my only question is why the hell they'd need manager approval to put money IN to your account ;)

Well, there is something to be said about making everday tasks like this one exciting and drama-filled.

What a narrative. :D

Well, drama-filled anyway.

Gilda, you should definitely write a book about your life, there are so many amusing characters in your day-to-day living! You also write very well.

So, about that drive-through bank teller...you should move here I have never seen one of those in my life! Well not true, they use them at the hypermarket here. When I want to deposit a cheque on a weekend, I use the ATM. It puts out an envelope and I put the cheque inside, and on the screen it asks me what I'm depositing and stuff, then I put the envelope in the slot and voilá.

The asshole who yelled at you...I thik you were just unlucky. Next time (if there is one), tell him calmly that it IS your first time and can he go back to his car before you decide to smack him!

I understand how you feel because I too am an introvert and there are things that bother/ fluster me that might not bother other people. I have learned on occasion to respond to rude replies from people when I point out that they are bothering me.

One recent example I have is that recently, I have noticed that most people in this city (Lisbon) seem to have lost all grasp of the concept of personal space. I like my personal space, even in a public location. I still think I am entitled to it, as is everyone else.

The other day I was in a small queue to pay for gas at a gas station, and it was my turn to pay. I got to the front and I payed the gas, and was leaning against the counter. As I stepped back, maybe about an inch, there was a man right there on my back! I don't know if anyone else feels this way but that for me was a total invasion. I quickly moved back forward then attempted to step back again, and the guy was still there! So I decided to push back a little, to which the guy did not respond, so I felt I had no choice but to turn and say "excuse me, do you mind moving away a bit, you're right against me and I don't know you".

Of course, the guy decided it was a good moment to be rude: "No one's leaning against you, what do you want, who do you think you are..." to which I replied (and I'm pretty sure I was met with aprooval form a few other people queueing) " look I'm sorry but there's no need to be rude, I don't know you and you were literally on me, you obviously have no education" and walked off, huffing of course.

Am I paranoid? Maybe. But I don't think it was always like this and people seem to have less and less manners.

I agree with tippler... you have to write a book.

By the way, this bit was very funny:
Congrats on conquoring the dread drive through banking machine.

Tellers are required to get manager approval for all transactions above a certian amount, ingoing or outgoing, and the manager had to advise me that they'd be required to report a deposit of this size to the federal govt. as a part of the new homeland security regulations.

Gilda

[QUOTE=Charlatan]I agree with tippler... you have to write a book.

By the way, this bit was very funny:

Oh, well you'd love my doctoral dissertation, then. It's two hundred pages of writing that sounds remarkably like that, except that I'd have had two references end-noted there.

Gilda

Oh yeah, those new homeland security rules.... I won't go there with how I feel about that. Gilda, I strongly recommend direct deposit. Homeland security rules don't apply to direct deposit.

I had an absolute war with my bank after I moved because they were holding all of our checks for 14 days due to those rules. It really effed up our bill paying.

Ahhh yes, I was just reading something on that this morning. I think I might have to do a story on that.

You, Grace, Sissy, accounting, Dr. KGB, and my brother. I just see no benefit to it.

Gilda

How about not having to deal with deposting the check. Not have to deal wth the drive thru teller. Not have to deal with getting approval. :D

I do sound like a luddite, don't I? On the downside, it would have deprived those closest to me of the opportunity to embarrass me for years to come by telling and retelling this story.

I dunno. I wouln't have to go into payroll and have them glare at me for having to take two minutes out of their day to get out the checkbook and write my check and get the speech once again about how much better it is. You'd think that, since their job is paying people, that this would be something that they wouldn't mind doing.

Gilda

I've had direct deposit for years now. I'd have it no other way now. Thus far there has never been a problem. Some companies in my area offer no other option for their employees.

Entertainment value is a good enough reason I suppose :)

I was totally against direct deposits 5 years ago then I went to work for a company that didnt do it any other way....I quickly learned some advantages (especially for people that live pay check to pay check. Your money hits your account at midnite the day its dated, so by the time I get up on payday my money is already in the bank and USEABLE...no waiting for a check to hit your account the next business day... and the BEST IMO....if your payday is say on a monday (we are paid semi monthly so the day of the week you are paid is always different) the money is in my account on saturday morning TWO days before payday!!

oh and you dont have to make a trip to the bank.....I do not miss that at all

Hmm.

First of all, as usual, I'm proud of you for taking greater steps every day towards being who you want to be. I say it a lot, but I don't know if I can say it enough.

I like that. I have the same problem sometimes; it's easy to forget that not everyone knows the things that everyone is 'supposed' to know. After all, everyone knows how to use the drive-through at the bank, just like everyone knows how to make an omlette (I don't) or everyone knows how to write a thesis (my best friend Steve doesn't).

Remember my most recent journal entry? Everybody has their strengths and talents. I constantly bemoan my inability to cook. I can tear down a smallblock or rebuild a PC; I can take apart nearly anything mechanical, put it back together, figure out how it works. But in the kitchen I burn water.

I suppose I have two points. The first is that common sense, isn't. There's no shame in not knowing something that everyone is meant to know. At least you can learn this; depsite the attempts of my mother, several exes, both of my sisters and a former boss, I still can't cook to save my life. It's a common joke among the family that when Brad goes grocery shopping, he only buys food with the instructions on the side of the box.

My second point is that you shouldn't feel ashamed for lacking mechanical aptitude. I take pride in my abilities; I like knowing that I can identify near any make or model of car on the road and that if something goes wrong I can fix it. I like knowing that if my car goes to a garage to get fixed, it's usually out of convenience rather than necessity, excepting the instances where I don't have access to the necessary tools to fix it myself. I don't hold it against anyone who can't do those things, just like I don't get impatient with people who are trying to learn something new. And I don't hold people who do in very high regard at all. I would contend that you shouldn't either.

If it makes you feel better, we can try to see that guy's perspective. People like that are rarely truly angry at the individual they're shouting at; the anger is displaced from somewhere else. Maybe he has a shitty job and would rather be yelling at his boss. Maybe his wife is leaving him. Maybe he's middle aged and doesn't have a wife; maybe he's just lonely. The point is, whatever he's pissed off about it's not really you. You're just the outlet and as hard as it is, you're best to try not to take it personally. Odds are, it's not.

Grace and Sissy laughed. I got a chuckle out of your retelling too. It's not that we're laughing at you, at least not due to any perceived ineptitude. It's more the absurdity of the situation. Here's poor Gilda who only wants to deposit her pay cheques and she has all these misadventures. Gilda, who finally manages to conquer the bank drive-through after much struggle, only to be told that she should've gone inside in the first place. It's an amusing anecdote.

I'm almost done, I promise. I'm always so bloody long-winded when addressing these posts of yours. In any case, I do want to point out as well that there's nothing wrong with preferring a teller. There's a reason they have both options available, after all. Some people prefer the convenience of the drive through, others would rather deal with a person face to face. I don't make my deposits through the ATM's either; it's not that I can't or don't know how, I'd just rather see a person and do it that way. Judging by the line ups in my bank, there's quite a few people who feel the same way.

I'd look at it this way; now you can say that if the need arises, you know how to use the drive-through. It's no longer a situation where you can't do something; it's now become a situation where you prefer not to. You have a new option available to you and new knowledge at your disposal, which ultimately gives you more control in how you live your life. I don't think anyone would claim this is a bad thing.

And finally, I have only one question. The gearhead in me has to ask : what's the shiny new musclecar?

Sorry, that's an in-joke that slipped in.

It's an Acura RL. I wrecked Grace's 300c a few months ago, and when we got this car I looked at the horsepower and called it a muscle car because the horsepower seemed like a lot to me (290) and Grace had referred to her 300 as a muscle car. I didn't realize that there were other things that make a car a muscle car, like rear-wheel drive, a v-8 engine, the sound of the motor, low-end torque, and off the line acceleration. They've explained the low-end torque thing, but while it makes sense during the explanation, five minutes later, it's gone. Part of that may be due to my not really paying attention, sort of the way their eyes glaze over when I try to explain the difference between classical, neo-classical, modern, and post-modern literary criticism.

Anyway, we got the RL because it had the best set of safety features of those we were looking at, which was first priority, and I like how it looked and felt driving better than the other possible candidates, and dubbed it my "shiny new muscle car" and got laughed at and was explained in a very obnoxiously condensending way why it isn't a muscle car, but a mid-level luxury sedan. For what my father-in-law paid for it, mid-level seems a bit stingy, but I'll stick with their evaluation. I, of course, refer to it in that manner as often as possible, just to annoy them.

Gilda

NICE car! I don't really have anything else to add, but I'm a gearhead too. I've always loved the Acuras, and the RL is the cream of the crop.

Oh. Well, muscle car or no, RL's are beautiful cars. How do you like the all wheel drive?

A high end luxury sedan is something more to the efect of a BMW 7 series. Cars that start at $100 000.

I'm trying very hard not to threadjack here. See what I mean? i have trouble distinguishing the different eras of literary criticism as well, but you get me talking about cars and I can go all day...

EDIT - Also, I'll put up an anecdote I just thought of that sort of illustrates what I've been saying.

Shortly after I moved out on my own, I got ambitious and decided to try making a recipe dear old mum had sent me. I was doing alright following the directions until I got to the part where the recipe said to 'place under broiler for 7-10 minutes or until cheese melts.'

I called up mum and told her 'I can't make this, I don't own a broiler!'

Mother kindly refrained from laughing at me long enough to explain that broil is a setting on the stove and doesn't require some other cooking implement.

Should I have known that? Probably and I do now. It's common sense that the broiler is the top element in your stove, but I didn't know that; I hadn't done much cooking before and no one had taken the time to show that to me.

It's nice. It gives me a little more confidence when driving in the rain around here.

Cooking I can do quite well. It's part of the whole being a good wife thing that I've chosen to embrace.

Gilda

Ah, the little dramas in people's lives...

I only went to direct because of the homeland rules. Before, I always took my check to the bank myself. I really liked the idea of physically laying hands on my check, and also seeing what CD rates were and other investment opportunities at the bank.

The new homeland rules really screw up that whole old fashioned nicety. There is no way around it unless the account you pay your bills with has double the amount you pay in monthly bills in it.

In fact, you should really watch your account because I would bet your check has a hold on it, even though they say it's been deposited.

Huh. That doesn't make sense. It's a check from a state university, and a paycheck from a California school district. I'd think both of those sources would be considered pretty safe.

We're not worried about paying the bills; we'd already transferred our old account out here and we already had about four months' worth of bills in the bank, even without my deposit.

The Homeland Security thing bugs me more and more the more I think about it. Why would they need to know if a college professor was depositing several paychecks at once? Is that a common method for terrorists to finance terrorism, depositing university paychecks?

There must be something more to it that I can't see.

Gilda

No, it has nothing at all to do with university professors. They simply want to know who might be depositing large amounts of money. And Poppinjay may be right; they may have a hold on the money even though the balance shows it as deposited. My bank does that when I deposit my student refund checks.

amusing story to say the least. i really hate when people act like jerks and get all snobby and rude because they need to wait a extra 30 seconds or something. you shouldnt ever let people like that mess with you. every time they say something rude or honk or whatever just slowdown a little more. No matter what your doing its bound to bother someone for some stupid reason no matter what its not worth getting stressed about. you only live once might as well relax and enjoy it. But at least in the end your friends have something to embarass you with for years to come. And thats what really counts.