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One of the happy consequences of returning to work after a long spell of unemployment is in having to deal with the first few paychecks. Direct deposit arrangements take a few weeks to kick in, so one has to temporarily transact directly with the bank in one form or another. The first payday this past Friday saw me venture out at lunchtime, hunting down a local Chase branch.
I’m a stodgy commercial bank type of guy, rather than a savings and loan good ol’ boy. I lost faith in the S & L model as a youngster, after watching Uncle Billy mishandle the funds in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. Starting out with the local branch of Bankers Trust, my banking history remained unremarkable until the Trust was purchased by Deutsche Bank in 1998 and the local branches were taken over by The Bank of New York. I had just ordered a box of Bankers Trust checks and took a moment to mourn their obsolescence.
New checks, please.
When BoNY retail operations got folded into Chase in a financial swap in 2006, I came along in the deal once more. This time, stuck with two new boxes of unopened checks, I opted to use them up on the now reasonable assumption that my reordering checks causes banks to close. Not that I think J.P. Morgan Chase is in danger of collapse, but in these times, you never know.
Being a New Yorker through-and-through, my urban provincialism is a bit more complex than that of someone from Des Moines or Portland. J.P. Morgan Chase may be a monolithic multi-national financial structure, but its pedigree is based on the sidewalks of Manhattan, so I can identify with the institution in a third cousin-twice removed, I-know-people-who-know-your-people regard. I’m comfortable doing what little financial business I do with Chase. I consider every branch I walk into, even for the first time, as my bank.
I entered the Hauppauge branch, on the corner of Motor Parkway and Adams, intending to deposit my checks (I also had one from my brother Frank) in one of those modern check-reading ATMs in the bank lobby. I don’t do teller-based drive-thru banking, ever. It’s inefficient on so many levels, not the least of which involves time. A teller requires a slip for deposits and withdrawals. An ATM doesn't. An ATM doesn’t have to count a stack of bills SIX TIMES in order to allay the fear of a miscount and a short drawer. Besides, the drive-thru is usually as antiseptic a transaction as any done through a machine, the human contact exceedingly indirect. What’s the point?
Inside the bank, I use a human teller only when I must, for similar reasons, but I’ll admit that such interactions, while formal, retain some sense of humanity. Still, the ATM is always my first choice. Only this was Friday … Payday … Lunchtime. The line to use the two lobby ATMs wound out into the bank proper, which brings another element into play—while the ATMs themselves perform seamlessly, the customers tend to be ten-thumbed mutton-heads making multiple attempts to complete a simple task. Sometimes, you can hear the ATM laughing. I was left no choice but to fill out a deposit slip and get on line for the next available teller.
Once in line, herded through the serpentine of black nylon straps stretched pole-to-pole, I found myself fourth from the front, then third and finally second. Two tellers were on duty and the young man working directly in front of our line had just finished a transaction when another young man dressed in a tie and a blue blazer, name tag pinned to its pocket, walked over holding some slips of paper and grabbed the teller’s attention. When the man in the blazer finished his business, he turned to us in the line. He seemed to be looking at me as he began to speak, while not quite looking at me. Inside my head, my brain started intensely appraising the situation.
I've known a few people with glass eyes and never had much of a problem in direct conversation because, for one thing, our proximity usually was close enough to erase any doubt about who was being looking upon and, for another; my ability to figure out, in short order, which is the real eye. In this case, neither advantage came immediately into play for me.
“What are you here for?”
I looked at him, looked at his eyes, one boring into me and the other shifted to his right. I didn't answer, unsure of his target, and turned to my head to the left to see if anyone was lurking behind my shoulder.
“What are you here for?”
I’m not prone to panic, but I was paralyzed for a moment. The question itself wasn’t registering. What am I here for? I’ve got checks and a deposit slip in my hand. What do you think I’m here for, to rob the joint? All this dreck was racing through my mind and all I could manage to do was lift my left hand to my chest, hesitantly pointing to myself.
“Do you speak English?”
The question struck me funny, but it was appropriate considering the overall makeup of the line’s occupants (meaning people with paychecks who don’t have bank accounts and you usually know who they are). At this point, the paralysis lifted as I laughed at myself. I apologized and told him (in English) that I was depositing checks. After confirming that I wasn’t looking for any cash back, he led me to a nearby cubicle and offered me a seat.
He introduced himself but, unused as I am to VIP treatment anywhere, let alone at a bank, my head was spinning and the information eluded my grasp. He brought up my account on his terminal, verified the contact information and then took my checks and the slip out to the floor to be processed. As I sat alone, I noticed the business card holder on the desk and the stack of cards. The name on the card was “Frantz Joseph.” Interesting name, but I knew I wasn’t dealing with the displaced royal line of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I didn’t pay much attention in school, but I’m pretty sure that the Hapsburgs weren’t black folk.
Frantz returned, apologized for the delay and explained that the branch had suffered a power outage that morning, making things more hectic than usual. While we waited for my deposit confirmation, he reviewed the features available to me as a Chase Premier customer, described a new iPhone app that scans checks (my phone is dumb, like me) and an ongoing program that reimburses selected bills paid on-line. Then, he went back out and returned with my deposit slip.
Left alone in line, I would have been out of there five minutes sooner. Still, the treatment bordered on luxuriant, providing an unexpected and welcome change from the norm. It was a human experience beyond what could occur at a teller window. Frantz put a face to the monolith, gave it a voice, and an eye. I think Frantz has a bright future in banking due to his commitment to customer service. Given the circumstances, he went out of his way to keep things flowing while, simultaneously, selling the features of the business he was representing. Perhaps, one day, Chase will see fit to promote him to the position of archduke.
