Are you kidding my FACE?!?!??!

So we have this on going joke at work, that whenever anything crazy is going to happen, its going to happen to Steve, when he is the only manager around. I would like to share some of my experiences over the past few months.

1) Customer from England attacked our 8 months pregnant banker and called her a bigot. As I tried to politely defend her, he turned his rage to me cussing me out and talking about how unprofessional I looked with spiky hair and jeans and a polo (its casual Saturday mind you..) it got to the point where we almost had to have the police escort him out.
2) A woman came in and wanted to talk to the manager. She was in her mid-twenties. She had head band on that had little furry cat ears. She looked furious. I asked how I could help her. She told me I could start by taking all the money in this branch and burning it. Now, that’s sadly not the only time I have heard something like that…when people get mad they get creative, lets be honest. I played along and asked her why, assuming that she had overdrafts or credit issues or something of the like. She then, with absolute rage and contempt in her eyes, proceeds to tell me that its all counterfeit and if I were to read the constitution I would see that the only true forms of currency are gold and silver. (I now see that I am dealing with a crazy, not so much a disgruntled customer) I asked her that if its all counterfeit and we are getting it from the government treasury…who is making it?? She looks around and in a whispered tone mutters “Satan”. By this point I don’t know whether to laugh or be furious that she is wasting my time. I asked her “Satan, really?” with a slight tone. She then gets so mad she is shaking and declares: “Don’t! Don’t you do that! Don’t you dare look at me like that and treat me like that because I am high!!” ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? At this point I am done with her. I tell her, that I am ending this conversation and she needs to leave my branch before I call the cops. She points to my nametag and yells “This isn’t the last you have heard of me Steve Busch! I will be back!!” She turns to leave. As she turns to leave I see she has a huge REALY samurai sword sticking out from her back pack. SHE COULD HAVE KILLED ME! The worst part was there were bankers behind her watching this whole ordeal and not one of them said anything to me, not so much as even a signal that she was armed… ridiculous! Sometimes I wonder if I am being targeted by my employees….
3) An older gentleman came in one day. (I use the term gentleman loosely. He resembled the typical old biker with the stringy grey hair in a braid, torn up clothes and a bandanna over his balding head. Leathery skin, goatee, the whole package…) He wanted to withdraw some money from his account. Well his account was in the process of being closed. He had deposited a bad check (which is fraud). So they close the account and mail him a check for whatever money, if any, they have left. He was upset, which is normal, and stormed out. Well a few days later he returns with check in hand. He wants us to cash it. He sadly doesn’t bring any id. This again, isn’t something that we will not do BUT since I knew the guy, I made an exception. But this guy was past the point of understanding. After the transaction, he asked to speak with me. I said sure. So I met him in the lobby. (mistake 1) He proceeded to tell me his sob story how he didn’t know the check was bad and needed that money, and because of “Us” he is on the streets, was mugged and lost his wallet and is in debt. He felt like my bank should pay him for his suffering. I politely referred him to a service he could call but explained to him that regardless of how he obtained that check, since he presented it, it was his liability and not the banks. He was FURIOUS and started screaming at me. I asked him to leave and he told me that he was from a certain well known biker group and that this wouldn’t be the last I see of him and I would regret crossing him. CREEPY!
4) Just the other week a rather portly man came in and asked me to call 911. He thought he was having a heart attack. I called and the teams arrived. As they were assessing him he kept changing his story and they felt like he was faking for attention, but he demanded to be taken to the hospital so they can fix “whatever it was”. They took him and it was all done and over… so I thought. A few days later he shows up and wants to talk to me. He was upset because he got a bill for the ambulance and his insurance wasn’t going to cover it. He told me that he felt like I should cover it because he never asked for an ambulance, only for me to call 911. (I instantly realize that he’s not all there…) I politely explained to him that that’s all I did and the people at 911 sent the ambulance. He told me that he still felt like he shouldn’t pay and I should. I told him I was sorry but no. he told me he was going to bring his mother and she would make me pay. (This man is in his 40s or 50s mind you…) I told him that was fine but I wasn’t going to pay. The next day there she was with him! Thankfully I think she talked to him and was a voice of reason because she didn’t even ask me to pay…whew! But I mean come on! Would I really have to pay that….not so much.
5) The most recent took place just last night. Everyone had left for the day except me and one of my tellers. She left but shortly returned to the drive up and told me she didn’t feel safe. There were suspicious people walking around. I told her I would walk her to her car. She told me it was ok, but to watch from the front glass doors. As I am watching her I notice a cop car parked in the corner. I look around and notice a few cop cars actually. I think….hmmm this is weird… I turn around and see silhouettes of cops with guns up sneaking around the building. I see a couple rush by the drive up window. WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!? Next thing I know they storm the branch. One yells to me “Who are you?!?!?!” I’m absolutely panicked! I tell him I am the manager. He yells at me “who else is here?!?!”… “No one" I blurt out One come sand verifies that I am not a robber. (wearing a tie, having a nametag and a key ring with 42 trillion keys helps…)The entire team then, with guns pointed, flashlights out, search the entire branch, complete with the rushing corners, ducking, rolling, the whole shebang! A few more are banging on the door. I let them in. They yell at me for locking the door. “If there is someone here, you could trap us!” I yell at him “I’m not leaving a bank door wide open at night!” So one cop stays at the door as they continue the search. In the end it turns out someone had pushed a panic button on a desk and we didn’t realize it. The cops were pretty annoyed for the time wasted, but let’s be honest… I didn’t even know! So I go home, exhausted from the adrenaline and the panic that had been coursing through my veins as my branch was taken down by the PD. Ridiculous.


Those are the a few that have come to my mind over the recent months. All im saying, is that I am pretty sure I need a vacation…. Whew!