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

[Robot_Arm]

@Joey_P

@Robot, I’m not sure how your story applies. Your dad didn’t hear you respond, therefore he had no idea if you answered the phone of if the person was still waiting for you to pick up.

We were operating under different protocols. And people do such things so unconsciously that neither of us realized it.

That has little, if anything, to do with my story. I may have misheard the teller, but I responded, even if I did give the answer she was hoping for, it still shows her that I could hear her.

Your response showed that you could hear her, but it probably also showed that you weren’t listening to her.

[CookingWithGas]

I wonder if there is a thread on some discussion board out there by some bank teller who is asking members if she was right to be annoyed at a customer who pulled into a lane specifically to do business with her then when she said something to him he had no idea what she said. :rolleyes:

[ExTank]

@MandaJo

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’m suspecting that this is the case. I see people take five, ten minutes at a drive-up ATM, and think, What are they doing? Balancing their checkbook? Planning their retirement? Refinancing their mortgage? All the above?!
No telling what some entitled snowflake might get up to with a live teller on the other end of the line.

[Balthisar]

I had an opposite experience at McDonald’s the other day. There are two ordering pylons, and a big, red truck arrived to his pylon before I did to mine (I’d been behind him). Apparently I ordered my “large iced tea, none of that non-Michigan sugary crap, please!” much faster than the big red truck. So I waited several seconds to let the big red truck go ahead of me.

The pylon-speaker-lady asked me what I would like. “Still me.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yup,” I indicate.

“Why aren’t you moving?”

“I’m waiting for traffic.” Luckily by then, the big, red truck had moved on, so I advanced, too.

I’d rather be nice to people in front of me in line than conform to McDonald’s sense of what I should do.

[gigi]

@Balthisar

I had an opposite experience at McDonald’s the other day. There are two ordering pylons, and a big, red truck arrived to his pylon before I did to mine (I’d been behind him). Apparently I ordered my “large iced tea, none of that non-Michigan sugary crap, please!” much faster than the big red truck. So I waited several seconds to let the big red truck go ahead of me.

The pylon-speaker-lady asked me what I would like. “Still me.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yup,” I indicate.

“Why aren’t you moving?”

“I’m waiting for traffic.” Luckily by then, the big, red truck had moved on, so I advanced, too.

I’d rather be nice to people in front of me in line than conform to McDonald’s sense of what I should do.

But now they have your orders backwards (your iced tea will be queued up before his order).

[Ispolkom]

@Cyros

I learned there are manned drive-thru banks. I’ve only ever seen ones with bank machines.

The whole point of the drive-thru bank for me is the pneumatic tube system. You don’t get that with ATMs. I’ll put up with any amount of inane banter about the weather for that.

[Cyros]

@gigi

Do you guys mean you learned there are **still **manned drive-through banks? I mean, they’ve been around at least since I was a kid, which was 40+ years ago.

Late getting back to this but I’ll stick with my original there are manned drive-thru banks. Maybe it was the fact that I’m in Canada, maybe it was just the way my dad banked, but I did not see drive-thru banks until the advent of ATMs.