PlazaJen: Passion Knit

Well, the head teller supervisor at my Commerce Bank has had a good hearty laugh at my stupidity (and self-deprecation on the phone) this morning.

Let's backtrack, shall we?

A few weeks ago, I got this brochure in the mail, extolling the fantastic new features of my bank's new ATM's. The shining feature was that you no longer needed to use an envelope for deposits - you just put the ol' check right in, and your receipt gives you fancy features, like a snapshot of the check you deposited! So, last night, I finally swung by the bank to deposit three (3) checks. I got a phone call from a co-worker while I was waiting in line, it was another whack-a-mole needing whacking, but then the car in front of me left & I hastily got off the phone & began my business.

Mentally calculating the amounts on the checks, I entered my card, my PIN, and then the information to make the deposit. Ignoring the screen that said "PLEASE INSERT YOUR ENVELOPE NOW", I shoved the three checks into the slot that sucks things in. Hmmm. Only two made it. So there I sat, with a third check in my hand that the ATM thought I'd deposited, and I panicked. I selected the option to deposit AGAIN and THEN, CONTINUED MY TRANSACTION for the third check, without an envelope. So now I've lied to the bank, that I've deposited more money than I actually have, AND my checks are willy-nilly lying in the ATM footloose & fancy-free, with no envelope containing them. I withdrew some cash and wondered how I would handle this tomorrow.

Which brings us to this morning. After my 8 a.m. conference call (with people in Dublin! I love how instead of "um" they say "Ehhhhm".) I called the bank. And of course you have to go through the 800-number point-of-all-customer service, and I had to explain that I was stupid, and could I please have the number for the actual branch. And they gave me the direct line to Karen, head teller supervisor. Who did not answer, and I had to leave a message that went something like this:

Good morning! My name is Jennifer Nu***, and..well, I am a complete idiot. I'm calling because last night, at the ATM, I completely lost my mind and thought I could deposit checks without an envelope. Because of the brochure, see. And then that didn't work really well but I KEPT DOING IT and now I want to not only apologize, for making your job more difficult, but also for being stupid, and to find out if everything in the end will be ok.

She called me back laughing. I told her that I couldn't believe my own stupidity and that I would understand if they shut down the drive-through when they see me coming, because imagine the havoc I could wreak with access to those pneumatic tubes! She wondered aloud if perhaps I had jammed the machine up, but then we realized that I hadn't, because I had been able to GET ANOTHER CHECK INTO THE MACHINE after the first screw-up. I told her, who knows what else I might have tried to put in that ATM if I hadn't come to my senses when I did.

Stupid. On the heels of yesterday, declaring a mini-jihad on idiots. Serves me right. But I'm still funny, even when I'm stupid, and I made Karen's day. Somebody's going to call me, at some point, to confirm that I haven't taken ATM #M103 off the grid and that my deposits have been reconciled. Meanwhile, I'll try to keep my technological adventures to a minimum, and I'll be a little kinder to the stupid.

Labels: foibles, life