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Little Old Lady
We had a friend's mother staying with us last weekend. She's about 82 and moved to the US from Latvia when she was a child. She's so sweet, but I had to laugh Friday morning. I said I had to leave for work, and she said, "Oh! You work, too?" "Yes, Mama." "You're a housewife and you work, too! That's amazing!" She said it so innocently that I couldn't possibly get mad at her for it.
Yeah, I have nails. Why?
"Other duties as assigned" now apparently includes peeling the label off the boss's new credit card after he activates it - but that's only because he doesn't have any nails.
The Loach
A customer cornered the bank president in his office today. He was in there for at least 20 minutes talking about his crackpot theories and making racist comments. One of his most obviously false claims was that you could cure cancer by lowering your blood pH below 6.5. If you actually managed to do that, it would kill you.
This is the same guy who's always telling off-color jokes. If you laugh at his jokes, he'll lean on your cubicle wall (we have those half-wall "secretarial" style cubicles) and try to talk to you for as long as he can. Most of the time, he latches on to someone other than me, because either I find his jokes to be crude or I've heard them many times before. Thus, I don't laugh at his jokes, so he has no opening to try to start a conversation with me.
Staff Churn
One of our part-time tellers gave notice. That leaves us short-handed. We won't even have anybody to help fill in because our bookkeeper (the AWTH) is going to be out for surgery (which means the woman who would normally fill in on the teller line will be filling in for her). We seem to go through a lot of part-time tellers here. I think we've have 8 tellers quit in the 10 years I've worked here.
Check your Work
This happens so often. The coworker who applies payments to our participation loans asked me to look at a loan that wasn't right. Did she not notice that the loan balance was different from the paper record? Did she not check whether the payment was applied correctly? All she mentioned was that the interest paid-to date was incorrect. It took me 10 seconds to figure out what was wrong.
What I Wish I Could Say
What is wrong with you? Your granddaughter is calling you from rehab hoping for moral support, and you respond by berating her for the behaviors that landed her in rehab. I don't think now is the time to tell her that she screwed up. She knows that she screwed up, or else she wouldn't have checked herself in. What she needs now is support and encouragement, not reprimands.
Overheard (next day)
She's airing family issues to customers again. She's on the phone, talking about how her granddaughter has been in and out of rehab. And so was her brother, and he died because of his alcoholism. The customer she's talking to has had daughters abuse drugs and go through rehab, but that doesn't excuse my coworker's behavior. I know I would have been perfectly happy to never have known that the granddaughter was addicted to painkillers, but thanks to the blabbermouth, I know every little update.
Then she said how she "never understood addiction until..." I stopped listening there. If you've never been addicted to anything, you cannot understand. I've never been addicted to anything (except caffeine), but I don't try to pretend I understand what it's like!
This call went on for almost an hour, and she just kept rehashing the same things over and over. Addiction is a terrible thing. Rehab doesn't work like you would hope. The justice system is ineffective. Addiction tends to run in families. The conversation didn't end until a customer sat down at her desk.
(I would have been just as happy not to know about her husband's repeated surgeries on his genitals, either. I never should have had to overhear her arguing with his doctor about his ED medicine, how it wasn't working, and how she thought it was ok for her to talk to the doctor about it because she "receives the benefits" of the medication.)
I try not to listen, but my cubicle shares a wall with hers, so I can't help it.
Old Folks
A large portion of our customers are elderly. In 10 years, I've seen many of our older customers go from healthy and self-sufficient to frail and relying on others to take care of them. As difficult as it is to see customers die, it's so much worse have to watch their slow (and somtimes not so slow) decline.
Secretary with a Hammer
I remember a bit from Dilbert about the Secretary with a Crossbow. Well, frequently I am the Secretary with a Hammer. Unfortunately, I don't get to use it on obnoxious coworkers. I have to use it to fix the front door.
I'm only polite to you because you have money.
The ugly old fart from a couple weeks ago was back. He brought a check to deposit into a CD, so I had to be polite to him. Make small talk, which is a chore for me even if it's someone I like. Since it was social security day, he grabbed coffee and a couple cookies while he waited. Then he sat at my desk an extra five minutes while he ate one of the cookies. Then he offered me the other one.
Like I would ever eat something that touched his fungus-infested hands.
The Fence
The parking lot behind the bank is owned by the city. On the opposite side of the parking lot is a home with a privacy fence. There's two rows of parking: one next to the fence, and one away from the fence. Up until last week, many of the bank's employees parked next to the fence, so that customers would have a shorter walk to the bank or city hall. Last week, a wind storm knocked down two sections of the fence. Luckily, neither one landed on any employees' cars. Since then, all of us have parked away from the fence, nearer the bank. And it's a good thing, too. Even though the fence was repaired, more sections have fallen over. Yesterday, a section fell over and all the city did was place a cone next to it. Apparently, the fence is the homeowner's responsibility.
Two of the sections of fence that fell over were removed and replaced with snow fence. For those who have never seen this phenomenon, it is an orange plastic mesh that is put up during the winter to force snow drifts to form there. It's hideous and not intended as a permanent structure.
Predator
One of the local business owners who brings in his deposit every morning is TOO nice. Maybe my instincts are wrong, and he really is a nice guy. But every time he comes into the bank, my predator alert goes off. He seems to go out of his way to be cheerful. Like he's looking for his next victim. I'm not sure why I feel this way about him. I don't know anything about him except he runs the laundromat. I try to be polite and smile, but he creeps me out. I hope I'm wrong about him, but if anybody turns up missing from town, he'd be the first person I would suspect.
We had a friend's mother staying with us last weekend. She's about 82 and moved to the US from Latvia when she was a child. She's so sweet, but I had to laugh Friday morning. I said I had to leave for work, and she said, "Oh! You work, too?" "Yes, Mama." "You're a housewife and you work, too! That's amazing!" She said it so innocently that I couldn't possibly get mad at her for it.
Yeah, I have nails. Why?
"Other duties as assigned" now apparently includes peeling the label off the boss's new credit card after he activates it - but that's only because he doesn't have any nails.
The Loach
A customer cornered the bank president in his office today. He was in there for at least 20 minutes talking about his crackpot theories and making racist comments. One of his most obviously false claims was that you could cure cancer by lowering your blood pH below 6.5. If you actually managed to do that, it would kill you.
This is the same guy who's always telling off-color jokes. If you laugh at his jokes, he'll lean on your cubicle wall (we have those half-wall "secretarial" style cubicles) and try to talk to you for as long as he can. Most of the time, he latches on to someone other than me, because either I find his jokes to be crude or I've heard them many times before. Thus, I don't laugh at his jokes, so he has no opening to try to start a conversation with me.
Staff Churn
One of our part-time tellers gave notice. That leaves us short-handed. We won't even have anybody to help fill in because our bookkeeper (the AWTH) is going to be out for surgery (which means the woman who would normally fill in on the teller line will be filling in for her). We seem to go through a lot of part-time tellers here. I think we've have 8 tellers quit in the 10 years I've worked here.
Check your Work
This happens so often. The coworker who applies payments to our participation loans asked me to look at a loan that wasn't right. Did she not notice that the loan balance was different from the paper record? Did she not check whether the payment was applied correctly? All she mentioned was that the interest paid-to date was incorrect. It took me 10 seconds to figure out what was wrong.
What I Wish I Could Say
What is wrong with you? Your granddaughter is calling you from rehab hoping for moral support, and you respond by berating her for the behaviors that landed her in rehab. I don't think now is the time to tell her that she screwed up. She knows that she screwed up, or else she wouldn't have checked herself in. What she needs now is support and encouragement, not reprimands.
Overheard (next day)
She's airing family issues to customers again. She's on the phone, talking about how her granddaughter has been in and out of rehab. And so was her brother, and he died because of his alcoholism. The customer she's talking to has had daughters abuse drugs and go through rehab, but that doesn't excuse my coworker's behavior. I know I would have been perfectly happy to never have known that the granddaughter was addicted to painkillers, but thanks to the blabbermouth, I know every little update.
Then she said how she "never understood addiction until..." I stopped listening there. If you've never been addicted to anything, you cannot understand. I've never been addicted to anything (except caffeine), but I don't try to pretend I understand what it's like!
This call went on for almost an hour, and she just kept rehashing the same things over and over. Addiction is a terrible thing. Rehab doesn't work like you would hope. The justice system is ineffective. Addiction tends to run in families. The conversation didn't end until a customer sat down at her desk.
(I would have been just as happy not to know about her husband's repeated surgeries on his genitals, either. I never should have had to overhear her arguing with his doctor about his ED medicine, how it wasn't working, and how she thought it was ok for her to talk to the doctor about it because she "receives the benefits" of the medication.)
I try not to listen, but my cubicle shares a wall with hers, so I can't help it.
Old Folks
A large portion of our customers are elderly. In 10 years, I've seen many of our older customers go from healthy and self-sufficient to frail and relying on others to take care of them. As difficult as it is to see customers die, it's so much worse have to watch their slow (and somtimes not so slow) decline.
Secretary with a Hammer
I remember a bit from Dilbert about the Secretary with a Crossbow. Well, frequently I am the Secretary with a Hammer. Unfortunately, I don't get to use it on obnoxious coworkers. I have to use it to fix the front door.
I'm only polite to you because you have money.
The ugly old fart from a couple weeks ago was back. He brought a check to deposit into a CD, so I had to be polite to him. Make small talk, which is a chore for me even if it's someone I like. Since it was social security day, he grabbed coffee and a couple cookies while he waited. Then he sat at my desk an extra five minutes while he ate one of the cookies. Then he offered me the other one.
Like I would ever eat something that touched his fungus-infested hands.The Fence
The parking lot behind the bank is owned by the city. On the opposite side of the parking lot is a home with a privacy fence. There's two rows of parking: one next to the fence, and one away from the fence. Up until last week, many of the bank's employees parked next to the fence, so that customers would have a shorter walk to the bank or city hall. Last week, a wind storm knocked down two sections of the fence. Luckily, neither one landed on any employees' cars. Since then, all of us have parked away from the fence, nearer the bank. And it's a good thing, too. Even though the fence was repaired, more sections have fallen over. Yesterday, a section fell over and all the city did was place a cone next to it. Apparently, the fence is the homeowner's responsibility.
Two of the sections of fence that fell over were removed and replaced with snow fence. For those who have never seen this phenomenon, it is an orange plastic mesh that is put up during the winter to force snow drifts to form there. It's hideous and not intended as a permanent structure.
Predator
One of the local business owners who brings in his deposit every morning is TOO nice. Maybe my instincts are wrong, and he really is a nice guy. But every time he comes into the bank, my predator alert goes off. He seems to go out of his way to be cheerful. Like he's looking for his next victim. I'm not sure why I feel this way about him. I don't know anything about him except he runs the laundromat. I try to be polite and smile, but he creeps me out. I hope I'm wrong about him, but if anybody turns up missing from town, he'd be the first person I would suspect.
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