Sometimes I observe situations (like my car-door-slammin’ neighbors) that leave me utterly perplexed as to what the people could possibly be doing - not my business, doesn’t bother me particularly, I’m just puzzled.
For example, one evening I had to go by the bank. There was one car already doing something at the drive-up ATM. The walk-up ATMs at this particular branch are all inside the lobby, locked since it was after hours (odd, yes, but true) so we drove up behind the guy. Some kind of transaction was already in process because he was pushing buttons. His arm retreated, a few moments passed, then more button-pushing. A pause. More button-pushing. The arm retracts. Time passes. More button-pushing. From time to time he extracts a receipt and more button-pushing commences. The arm retracts. Time passes. Buttons are pushed. This scenario repeated a bit.
What could the guy possibly have been doing? Either you have money available or you don’t, which somewhat limits your options. If you can’t remember your PIN, it’s going to spit out your card and go into lockdown after a certain number of unsuccessful tries. It wasn’t like he was trying to assemble cash from a variety of credit cards, because he wasn’t retrieving cards and inserting new ones, just pushing buttons. This went on long enough that it became the topic of discussion in our car. It’s not that we were in a mad hurry or were angry about waiting, we just couldn’t imagine what he could be doing. Finally, he got a receipt and pulled away from the machine, but not out of the parking lot; I figured he was putting cards and stuff back in his wallet, whatever, I’m getting my cash. Except when I was finished with my withdrawal (took about 38 seconds) he pulled back around behind me, up to the machine AGAIN. What was he doing, getting balance inquiries every 6 seconds to see if somebody had bestowed money upon his account? From my perspective, there’s just not that much to do at the ATM, but he evidently found it a wonderful way to while away a Wednesday evening.
MONTOYA DELENDA EST!
For example, one evening I had to go by the bank. There was one car already doing something at the drive-up ATM. The walk-up ATMs at this particular branch are all inside the lobby, locked since it was after hours (odd, yes, but true) so we drove up behind the guy. Some kind of transaction was already in process because he was pushing buttons. His arm retreated, a few moments passed, then more button-pushing. A pause. More button-pushing. The arm retracts. Time passes. More button-pushing. From time to time he extracts a receipt and more button-pushing commences. The arm retracts. Time passes. Buttons are pushed. This scenario repeated a bit.
What could the guy possibly have been doing? Either you have money available or you don’t, which somewhat limits your options. If you can’t remember your PIN, it’s going to spit out your card and go into lockdown after a certain number of unsuccessful tries. It wasn’t like he was trying to assemble cash from a variety of credit cards, because he wasn’t retrieving cards and inserting new ones, just pushing buttons. This went on long enough that it became the topic of discussion in our car. It’s not that we were in a mad hurry or were angry about waiting, we just couldn’t imagine what he could be doing. Finally, he got a receipt and pulled away from the machine, but not out of the parking lot; I figured he was putting cards and stuff back in his wallet, whatever, I’m getting my cash. Except when I was finished with my withdrawal (took about 38 seconds) he pulled back around behind me, up to the machine AGAIN. What was he doing, getting balance inquiries every 6 seconds to see if somebody had bestowed money upon his account? From my perspective, there’s just not that much to do at the ATM, but he evidently found it a wonderful way to while away a Wednesday evening.
MONTOYA DELENDA EST!
1 Comments:
That had not occurred to me. I *think* the only options at my bank's ATM are balance inquiry, withdrawal from checking/savings, or cash advance via credit card. I shall have to investigate further.
By
Helly, at 5:45 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home