Jane now asks for me whenever she calls, and will only deal with me. She will hang up if anyone else attempts to assist her. I tend to be that person in the bank for all of our elderly and less than 100% mentally sound clients. I listen. I would make a great bartender if it weren’t for the fact that I can’t stand for more than ten minutes without a vicodin and I have the memory of a gold fish with anterograde amnesia. I have the ability to tune out the droning to a certain extent and let the client prattle on, injecting a timely “uh huh,” or “really,” when appropriate. Whereas other bankers tend to retreat fairly quickly, I have the stamina to let them vent for several minutes before I allow myself to be “rescued.”
So I get the freaky calls. I get the endless dissertations on the evils government from the paranoid nutbags. I get the wistful tales of better days from the old fellas who know everyone in town and have for half a century. I get the ignorant and often racist tales from the elderly folk who remember when there were separate water fountains and dammit, they liked it. And I get Jane Sykes.
Like the time she called me early one brisk spring morning to address a problem she was having with a different kind of liquidity.
RB: “Thank you for calling Fiscal United Bank, this is your Relationship Banker speaking, how can I help you?”
JS: “Dear, this is Jane Sykes. I have been a member of your bank for over thirty years. I have a problem, and you are the one I always deal with.”
RB: “Yes, of course. How can I assist you today?”
JS: “The pipes in my house are leaking all over the place!”
RB: (Stunned silence) “Oh… I’m sorry to hear that. so how can I help you?”
JS: “I need you to come over and find out what the problem is!”
RB: (More stunned silence) “Jane, I’m sorry, but I’m not a plumber.”
JS: “You can’t come over to help me?”
RB: “No, I’m sorry, but that’s not a service I offer. I’m a banker. I could try to get the number of a plumber for you, if you’d like.”
JS: “No, thank you. I’ll try someone else. Good bye.”
Dammit, Jim, I’m a banker, not a plumber!
I went to school for Fine Arts. I'm an accomplished sketch artist, painter, photographer, writer, and designer. I'm gruff, rough, and kinda tough. So how the HELL did I end up working at Fiscal United Bank? The following stories are all true accounts of the day to day insanity that I have encountered as a representative of Fiscal United Bank. Only the names and minor details have been changed to protect... well, to protect me from litigation, frankly.
