‘I’ve been waiting nine seconds, and that’s unacceptable’

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Updated May 29, 2016

True story here.

I was waiting in line at the bank. I had to actually go inside and deal with living, breathing human beings, and it just happened to be Friday afternoon. Apparently, unbeknownst to my children or anyone else under the age of 35, there are actually people who still use the interior of a bank to do business. I know, it’s shocking, but bear with me.

Unfortunately, all of these people decided to show up at the bank on Friday afternoon, so it was crowded, and there was a line. I was jostled, I was bumped – a little kid tried to get me to throw away a deposit slip he found on the floor while his mom was looking for her deposit slip. You know, the regular stuff that happens when you’re in public.

I smiled, I was cordial, I understand we can’t all be first in line and not everyone is ready to do their banking when they get to the bank. I was fine until the lady in front of me suddenly decided, as she was walking to the window to have her turn, the ten minute wait had been far too much for her to handle. She violently marched to the window when it opened, slammed her papers down, and sighed loudly. I waited for her to burst into tears or catch on fire, but instead, she loudly exclaimed, “I have been standing here for ten minutes! I couldn’t get to the ATM, because there was a line. I came inside because I thought it would be quicker!”

happy-place-ROAD-SIGNClearly, this woman had places to be that didn’t include the lobby of the bank and her trip planning hadn’t allowed for ample time to get there without a bank stop. I immediately had even less sympathy for her. She acted like she was going to disintegrate into dust if she had to wait one minute longer, while she made the rest of us wait a minute longer, so she could finish her dramatic scene. The second prolonged sigh was forceful enough to blow the teller’s hair a little. “I just don’t know what has happened to customer service. You used to be able to walk into the bank and get personal service, quickly.”

I’m going to have to give it to the clerk here. She was nothing but professional, and a teeny bit icy. She assured Miss Thang that she would handle her business efficiently and get her out of the lobby as quickly as possible. Instead of noting that she was absolutely getting personal service, she assured her the bank handled transaction times quite quickly, and if she desired less wait time, she could come on a day other than Friday or Saturday, which were their busiest lobby hours. She finished her transaction with an apology and sent the extremely busy lady on her way.

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As I handed the teller my things, I watched through the plate glass windows as Miss Impatient tore out into traffic, headed towards the highway. An extremely vivid vision of her trapped behind two governed trucks gave me great joy. Then the vision expanded to the wall of cars behind her, and the four hundred other people in traffic who honestly believe they’re too important to wait nine seconds for anything, and I realized what a complete and total cluster you-know-what the highway will be if they ever actually enact a speed limiter law.

All I can say is, there’s a whole bunch of folks traveling out there, who better either find Jesus or a happy place to go when they hit a highway full of governed trucks – almost 6 million of them, all going the exact same speed. Good luck, y’all.