In the land of the stupid, the no-armed man is boned. – Holy Fucking Shit You're Dumb!
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In the land of the stupid, the no-armed man is boned.

I don’t know when customer service died, but it’s surely as dead as, well, Ted Kennedy.  Did you know he died?  I saw something about it on the ‘tubes the other day, I think.

Anyway, check this out.  Dude just wants to cash a check, right?  No big deal, he goes to his wife’s bank.  They’ll surely cash it for him.  Thing is, they want proof of identity.  Well, he has that–two forms of ID, even.  That’s not quite enough, though.  They want a thumbprint.

A thumbprint!  To cash a goddamn check!  At this point, I’d probably walk out.  I’m no privacy nut, but I can’t think of any legitimate reason for a bank to have my thumbprint on file just because I want to cash a damn check.  This man, however, apparently needs the money, so he presses the issue.  Thing is, he doesn’t have any thumbs.  No arms either.

A reasonable person would think his two forms of ID would be enough.  His wife has an account with this bank, and apparently he’s cashing a check from her, that is drawn on her funds held at this bank.  In a reasonable world, where customer service was still something people, you know, took seriously, the teller would have said “Oh, I see you have NO ARMS.  I guess you can’t give me a thumbprint then.  It’s ok, these two forms of ID are enough” and cashed his check.

But that’s not how shit works anymore.  Today, if anything happens that’s outside the norm, the whole system breaks down.  People who are supposed to be helping customers can’t deal with things that are slightly different than what they’re expecting.  If rules and procedures aren’t followed, brains explode!

The worst part here is that the teller apparently called the bank manager over.  Ok, maybe the teller is  not empowered to break these ridiculously arbitrary and invasive rules about requiring thumbprints.  But the damn manager?  He told the dude to come back later with his wife, or open an account with them himself!

WTF?  No, asshole.  The proper response was “Oh, I’m sorry sir, certainly we’ll cash that check for you.”  But no, slavish devotion to ridiculous and arbitrary rules is much better than SERVING YOUR CUSTOMERS.

Seriously, when did it become acceptable to just turn people away rather than go out of your way to help them?  Shouldn’t businesses be trying to keep their customers happy?  It’s not like this guy walked in and demanded a million dollar loan with no collateral.  He just wanted to cash a damn check!

Posted in In The News.