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My first post after lurking around for a while. Luckily I'm not actually in a client facing role anymore, but I spent 13 years in sales and customer service in the finance industry.
I was inspired by the Eau De Customer thread to relate this tale from my days as a Bank Employee.
This happened some 10 years ago, but I was working in a branch which was located in a fairly rundown area, with a reputation for homelessness, and our Bank at the time was the main bank into which the Government would pay social security benefits, so needless to stay we dealt with a lot of homeless people.
Two in particular come to mind.
#1 - There was this one particular homeless guy who apparently did not know what a bathroom or shower was. (The area had homeless shelters where he could have gone for a wash if he had wanted). I've never forgotten that stink he put off. He came in maybe once a month on average, and everyone in the branch knew he was visiting within a minute of him arriving. I kid you not his smell would waft throughout the entire branch, including the back office areas. He couldn't just get in, get out. He had to sit down in the public space for a bit of a rest, fill out his form, etc etc, extending his visit in the comfy surrounds. To this day I don't know what anyone thought if they sat on the same couch not long after he left. It was that bad that one of our Personal Bankers purchased a can of Glen 20 specifically to spray around the place after one of this guys visits.
This one week, our normally spineless manager was on holidays and we had a temporary manager relieving, she already knew this 'customer' from a nearby branch he went to as well. So our 'smelly guy' walks in to the branch, being particualy rank this day, our temporary manager, gets 20 bucks from the tellers, walks up to customer and hands him the 20 bucks and says "Here's an advance of 20 dollars on your pension, go and buy a cake of soap with it, clean yourself up and then come back and we'll give you the rest of your money"
I absolutely adored that woman at that moment.
#2 - I was temporarily helping out on the telling line (i.e. processing deposits/withdrawals/etc), and had this one fellow approach the counter, he had a withdrawal form partially filled out which he placed on the counter. Looking at it I realised it was a passbook account (an old style account where the customer actually has a little passbook, A6 sized, slim cardboard cover, a dozen pages - importantly for this story the clients signature is in the back of the book readable under a blacklight) You shouldn't do withdrawals without the passbook physically present, so I asked him for his passbook.
The man reaches down the front of his pants, pulls the book from out of his crotch, and holds it out to me. I can see the book is soaking wet, and from the smell wafting over the counter I can tell that isn't water or spilled booze soaking that book
. I hadn't seen this fellow before, so I knew I had to take that book so I could check his signature. 
I took hold of the book by my fingertips on the driest looking corner, and sort of flipped it open under the blacklight, sig's close enough. I was not going to try and hold this thing open to try and feed it into the printer, no sirree. I handed it back to him by that same tiniest little fingertip hold on the corner. "We can update your book another time sir, our printer is not working properly just at the moment". That was follwoed very quickly by me running out of the telling box up to the bathroom for a good hand scrubbing.
I was inspired by the Eau De Customer thread to relate this tale from my days as a Bank Employee.
This happened some 10 years ago, but I was working in a branch which was located in a fairly rundown area, with a reputation for homelessness, and our Bank at the time was the main bank into which the Government would pay social security benefits, so needless to stay we dealt with a lot of homeless people.
Two in particular come to mind.
#1 - There was this one particular homeless guy who apparently did not know what a bathroom or shower was. (The area had homeless shelters where he could have gone for a wash if he had wanted). I've never forgotten that stink he put off. He came in maybe once a month on average, and everyone in the branch knew he was visiting within a minute of him arriving. I kid you not his smell would waft throughout the entire branch, including the back office areas. He couldn't just get in, get out. He had to sit down in the public space for a bit of a rest, fill out his form, etc etc, extending his visit in the comfy surrounds. To this day I don't know what anyone thought if they sat on the same couch not long after he left. It was that bad that one of our Personal Bankers purchased a can of Glen 20 specifically to spray around the place after one of this guys visits.
This one week, our normally spineless manager was on holidays and we had a temporary manager relieving, she already knew this 'customer' from a nearby branch he went to as well. So our 'smelly guy' walks in to the branch, being particualy rank this day, our temporary manager, gets 20 bucks from the tellers, walks up to customer and hands him the 20 bucks and says "Here's an advance of 20 dollars on your pension, go and buy a cake of soap with it, clean yourself up and then come back and we'll give you the rest of your money"
I absolutely adored that woman at that moment. #2 - I was temporarily helping out on the telling line (i.e. processing deposits/withdrawals/etc), and had this one fellow approach the counter, he had a withdrawal form partially filled out which he placed on the counter. Looking at it I realised it was a passbook account (an old style account where the customer actually has a little passbook, A6 sized, slim cardboard cover, a dozen pages - importantly for this story the clients signature is in the back of the book readable under a blacklight) You shouldn't do withdrawals without the passbook physically present, so I asked him for his passbook.
The man reaches down the front of his pants, pulls the book from out of his crotch, and holds it out to me. I can see the book is soaking wet, and from the smell wafting over the counter I can tell that isn't water or spilled booze soaking that book
. I hadn't seen this fellow before, so I knew I had to take that book so I could check his signature. I took hold of the book by my fingertips on the driest looking corner, and sort of flipped it open under the blacklight, sig's close enough. I was not going to try and hold this thing open to try and feed it into the printer, no sirree. I handed it back to him by that same tiniest little fingertip hold on the corner. "We can update your book another time sir, our printer is not working properly just at the moment". That was follwoed very quickly by me running out of the telling box up to the bathroom for a good hand scrubbing.
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