak English and bring your US currency.)

2. No wet coin allowed
(This one really should not have to be written in black and white, but sadly there is a good reason for it being number two on the list.)

words

Words are a funny thing. Some words have different meanings to different people, and some people make up new terms for everyday things. Take, for instance, last week when I was on the phone with a customer. She kept asking to talk to the person who was in the motor bank. I had no idea what she was talking about! Motor bank?

The only thing I could picture from the term motor bank was an RV in the middle of a parking lot trying to pass as a financial institution. Sorry, but there are no RV's in our parking lot at this time.

And if there were, I'd be a little leery of the money they'd be handing out. For real, sounds sketchy to me.

So I said to her, "I'm not sure what a motor bank is." (This was kind of embarrassing to admit because I work at a bank and you'd think I'd know what a motor bank was.)

knowing my limits

The best way to start off a day at work is with a cup of coffee by your side. I mean, what else do you need? You certainly don’t need your first customer in drive thru to come without a shirt. I mean, if it’s too early to put a shirt on dude, then it’s definitely too early to come to the bank.

Just saying.

There were a lot of,

interesting…

customers that came to my window today.

I really feel sorry for most of them. Most of the time. But not today.

Today I felt sorry for myself for even coming to work and exposing myself to the public when I was obviously not ready to handle it. I know my limits. I think the bank is more appreciative of me if I recognize my limitations and know when to quit. I’m sure they would pat me on the back if I was to leave work early when I saw myself fizzling out, right?

Anyways…

the repairman

I've gotta start off by saying that life has been pretty busy lately. Summer is winding down and school is starting back up. I used to be effected by these types of changes. Now, the only thing that effects me about school starting up is that I will be slowed down by a couple of school buses on my normal route to work. Hopefully, not making me late.

This week at work, we discovered that the drawer we send out for lane one in the drive thru wasn't working properly. When smarter, more mechanical people than I went outside to find out what the problem was, they discovered that a few of our lovely customers had tossed pens underneath the motorized tray. There were at least seven of our pens stuck in there.

Needless to say, the tray was fried, and a repairman was called in to fix it.

Now I, being the lucky person I am, was working the drive thru when the repairman came to fix lane one. When I returned from my lunch break, I was immediately aware that the said repairman was there. My working space is pretty small to begin with, but when you add both TV monitors (used for unimpaired visual to lane two) on my counter, plus the rotund repairman in close working space -- I was cramped!

vacation mode

I recently returned from vacation, and you know how it goes your first week back at work.

Lousy.

It's hard to get back into the habit of, well basically, life. For one thing, I find that I'm extremely tired, and could use a vacation from vacation (does that make any sense?!). There are daily routines at work that I was able to do seamlessly before I left for a week, that now require extra concentration.

Like transferring calls. There were a few calls I received this week that I felt like I transferred to Beijing, China. No joke. The customer called back and was like, “Yeah, I just wanted to talk to someone about a loan, and I didn't realize that I'd have to learn Mandarin in order to do that. Do you offer language school at a discount for all loan applications?”

Oops!

smarty

Now, since I'm a blond, I get thrown into the "dumb blond" category every once in a while. So when someone comes up to my window at work and says "You look smart today" I look over my shoulder to see who he's talking about.

Can he be referring to the girl with short blond hair standing in front of him?

Me?

I wasn't even wearing my glasses today!

drive-thru monday

Sometimes I wish I could put Mondays on fast forward. It would be nice if we could just use the "drive-thru" for Mondays instead of sitting down in the lobby and have it take FOREVER to get through. Especially since Mondays seem to hate me. I mean, come on Monday, what did I ever do to you?

Now, I used to be okay with Mondays, but I think the older I get I'm finding out that the things people say about this day really are true. I never knew there was so much wisdom to be gleaned from the Garfield comic strip! That orange tabby nailed it down when he saw the evil side of Monday.

Truth.

teller girl's day off

I work every other Saturday, and the weeks where I do go in on Saturday I get a day off during the week. When most people have the day off, they come back and talk about how they spent the day running errands or doing things with their kids. Let me tell you how a single girl with no kids and minimal errands to run spends her day off.

I rolled out of bed at 7:30 am (not even hitting the snooze button once!), threw on my gym clothes, sprayed my short, bed head hair into submission with my large can of hairspray, grabbed my keys and water bottle and headed to the gym.

After two hours of self-inflicted physical torture, I threw in the towel (because the gym frowns on me when I take their towels home) and ran home for a hot shower.

Day off equals no to makeup and yes to glasses, so getting ready for the real part of my day wasn't a problem. I had a lunch date with my sis before I headed home again to give my car a bath. Today was a beautiful sunny day, so I pulled my car into a perfect little sunny spot for my pale skin to soak up the warm rays. I liberally applied my sunscreen before getting to work.

to answer, or not to answer?

Ever notice how someone's phone can be completely silent until it's their turn to order at a restaurant or checkout at a store? It's like there is some force out there that knows the most inopportune time for a phone to go off and will make sure that is the only time it rings. Or someone's sole purpose in life is to call you at the exact moment that is not convenient for you.

Maybe there is another life force out there that gets its kicks out of making phone calls to people at the right moment to tick off the cashier or fast food worker. Aliens. Who knows, they could be out there.

And they definitely have access to cell phones.

Whether from some type of terrestrial being, or a part-time call-at-the-wrong-moment employee, there has to be an answer as to why the phone rings just as a customer comes up to my window.

stalking, not stalking

Do you ever get the feeling someone is watching you? Or you are driving alone, and for some reason, you think the car behind you has been following you too long to feel comfortable with? Today I'm here to say that I am a stalker.

Yes, a stalker. This is the truth.

Ever since I went to teller training, I have been taught to "build rapport" and "get to know your customers" so that I can "better meet their needs and give good customer service." Lies. All lies.

At least for me.

When I try to build rapport with customers, things get weird. Fast.

The bank encourages us to get to know the customers so that when they walk in the door we can greet them by name. In most cases, it's a great idea to use their name before they bring you their withdrawal or deposit slip with their name written down -- it makes them feel special and comfortable that we know them.

Not a smart move in every case, my friend, not a smart move.

the haircut

We've all had one of those moments. That moment, when, you wish you could go back in time and change something you did, but... it's too late.

I hate to admit it, but I actually have those moments quite frequently. What is the most recent moment you ask? Why, it was just a few days ago when I got my hair cut.

Short. Way too short.

It's actually not too bad. For a boy. But my hair grows pretty fast so it shouldn't be an issue for long (I keep telling myself).

Being a bank teller, I see a lot of different people every day, and some of them can't hide what they are thinking (they don't even try). So I have gotten a lot of comical reactions to my new "do."

First, there are the regular customers who notice right away, and most of them are nice and will say, "I like your haircut" to me, and then we will move on to topics like the weather or the nice weekend we all had. I love those customers!