Week One at the Job.

Well. I've survived. Kinda. The weekend came right in time. I also want to crawl back in bed with nothing to do and no responsibility. I thought that type of life was horrible when I first got here. But now I think I prefer that over working. Except the money issue. For that reason I'm glad I'm working. haha. However I now have a better understand of questions that i was asked from members while working at America First. For example...When will the funds be available? (when it was 2 10.00 dollar checks and 50 dollars in cash.) Or How much is that? (when I just printed off a history of their checking account for the past month.) Freaking crazies. Bank Verse Credit Union. Let the wrath begin.
Charge for a debit card. Credit Union: 0.00 Bank: 7.00
Charge for a Cashiers Check. CU: 0.00 Bank: 10.00
Charge for a history of your checking account. CU: 0.00 Bank: 3.00 a page.
Charge for Statement. CU: nothing. Except I could see it changing just because of the "going green" but I don't see it being to much. Bank: 2 dollars a page.
Availability of funds. CU: usually right then and there UNLESS it's pretty suspicious. Bank: 3 business days.
On-Us Checks. Totally are not allowed to do that. Weird. Because it's a check written off of the BANK and your own account number. strange.
Third party checks. AGAINST THE LAW OF BANKING!!! HUGE RISK!! not to stress. Even if Grandma Igar write Baby Frank a 10.00 dollar check for his birthday Mommy Unis cannot cash it. Baby Frank must open an account.
Check up calls. CU: usually no one will call you from the credit union unless you need to pay a bill, or I'm out some money and maybe I accidentally forgot to give you that money. Bank: every blasted person that has an account..."call and make sure everything is going GREAT with them, and maybe see if you can help them with anything". which translates into sell them a 12.00 monthly service charge for a checking account. That's just annoying. I'm sorry.
Technology. CU: It is very up to date. Has the latest and greatest. Bank: Stone Age. You should SEE the machine they use for cashiers checks, and the "thing" they call my cash box...could be my shoe box.
Likely-hood of being robbed. CU: it happened but it wasn't likely...besides I was in a grocery store branch. Bank: 250%. It's happened so much they installed "special" doors to try to stop the branch I'm at from getting robbed.
Customer vs Member. Turns out that this bank is all about making everyone feel like they are a part of the bank, they are all "friends" except we call them customers. I never understood why it was a big deal to call people members instead of customers. But I get it now. Seriously. How are you supposed to get people to feel like they are your friend when you call them a customer. According to the WorldNetWeb of Definitions..Customer means "someone who pays for goods or services." and let me tell you ... they pay for them here.
Transactions. I worked last Friday. Apparently it was a BUSY, OUT OF CONTROL day. I must have blinked...or I was a lot sicker than I thought I was. I had 27 Transactions. The girl with the most had 52. hum.....I'm speechless. I used to think a SLOW Friday was like 200 transactions.
Back to the "wanting to be a community bank and be every ones friend...". CU: we were a community place. Everyone got to know everyone...eventually. Sometimes you had to ask for ID. Bank: You don't ask for ID. Because you should know them. (AHH now I get why everyone was always like..."why do you want to see my ID...blah blah blah blah blah.") Turns out I'd rather belong to a non community place where they ask for my ID than to not have anyone ask for my ID. Weird. Especially where this branch gets robbed. My mind is very boggled right now.
Smoke breaks. My lead teller smokes a pack a day. She's also very possessive and has a complex of not letting anyone else train me. So she goes on her smoke break every hour. while I sit there doing nothing. I'm asking for a lollipop break tomorrow.
Lead teller. Stench. Bad Body Oder + pack of cigarette smoke = not a pleasant smell to have to sit by.
Lead teller again. she's 60ish. dresses like a wanna be model for Teen magazine. Says the F word ALL the time. I get it if you wanna say it when you're mad. But common you're older, not some crazy tweenager, who says it in place of every word. It doesn't help to make you look smart. Maybe if you were younger and saying it like that. But not when you're older.
Banker hours. I totally understand now. 8:30-4:30 Monday-Thursday. 8:30-6:30 Friday. Saturday 8:30-1:00. Weird. Almost makes me want the 9-7 shift back. At least it was constant.
Let me tell you about training. There was a lady who wanted to know what to say over ANY situation where it might be possible for someone to get mad..."what do I say?!"
Lady number 2. Didn't understand a thing. Asked the same question over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Then during lunch we talked about the same blasted question!
One teller dresses like a hooker. Mini skirts every day so far. She probably 30ish. oh and she wears tennis shoes with it.
Another teller. His cousin sells drugs. He helps him learn how to deposit his 20,000 into a bank without getting caught. His cousin also "hooks" him up every other weekend, and if I want some he'll get me some too.
that leaves two tellers whom might be normal. So far they are. Phew. One is from Poland though...L.O.V.E. listening to her talk. Wish I had a cool accent. In my next life I'm living somewhere cool like that.
My knowledge of Spanish doesn't help here. I need to know Italian now. I'm not going to bother learning it.
We need to use our "customers" names. Turns out I can't pronounce them because I don't know Italian.
Turns out even though I got a NASTY head cold last Monday and had to work feeling like crap (didn't think it'd look very good calling in sick my first couple days) Work has been pretty productive.
Wow. I bet you wish you were me. ;)
p.s. I still honestly don't get ... nor do I care if you have you money at a bank or a credit union or if you work at a credit union or a bank. I just don't get the big deal. I'm simply comparing my two tellering jobs. One just happens to be at a credit union and one at a bank.
Speaking of Bank and Credit Union hatred. The CEO of the bank hates me, and I'm on his watch list. why? Well he came to visit us while we were in training (which is pretty legit. I don't think Mr. Craig would ever do that.) However he must have read over my application. On it said that I worked at a Credit Union. He said he regretted to inform me that he doesn't hold much respect for Credit Unions and the way they do their business....blah blah blah blahblah blah...and that I would soon learn how to do things the right way...blah blah blah... 5 minutes later ...blah blah blah...." When I finally interupted him and said "Sir...it was just the job I got once I got out of High school, kinda like how this is my job right now while my husband is going to medical school..." SheeSH!
You're all jealous again... :)