I feel like I just won a race, my prize being my salary. I can’t remember a time I wanted money so badly and I’ve had many tough moments. We finally got our salaries, a whole 13 days into the new month. I had to make two trips to the bank though. The first time, the branch I went to was being painted so it was closed to the public. You know those times when you’ve carefully budgeted for your journey? I had just moved with enough money for that particular trip, knowing I was going to get more. That meant I had to reschedule my visit.

On my second visit, I again thought about returning another time. There were just too many people and I’m not very patient. I just hate waiting for anything, whether at the supermarket counter, the bus stop and certainly not the bank. This time, I tried other branches I thought would be less busy but it was the same problem. Don’t you ever wonder why there’re always long queues in banks at whatever time of day you visit? And it’s not like kids were going back to school and I also thought that since most people had already got their salaries, there wouldn’t be as many people. In fact, I’d even gone to great lengths to go long after lunch because I thought others would be at work.

Despite my careful planning, I still had to queue up. You must be wondering why I couldn’t just use an ATM. Well, my bank hasn’t issued me one. I applied over a year ago and around December last year, I was informed the card was ready but not the code to activate it. It must be some kind of bad luck because all the other applicants got theirs but mine was missing. Since then, it’s been months of begging, pleading and at times threatening to leave the bank out of frustration. Every time I ask for help, I’m told to return the following day because they’re still checking for the missing pin so I just decided to forget about it. Back in the queue, I kept myself entertained with the games on my phone and when I got bored, I looked around for anything interesting. There was no TV or even a water dispenser to help us cool off. Just then, I saw the suggestion box.

Now, I’ve always left suggestion boxes to people I thought were overly fussy and hard to please but this time, I was ready to be that person and proceeded to pour my grievances into the box. There’s the fact that there are very few seats and so most clients have to stand as they wait to be served. No one expects a bank to have enough seats for the entire city’s population but arrangements should be made to accommodate a substantial number of people, after all, these banks do keep records of how many clients they have. Same thing goes for the tellers. You can’t have just two tellers serving scores of people.

What’s even more annoying is seeing empty tills and wondering where the staff supposed to be there, are hiding. I would understand if it was lunchtime and they have taken a break but don’t banks generally stay open all the time? The chatter and extended pleasantries also need to be addressed. Long-lost relatives and friends choose this of all times to catch up, as do some men trying to hit on the pretty bank tellers. And that’s before they get call after call on their cool phones, the kind some of us only dream about. I do appreciate banks and whatever service they offer, but sometimes I wish for the simplicity of getting my salary straight from my employer. This whole waiting process at the bank is just too long.

To be continued…