Monday, January 26, 2004

Moses Invests

I know that banking isn’t what it used to be.  I’m getting over it, but I still get a little disoriented around those supermarket banking stations or in the banks with coffeeshops and laundromats inside.  More different kinds of companies are doing banking, and banks are in more different kinds of business.  It’s a brave new banking world and I just have to get used to it.  But as of today, they’ve gone rather too far.

Where I work there is no shortage of impressive edifices.  There are plenty of big old buildings housing big old banks, with lofty coffered ceilings, a few serious-looking desks, and a velvet rope to help you know your place - which is to wait in line until one of the staff gestures you forward with a flick of a pristine finger; you approach one window in a row of windows like dull blank eyes staring out from the comforting security of a cell block… separated from staff and from the mysterious inner workings of the bank itself by the counter and divider, you supplicate, are eventually bestowed-upon, and leave silently and in peace like you’ve just taken fiscal communion.

Well my bank was just like that, but they moved across to the other side of the intersection and now they’ve gone neo on me.  No, the past wasn’t good enough for them.  They had to go get all involved in the future.  You enter, as I did, through double glass doors under an elaborate pre-quake cast-concrete entryway, and all you see is an arcade of beautifully appointed ATMs.  Well, I want a bit more personal attention, so I stroll around a corner to look for the main corpus of the bank branch.  Keep in mind, this is downtown San Francisco, a dense commercial realm that compares favorably in terms of architectural, economic and sociological intensity with any neighborhood except certain parts of Chicago, New York, and a handful of major international capitals.  I expect that, once I’ve left the ATM-atorium, I’ll be in a bank like every other bank I’ve ever visited.  The ATM lounge is weird, but I can take it in stride.  Just lead me to a nice austere temple where I can visit my money. 

That’s what I expect, anyway.  Obviously I’m a fool mired in a tired old worldview, harping on outmoded ideas like the relevance of the Ottoman empire and the importance of phlogiston and the dignity of the financial institution.  As I come around the corner the first thing I hit is the store.  The BANK store.  They sell piggy banks and t-shirts with cartoon characters I don’t recognize and mini-pinball machines and mannequins of coffeehouse personnel and a whole passel of other unrelated bogosity.  Maybe they think someone with a billfold full of crispy new Jacksons will be unable to resist the charm of a flocked plastic bobblehead kitten or a keychain that sings “this land is your land.” If that’s what they’re thinking, then they’re thinking of someone other than me.  As the sages held, that drek is farkhaktah. 

I keep strolling past the store with its tchochke-laden counters and its shelves burdened with cultural irrelevance, taking in the entirety of their collection of pre-consumer waste in a single sweeping glance, striding manfully into what I still for some reason (which now defies logic and experience) expect will be a bank bearing some resemblance to any bank I’ve ever seen before.  After all, I have entrusted them with my money, such as it is.  I should be entitled to have certain expectations satisfied.  I don’t expect much - but I expect a nice normal bank.

Well, those days are gone now. Dead and gone.  Instead of an organized formal nave of a bank, I find myself confronted by a random scattering of freestanding podiums with computers on them, like little altars to data processing.  People are gathered around some of them; some of them are vacant.  The general pattern of behavior seems to be “milling around.” The walls are punctuated only with unintentionally ironic posters urging me to dump more cash I don’t have into a bank in which I am rapidly losing confidence. 

Suddenly, a fresh young fellow whom I swear comes on like he’s auditioning for some backwater ripoff of Queer Eye pops up at my shoulder.  He’s acting like he’s my waiter - but I notice that he’s got a nametag with the bank’s logo on it.  Finally, I recognize something.  We sidle over to an available kiosk like we’re meeting for the first time where no one will recognize us.  I discretely transact a bit of business with him, hand him some cash; he discretely stuffs the cash into a horsehair-hidden slot in the tabletop and nobody’s the wiser.  I get a receipt, walk out - dazed, unfocused, through a roomful of people milling about with no discernable organization or priority.

I guess the money got into my account, it didn’t just drop into a hollow space under that little table and I have nothing to complain about.  But I still subscribe to the quaint delusion that money - especially my money - should be treated with a certain formality and respect.  I certainly don’t have enough of it to be getting all cavalier with how I handle it.  Call me old-fashioned but I’d rather stand in line, take my turn, and not be asked to buy a stuffed plush superhero on my way out the door.  That’s what coffeehouses are for.

First of all, this guy sounds very furtive.  I bet he even skulks.  You need to be careful; he may have taken the opportunity to stash some drugs in your coat for you to take through customs.  You can’t be too careful.  Second, give ME the plush superhero if you don’t want it.  That’s badass.

what the heck?  this is seriously what happened to your bank?  was it taken over by disney?

i so agree, brother chuckles.  i remember when i was little and i’d go with our parents to the City National Bank.  it was a big building, not old like one in san francisco (this was LA, after all), but still, a large, open marble room with rich, wooden counters on each side, and those tall tables in the middle where people could fill out their deposit slips.  (deposit slips?  do those even exist anymore?) when people walked through the room, their heels clicked on the marble floor and echoed.  people were as quiet as if they were in a library.  the tellers had real power and control.

nowadays, the tellers at my bank are highschool kids trying to earn money for their prom.  that’s *if* you get to see a teller.  my account is one that charges you if you try to speak to a person.

Is that title a reference to a Jewish joke I heard?

Gopi I’m not sure that little epigram counts as a joke, but it starts, “Jesus saves.” (catskills rimshot - ba-Dum.) And Greg I was doing my share of skulking too, this whole place creeped me out.  I was wondering where those drugs had come from though.  Funny how life plays little games with you.  But you and I may not see exactly eye-to-eye on the definition of “badass.”

The thing about City National Bank was that they always were cutting edge, too - they had drive-up windows with vacuum chutes, and the first walk-up cash machine I ever saw.  Now I think they’re a Quizno’s with an ATM outside.  And if Disney took over my bank, you can damn well bet we’d all be in a line, facing the same direction and grateful not to be singled out for humiliation by oversized masquerade vermin.  There are plusses and minuses to that one.

In downtown Seattle there is a Washington Mutual gift shop - you have to walk through it to get to the actual bank. Who wants to pay money to wear your bank logo?

My bank has done a similar thing, however, you still have to fill out a deposit slip when banking cash, and the pens they provide still never work. Sort of like my freshly refurbished neighbourhood supermarket with all the trolleys that won’t steer straight.

Next time you’re there, price one of those mannequins for me.  I just head up to the grocery store with the bank branch in it right next to the day care thing for mommy and daddy shoppers, so they draw all over the deposit slips that are at the little thing sticking out of the wall.  I use the deposit slips with the little stick men drawn on them.