New take on the 'who's next in line at the bank' question

Here’s the scenario:
I get to the drive through at the bank. It has two lanes. One lane has a few cars piled up in it, the other lane is empty. Naturally, I pull into the empty lane and send my stuff to the teller. I can hear the tube come back to the car next to me, they get their receipt and drive away. The next person pulls up and sends their stuff in. The teller says something to me and I mumble something back along the lines of ‘Hi, good, thanks’ and go back to staring at my phone. A few seconds later, she says ‘did you hear me?’* and I said ‘not really what?’ and she said ’ the car in the other lane got here before you, so I’m going to process his deposit first’ and I said ‘uhhh, ok’ in a half annoyed voice.

So, my question is, am I correct in being annoyed? She had my deposit in her hand before his. She could have processed it and sent it back before he even got up to the drive through.

Or, was she correct? He had, technically, been waiting longer, so he goes first.

I go to multiple banks and go to them a lot, I don’t think I’ve even seen a teller that paid any attention to the order that the cars stacked up in line. They just process the transactions as the tubes come in and send them back out. Or if they do, they don’t tell the customer.

*Part of what annoyed me with all of this is when the teller said ‘Did you hear what I said’. This teller, when you send the tube to her, will say ‘How’s your day going’ or ‘hi, how are you today’ or something like that. If you don’t answer her, she’ll say it again or say ‘Did you hear me?’ or ‘What? I didn’t hear you’ until you answer her. Then she starts working on your deposit. I thought that’s where she was going with that, and it bugs me when she does that. I’ve always left it alone as ‘just one of those things’ that’s probably just me, until someone else mentioned it. I was talking to someone and mentioned that I had just come from that bank and he said ‘oh, the one with the teller that keeps asking how your day is’…yup. At least it’s not just me.

PS, during all this, I was really annoyed and just in the time I was waiting, I managed to send them an annoyed complaint about it. I assumed I’d be dismissed or ignored, but they actually asked for some follow up so they could use it as a “coaching opportunity”. Part of me wants to just let it go, but part of me was really annoyed and wants to email them back along with the *'d part of this post too, especially since I have some confirmation that I’m not the only person annoyed by that.

Sounds like the teller is also a Doper.

At banks or fast food restaurants with two drive-through lanes, it seems to me that service is alternated between lanes. Lane A, then Lane B, then Lane A, then Lane B… I too would be perplexed and annoyed if I was told I would have to wait because someone in the other lane pulled up first but was behind other cars. Alternate.

Yeah, that’s the whole point behind having multiple lanes. Really, there should be no pile-up if they keep alternating and everyone goes to the shortest line.

At my credit union, they don’t keep track of who is behind who - they go from lane to lane in whatever order. I figure if you’re stupid enough to get in a line when there’s an open lane, you deserve to wait.

Same with toll booths - why follow the herd when there’s an open lane right beside it???

As you and others have noted, she’s destroying the very efficiency the two-lane system was designed for by not processing your deposit first. I assume that the other guy simply didn’t realize the second lane was open, but that isn’t your fault, and it doesn’t make sense to penalize you for it. Yes, you’re correct for being annoyed.

It’s strange that she even bothered to tell you. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed, or if I did, just chalk it up to a mistake and move on with my life.

Perhaps what happened was that the customer that was finishing up in the other lane as you got there had actually been there a very long time–like they’d made unreasonable demands and escalated things to get a manager and had refused to come inside. That whole time, the person behind them is basically stuck: they chose the line with only one car in it, but now they are waiting and waiting and waiting with no idea what is going on. Were I the teller in that situation, I’d feel really bad for that person–a person I couldn’t even communicate with–and I’d want to process them at my first chance.

But I wouldn’t have told the other car about it.

I don’t think there is any reason to be annoyed.

I see this in my line of work. Some people do not understand how to use lines, and others like to oversee them, assuming that you have never used one, before.

First, I think the *teller *was correct in being annoyed. There is a whole world out there with real people in it. Don’t ignore it to stare at your phone.

Second, if the same teller was working more than one line she has every right to take the customer who arrived first, not just the first one in his own lane.

If they want a single cue, then they only need a single line. If they have two open, then they want you to use both of them. If they want you to use both of them, then they should alternate.

Now, thee is the possibility, as someone mentioned upthread, that this person was stuck behind someone who took up a long time, and therefore, it made sense to get to him before she got to you, but I don’t know that she should have even made a deal out of it. If she felt the need to explain why she was taking care of the other guy first, she could have been a bit more explanatory, “The guy in front of him took a long time, so he’s been waiting several minutes already.”

Then there’s the possibility that it was actually you that messed up there. From your setup, I don’t think you did, but I have seen drive through set-ups (mostly at fast food), where the lane doesn’t actually split until right before the speakers, so should be single file, but there is another lane that goes parallel to those, so cars can easily cut in front of a dozen cars, possibly without even realizing that they did so.

Good lord! Don’t sweat the small stuff dude.

Being slightly annoyed is one thing but to actually file a formal complaint seems off the chart in this regard.

ETA: It’s possible she was just covering for someone while they took a restroom break.

Actually, I have a feeling that may be what happened. My question still stands, as is, however about a week ago something interesting happened there. I pulled in and notice quite a few cars in one lane, the other lane empty. Then I noticed the lane with all the cars said “OPEN”, the empty didn’t have it’s open sign on. That is, it’s closed sign wasn’t on (which they would do if there was a problem), but the open sign wasn’t on either. I figured the open sign was burned out. Having a few extra minutes to go around if I was wrong, I took a shot. Worked out for me, I managed to drive right past all the other cars, furthermore, when I got up there, I found a printed out “OPEN” sign taped to it, not that you could see it from any distance away, but cars getting closer certainly could have switched lanes.
So, yes, it’s possible, other cars didn’t know that lane was closed (and a few times this week, I’ve gotten in and out much faster because of it), but I don’t know that that should play into this.

FTR, sometimes I’ll even go in the longer line because I have things that I want to get done. Return an email, make a quick phone call, check my deposit slip because I think I filled out wrong.

I’m not really sure how that applies here. The teller wasn’t annoyed (no more than usual anyways) and I’m not sure if she gets to play god with line order, which wastes my time, or hold up my deposit because I didn’t pay attention to if she said “How’s your day been so far” or “Are you have a good day so far” and just said ‘good thanks’.
As I type this out, here’s what it comes down to. If she’s going to take cars in the order they come in, she might as well just close one lane.

I suppose it’s possible that someone did take a really long time and she was trying to shuffle the next person through. But, and maybe this was just a lapse of judgement on her part, she also had the time to do my deposit before he even pulled up, or, just not tell me. If she didn’t say anything, I wouldn’t have even noticed.

I assure you, there was nothing formal about my ‘annoyed complaint’. It was about as formal as going on twitter and telling a chain restaurant why you had a problem with a waiter.

I think the teller did the right thing here.

I don’t know why the second person in line didn’t pull into the empty space, that seems the source of the confusion, but the teller remedied it by taking care of them first. Maybe it was an elderly person who needed some extra help. Maybe both lanes had one car each, that person pulled up behind one of them at random, the teller noticed there is a line starting to form, then the other line cleared right as you pulled up and before the other car who had arrived first, was able two switch lanes. The teller noticed and took care of it. Good for him/her!

Did they offer you a lollipop with your receipt?

Not even a dog treat.

But a while back I snagged one of their pens because it says “US GOVERNMENT” on it and I thought that was funny.

Other folks have addressed the queueing theory issue. For optimal throughout the teller should simply take the transactions in the sequence the filled tubes arrive at his/her station.

Ref the snippet above: If you don’t want to interact with humans, use the friggin’ ATM. It there for the people who don’t want to talk to anyone. If you’re going to interact with a live person, you owe them your full attention. Fiddling with your damn phone and not listening is just treating the teller like shit *and *making the people behind you in line wait longer.

If I was the teller and your response to my “Good morning” or “Welcome to MegaBanCorp, how may I help you?” or whatever was silence, I’d assume you weren’t ready to transact business and I’d go right back to servicing the other line until you signaled me otherwise.

^^ I agree. Messing around with your phone and not paying attention while conducting business with a real live person is rude. Being in a drive-through makes no difference at all.