Wrong Tool for the Job
February 25, 2012 - 11:11 am
Irradiated by Stingray
Irradiated by Stingray
Why is it that whenever there’s someone in ahead of me using the ATM, they are invariably attempting to do something like refinance their mortgage, or some arcane financial maneuver you’d be more likely to see an Italian Prime Minster attempt?
Three and a half songs worth of fiddling? And I’m not talking “Hey-ho, let’s go” here either. Please die in a crotch fire as soon as your prius is out of my goddamn way.
February 25th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
You need an elk guard on that truck.
The Prius owner was obviously having mechanical difficulties with his vehicle. You should put yours in 4x low, and slowly push him safely off of the parking lot and out of the way of dangerous parking lot traffic.
February 25th, 2012 at 8:12 pm
They were probably using the braille.
February 26th, 2012 at 5:30 am
Or they got their errands confused and tried to order seven peeking ducks and a barrel of aged white wine-that’s what it feels like sometimes when I’m stuck behind the idiot of the moment.
February 26th, 2012 at 5:59 pm
Jennifer: I’ve always wondered exactly how many blind drivers use the brail instructions on those drive up ATMs.
February 27th, 2012 at 8:36 am
Hey, watch it there! The USPSA Coordinator of my club drives a Prius (of course, his has an NRA sticker on it and a USPSA license frame), and I drive a Civic Hybrid. After all, good engineering is *efficient* engineering
.
What gets my goat is the people treat the ATM like some kind of slot machine: “Ok, let’s take out $100. Oops, insufficient funds. Ok, can I take out $80? Nope. Ok, how about $60? C’mon, lucky number 60!”
February 27th, 2012 at 10:47 am
Would it kill the banks to put a countdown timer on the ATM screen? I’d gladly move my money to a bank that had a 2-minute limit on transactions.
February 27th, 2012 at 11:28 am
Some people treat ATMs like gambling machines, and believe if they fiddle with it long enough, they will magically find more money.
February 27th, 2012 at 1:49 pm
Playlist changes are in order: Innagoddadavida? Mountain Jam? Ring Cycle?
February 27th, 2012 at 1:57 pm
Kristopher: Zero.
But it’s cheaper to make one set of ATMs and ship them all out identically rather than try and track and ship “drive-up” vs. “walk-up” separately.
And people walk up to the drive-up ones often enough…
February 27th, 2012 at 4:45 pm
Ah, yes. I have had the misfortune to be behind somebody at the ATM who was depositing at least a dozen checks. There was an old-fashioned night depository right over there on the actual bank building. Another time, I was behind a gal who was rather, uh, “rough-looking” in a somewhat sexy way, dressed for the nightclub, but at 1600. She was depositing huge wads of $100 bills, which took a long time.
As much as I hate human contact, I think one should take a complex transaction to the actual teller. ATMs are for the quick in-and-out, and I pride myself on knowing how to work the things and not annoying those behind me in line.
February 27th, 2012 at 4:54 pm
Yep, Sig, I walk up to the drive-up. The depositors in the cars are polite and give me space. Only problem I ever had there was with an annoying busybody pig. Being predators, pigs do like to pick on the small weak lonesome folks.
February 27th, 2012 at 9:48 pm
Wanna make it even worse, add in the capability to choose between currencies… sigh…
February 28th, 2012 at 2:13 pm
Sigvald: Now you are denying the blind their right to drive.
Hater. It’s a good thing New Mexico ignores your kind of bigotry and allows them to drive.
February 29th, 2012 at 8:04 am
A drive-thru ATM? Jeez, what will you colonials think of next?
I only visit to see what new wonders we will be getting here in Old Blighty in the next decade or so (we just got a drive in car-park for the first time last year, it was a bit of a flop as there was no where for the-man-with-flag to sit).
Here the queues in front of me at the ATMs always seem to be delayed by ladies (why is it always ladies?) who seem to have difficulty either seeing the buttons or figuring out which of two options to take (that after spending a few minutes rifling through their hand-bags to find a purse, then a few minutes going through said purse to find their bank card. Of course after a couple of ice-ages they complete the transaction, usually for the third time as the first time they pressed the wrong option or used the wrong card, to spend a few minutes going through the hand-bag to find the purse to put the card back…).
Call me a mysogynist if you will but this does seem to be a predominately female issue. It’s identical to the reaction in a queue to pay in a shop.
Any, and all, men in a queue will have the item for purchase in hand, will have the exact cash (or the nearest larger note) ready to pass the teller, will hand over both, accept item and receipt with minimal polite thanks and immediately clear the area for subsequent shoppers.
Ladies however will not! They invariably have an item but discover on reaching the check-out that it is the wrong shade, size or that they don’t have a pair of shoes to match, causing a delay as the assistant traverses the entire store to locate the item they now want (occasionally twice, as maybe the first one was better, and they could wear it with those nice sling-backs they got on sale). Then there is a delay as they search their bag to find the purse, then they will spend an Eon slowly counting out the exact amount in the smallest denomination coins they have, interrupted by long and esoteric conversation about ‘what happened on the soaps last night’, ‘what their Jimmy did to their Billy’ and ‘did you know about Maureen, at number 64, and the milkman?’. Then finally when the transaction is completed they (yes you guessed it) go through the bag to put the purse away (and find the other purse to put the receipt in, filed alphabetically, by date, store, item and colour, which of course has an item out of place). There occasionally is then, and only then, the realisation that they forgot some especially important item and can the assistant get one whilst they are at the till?
At which point I give up, politely excuse myself and sulkily leave to a battery of glares and a chorus of ‘inconsiderate men!’