Nothing like idiocy to make me grumpy
... nothing like being loved, and having the house to ourselves all afternoon, to make me un-grumpy, but that's not what this post is about.
I went to the bank earlier this afternoon to get a stack of $5's, and found that they'd installed a metal detector inside an airlock, complete with a rent-a-cop standing outside. So you have to go through the metal detector, put your purse on the shelf, and go through again. And go through another airlock on the way out, where you can't get out until the inner door closes behind you. IDIOTS! How is this going to detect the Leatherman in my purse? Or any of dozens of non-metallic lethal devices that might be in somebody's pockets? OK, it might keep a thief from getting out, if it wasn't for the emergency exit that used to be the front door, and the big expanse of glass beside it.
And just how many robberies do they expect to prevent, over the course of a decade? One or two? At a cost of maybe $100K/year salary + overhead for the rent-a-cop, and the gods know how much for the airlock? And the massive UPS that they'd damned-well better have so people don't get trapped during a power outage? What's the average take from a bank robbery these days? Maybe $10K? (ETA Colleen says they've been hit three times recently. So that explains the rent-a-cop, maybe. I'd still be interested in the trade-off: theft losses vs. overhead and lost business.)
Or maybe it's just that they don't want any new customers.
I am not quite angry enough at them to move all of my accounts. But any new accounts are highly likely to end up someplace else. I'll tell the manager personally on Monday, I think.
(07-13) I'm a little less grumpy knowing that Union Bank has been hit by a number of branch-takeover robberies recently (see links in comments). But I still think they could have put in deterrents that would be nearly as effective against robbers while being less annoying to customers. As a rule, I prefer not to do business with anyone who treats all customers as thieves unless proven otherwise. There may be reasons to continue doing business there (Fry's is another example), but I'm not going to like it, and I'm likely to be looking for someplace else to take my business.