Guiltiest Feeling: Cashing a Check

Gabriel Conroy says:

While I recognize the humor from this cartoon and while I recognize that the humor comes partially from a different time, as a former bank teller I suggest there’s another side to the “argument” that comic is making.

The teller’s job is on the line. Now (or at least “now-ish”…I was a teller about 20 years ago so some things may have changed), there is a set procedure for what’s acceptable i.d. and as long as the customer follows that procedure and the teller follows that procedure, the teller is (mostly) protected from getting fired if things go wrong. There was probably less procedural protection at the time that Clare Briggs created this comic. At the same time, the teller was probably better compensated for their labors and risks of liability.* Still and even so, it’s usually not the case that the teller is sadistically making the customer jump through hoops. The comic isn’t necessarily painting the teller as a sadist, but it is portraying the hoop jumping as something that’s perhaps intentionally humiliating.

I’ll confess that at least when I was a teller, we/I often stretched or disregarded the rules in certain cases. So the question of “why in that case and not in this case” is legitimate, even though there usually was a good or at least serviceable reason for making exceptions.

*That better compensation may actually be coming back. When I was a teller, we were basically just customer service cash handlers at my bank. Now, at the same bank, tellers have been so downsized that they have to assume greater responsibilities for “cross-selling” or for opening accounts and maybe even taking loan applications. While they’re probably not paid enough, they’re probably paid more than I was and probably have something like full-time benefits, which I did not have until I was “promoted” to “permanent part-time” status after working there for about a years.Report