Bank Stories Introduction

My first grown up job was working at a bank. Like many young people, I worked in fast food and then retail before landing my first “real” job at the age of nineteen. Looking back on the twenty years that I worked at the bank, I am amazed how much the job has taught me. Besides gaining valuable skill sets, I learned about human nature and life.

As a bank employee, I saw the same people day in and day out. I got to know their habits, their eccentricities, and their fears. I knew where they worked, how much they made, and their account balances. I realized that my relationship with these people went far beyond the usual customer-service employee relationship. It was a relationship that had to be built on trust. Here they were laying their whole monetary life in front of me. It made them feel vulnerable. They didn’t have to say anything, it was all here in black and white and I could read it and interpret it all for myself. It’s amazing the kind of insight and understanding of a person’s life, habits and even their nature by looking at their relationship with money. This relationship based on money is a very intimate one.

Seeing the same folks every week, long-term relationships began to form. I heard about their children, their grandchildren, their bosses, and their spouses. I became a sounding board for their grievances or someone willing to listen to their stories. I sometimes felt like a therapist or a trusted confidant. Some of them became good friends.

Sometimes I represented the evil bank that wouldn’t give them their money, or charged outrageous fees, or lost their deposit, or denied them their loan. Intimidation, threats, anger, tantrums, anguish, insults, crying, and begging were part of the job.

My extended community of customers included senior citizens, veterans, blue collar, white collar, entrepreneurs, young adults, families, singles, divorced, old world, crazies, eccentrics, people with beginning stages of Alzheimer, stroke, heart attacks, dementia, those being taken advantage of and those taking advantage. Over the years there were loans, mortgages, deaths, garnishments, IRA’s, Christmas accounts, college funds, marriages, trusts, funeral accounts, divorces, and gift accounts. I was there to help them through every stage of life as well as the financial transactions that came to represent those stages.

The women I worked with over the years were another new learning experience. When you work with eight women in a fairly confined space you can either come together or fall apart. Throughout the years, there were many that came and went but there was always the core group of four. I’ve worked with some incredible women of all ages, creeds, and race. I learned so much about women. What I liked and what I hated about them. What camaraderie was about. Listening to their stories gave me insight to life's lessons and what it meant to be a woman.

Then there were the managers and assistant managers. Basically good men in every stage of life, from young bucks, career builders, womanizers, slobs, tyrants, in mid life crisis, lazy, industrious, leaders, hard working, sweet, funny, and always, always hungry.

I started out as a teller at the drive-thru. I worked a desk job as a financial representative. I became an assistant manager and then a manager. The bank taught me many things about running a branch and about dealing with people. As a financial institution there were so many regulations and regulatory agencies to appease that the list would be as long as your arm. You soon became an encyclopedia of procedure.

Then there are the scams, the frauds, the forgers, the embezzlers, the check kiters, the counterfeiters, the quick-change artists, the impersonators, the thieves and the robbers. You needed to be vigilante in protecting customers and the bank. More lessons learned about human behavior and its relationship with money.

Thus, yet another section called “Bank Stories” and will be added to my blog.

Asterisks

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You can say whatever you want as long as you have an asterisk after it. It seems to me that more and more information that comes our way requires a disclaimer, a warning, or a footnote. Remember Walter Cronkite. Whenever I heard him, I knew he was giving it to me straight.  I loved him. I wished he were my grandpa. But you knew that the news he gave you was thoroughly investigated, factual, and gee, real. I could never imagine an asterisk hanging around his head.

Everything, but everything seems to be developing a new identity. It’s called the asterisk. Products advertisements have asterisks.  Medicines have huge asterisks. Financing has plenty of asterisks.  Turn in any direction and you will find a big fat asterisk.  And even when you read all the print after that asterisk, you’re still clueless or resigned that they've got you, no matter what.

But there are far more asterisks out there that are not seen. Invisible ones. They float by your ear when you hear a product promise something or when the news is reported by card readers not journalists or when a politicians speaks for an issue, for his party and its a dozen parrot renditions of the exact same song, “More of the Same.” So the asterisk above reads, “I don’t really think for myself. This is what I am supposed to say.” Our government is a veritable garbage scow of asterisks.

My head tilts to the side like a confused puppy.  It all seems slightly askew or completely outrageous. Who do I believe?  But there doesn’t seem to be a big fat asterisk anywhere that I can see.  I beginning to imagine asterisks attached to everything I hear on the airwaves, the news, facts, reality shows, talk shows, and speeches.  How about people I talk to on the phone or in person. Do they all have big fat asterisks attached to them too?

My advice: Whenever anyone says anything it’s best to imagine an asterisk at the end of each sentence. 

Oh, don’t you look sweet*!  (Why don’t you wear something age appropriate you twit?)

Don’t worry. You’ll be next*.  (Yeah, first you have to start sighing audibly, then strum your fingers on my counter, look at your watch for the umpteenth time, then turn red in the face.)

The serviceman will be there between 10am and 3pm*. (Ha, ha. We didn’t say what day.)

We’re looking for someone with exactly your qualifications*.  (But…. not you.)

Your secret* is safe* with me*.  (I’ll just post it on my blog.)

I’ll have my manager call* you*.  (Sucker, like that’s ever going to happen.)

And watch out for those multiple compound asterisked sentences.

You can tap * into your * home’s equity * and make it work* for you*. (We can help you rob yourself blind.)

De-regulation* of the industry* will increase competition* increase your options* and lower your costs*. (Ho, ho, that’s a good one.)

Regulation* will increase accountability*, protect the consumer* and the environment*. (Another good one! Oh, please stop. Your making my sides ache.)

Our books* are audited* by a trusted independent* outside* auditing firm, with AAA rating*. (You believed us? Sorry, our bad.)

Soon, an asterisk is going to be at the end of the word America*. Oh wait; there are several asterisks after it already.  But we don’t need anymore.  Do we need a national enema to clean out our big asterisks? (Hint, hint, Unmom). Or do we keep our heads up our asterisk. Sorry this is becoming Ranting* Tuesday instead of Random Thoughts Tuesday. Just remember when you hear someone speak a so-called fact; there may be an asterisk at the end. The killer part is that everything after the asterisk is silent.

How Do I Explain the Unexplainable? - Mortgage Crisis Part II

Part I of this story below.

After I hugged her, she started to sob uncontrollably.  When we finally pulled apart, she said, “How do I explain the unexplainable? I couldn’t think about it anymore. I had to stop myself from thinking, thinking, thinking. He’s never going to forgive me.”  With that statement in mind, I had to put to paper the anguish that I felt within my sister that day and the struggle I had witnessed these past years.  I was trying to answer her question, to explain the unexplainable. 

To my sister:

“How do I explain the unexplainable?”  The final eviction notice came. Fear gripped me and I just hid.  I have carried this secret for so long, I hid things from my husband and my kids. My sisters couldn’t understand why I didn’t come to them and tell them of the terrible fears and hurt I was holding in. I couldn’t ask them for help; I couldn’t make myself do it. I promised I wouldn’t. We agreed to keep our financial problems to ourselves.  I couldn’t think about it anymore. I had to stop myself from thinking, thinking, thinking.  I hid by reading my books, finding work to do outside of the home, anything that could be a distraction. I wish I didn’t have this perpetual migraine, this headache that’s been with me the last six years, and the mother of all stress headaches these last six months, starting in March when we were informed that the house no longer belonged to us.

I would cringe when the mail came, knowing I would have to hide the letters from the taxman, the mortgage company, the school, and the insurance company. I kept negotiating, trying to work things out, hoping to save us.

Everything is on my shoulders. I must shoulder all. I shoulder all of it.  All the responsibility will be placed on my shoulders.  My perceived inept attempts to make a single paycheck stretch, I stretched it until it was paper-thin. Then holes and rips started to appear.  I would run from one end to another trying to patch the rips that were getting bigger and bigger until the only thing left was to stop. I had to stop myself from thinking, thinking, thinking.

A wall of debt stretched high above me. I was constantly under its shadow. The shadow was with me always. I could only wait until it decided to fall under its own weight. The wall was holding back the floodwaters of secrets, pride, shame, worry, anger and failure behind it. Slowly, the cracks appeared and the water started to push through. Even though he knew it might come, I didn’t tell him that it was finally upon us, that we needed to get out.  I chose to ignore it. I chose to hide from it. Finally, the trickle became a river, washing my home, belongings, and secrets away. I was at the same time in crisis and in relief.

Responsibility was the one thing I was given so that no responsibility or liability fell on anyone else. He didn’t want anyone to know about our situation. I couldn’t ask anyone in the family for help. He didn’t really want to know what I knew. He kept saying where is all the money going? I tried to explain, to lay it all out. As long as it was an abstract idea and no hard facts or figures came his way, he could go on.  If a hint of it touched him, he would fall into such a depression and anger that it made it very difficult for me to broach the subject again.  Clues such as garnishment of his wages, avoiding calls from collectors, or attempts at the ATM all brought his frustrations, temper tantrums, and accusations of my ineptitude. He ignored the lawyer’s advice. But the inevitable was still going to happen. Long ago, he refused to sell the one thing that could have averted this tragedy. I chose not to argue. That maybe was my biggest mistake.

It became impossible for me to bring the subject of our finances up any longer. He didn’t want to know. He never wanted to know the score. I was to keep all unpleasantness from his view and when I couldn’t he would shake his head and find other things to do or wallow in self-pity.  I was supposed to fix it.  I was supposed to fix everything. It is my job to make all of their lives easier.  I knew then that I was alone.  I would be the one to hold the brunt of the responsibility no matter what happened because no one else wanted to share it.

So alone, after years of struggle, I will forever be the fall guy. It was me that did this.  It will always be my fault.  Why didn’t I do this, why didn’t I do that? Consequently the debt is gone, and the credit that was for so long non-existent remains so. But the secrets, the inner turmoil, the thing that no longer needed saving is gone. I am finally free of the many millstones around my neck. How can I explain the unexplainable? I don't know how. My children and family supports me still; they don’t sit in judgment of me, sans one.  I await his verdict.

Mortgage Crisis - Part One

My sister lost her house a few months ago.  The fire started in her bedroom.  The source of the fire was an electrical cord that ran under her bed to a lamp. Due to lack of closet space, my sister and husband store many belongings under the bed. This combination overheated the cord and started the fire.  Luckily my parents live next door and were able to raise the alarm.  Little Sister rushed home from work and we rushed to her aid to help with the clean up.  We wore old clothes, brought boxes, garbage bags and facemasks to protect us from the fumes. 

When we pulled up three men were in front of the house, one had a badge around his neck.  At first we couldn’t figure out what was going on.  They were taking things out of the house and so was my sister.  She was working furiously and with such a concentration that I don’t think she even knew that we were there. Were the men helping her save her belongings, getting them out of the smoke filled house?  Our confusion turned to disbelief when we finally realized that they were not helping my sister, but these men were here to evict her.

We asked her what was going on and she just kept on working to keep her belongings from ending up in the dumpster.  Soon we were helping her, dragging out soot-covered possessions before the men could get a hold of them.  We started filling my mother’s garage and backyard with the salvaged belongings, a stove from the garage, televisions, stereos, and other valuables from inside the house.  Luckily or not depending on how you look at it, the crew that came to evict her was a three-man crew when the number should have been six.  With a six-man crew they would have emptied that house quickly and more efficiently. They kept mumbling under their breath about the fire. They mumbled how they wished they had facemasks.  But when the fire marshal came in and gave his verdict that the fire was definitely an accident, the men became more sympathetic.

The three men seeing the scope of possessions that my sister’s family had accumulated in 25 years quickly became tired and became more concerned with their own health, inhaling all that soot. and so their resolved weakened. And when they saw my sister’s tenacity and single-minded determination of retrieving her belongings their resolve weakened further.  They started asking her if she wanted this item or that item and helped move a piece or two.

Apparently they were commissioned to take out only very large pieces and were not interested in the smaller items.  Besides with most of the surfaces covered in the house by papers, bills, books and the like they just tossed them to the floor.  Not only was there soot everywhere they added to the debris pile creating soot clouds, which made it harder for them to breathe and harder for us overall. We scoured every room making split second decisions on what was expendable and what should be left behind.

Her husband hurried home from work expecting to deal with the fire situation. To say he was taken aback by the eviction is such an understatement because it in no way describes the range of emotions that came over his face all at the same time. He kept asking the same question over and over to his wife. But she kept on working. He wanted to have a show down, but she kept on working.

The fire was contained in hallway and rear bedroom.  I had never been in a house after a fire and was shocked to see how every wall in the house was black as though charred but in reality covered in soot.  We worked until nightfall to begin again the next day.

My sister was still very quiet, exhausted, but still concentrating on all the work yet to be done. She wasn't ready to talk about it. It was too soon. I took a few moments to cry my eyes out.  I know how hard she has struggled the last few years trying to keep it all together and I felt her anguish.  As nightfall came, the work stopped for us, but it kept going for her.  She began the laundry, trying to remove the smell of smoke from the clothes we saved. Finally, I had to ask her the inevitable question, “Is it all right if I give you a hug before I leave?”  When she answered yes, I put my arms around her and as soon as I touched her, she began to sob uncontrollably.

The mortgage crisis has finally hit too close to home.

Queen Maker Have You Met Mami?

This is how Queen Maker first met my mother.  

I was fifteen years old when I first met my boyfriend and future husband (but after this encounter, I don't know why he stayed around.)  I invited him to my house to meet my mother and father. When we walked in,  Mami was preparing dinner. She was using the large butcher knife cutting a whole fryer chicken into pieces.  

Queen Maker went over to introduce himself and to talk to her for a few minutes.  Mami asked him, “So you like my daughter?”  He said he did and she said, “Just so you remember I’m really good with a knife and..” she suddenly thrust the butcher knife into his belly.  Queen Maker’s knees almost buckled.  He was shocked and when he looked down, expecting a big hole in his belly, he realizes that she was holding the tip of the blade.  She was so good with a knife that when she pretended to thrust the knife at his belly, she just let go of knife handle and with the dexterity of a magician, moved her hand to the tip of the knife in one swift, perfect move. She laughed and laughed and laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks.

I walk up and ask, "So Queen Maker have you met Mami, yet?"

PECAN SANDIES

One of my most cherished memories of my father is when he was getting ready for work.  Because the family didn’t own a car, he had to take the bus everyday.  He got up before 4am every morning.  He would make his coffee, eat a chuck of bread and a few thick slices of cheese and this would be his breakfast, which is pretty much what it is today at the age of 79. One morning I heard him moving around. I carefully made my way down the stairs trying not to make the steps creak. I pretended I had to go to the bathroom and when I came out, surprisingly he didn’t shoo me back to bed.  He always wanted us away from him, didn’t he?  I sat and watched him prepare his lunch and breakfast.

I don’t remember if there was much conversation, very little. He offered me a little bit of coffee or milk and two Pecan Sandies. I picked coffee so I could be just like him, I’d tell him.  This was a most special time.  We would sit and eat our cookies and then he would send me back to bed. Sometimes I would try to wake up the next morning to be with him and of course to get those cookies. This was our secret and I felt special that he let me be with him from time to time. 

Thirty years later the sisters were talking about our favorite cookies.  I said, “Pecan Sandies of course. If you put a bag of Pecan Sandies down in front of me they’ll be gone within the hour. I can’t help myself. I had to stop buying them.”  Sister After Me surprised said, “I didn’t know you liked them so much.  Those are my all time favorite cookie too. Papi used to let me come downstairs when he was going to work?”  Middle Sister and Little Sister confirmed the same thing. My sisters are all afflicted with the same condition when presented with a bag of Pecan Sandies, uncontrollable bingeing.

Little Sister said,   “Remember the time I cut my foot so badly and Papi had to carry me upstairs every night? I loved it when he carried me.  Papi went upstairs one morning and picked me up and brought me downstairs to have cookies with him. I loved him so much at that moment.”  A few years later, I spied a bag of Pecan Sandies on my brother’s kitchen table.  I asked him if he ever sat with Papi before he went to work and ate Pecan Sandies. Only Brother said, “Of course. I sat with him lots of times before work.”

Although I initially thought that I was the only fortunate one to have shared those quiet mornings with my father, I feel comforted in knowing that each one of us had our turn downstairs with Papi. I cherish those moments and now I know that my siblings share those same strong feelings, similar to mine, but each a beautiful memory belonging uniquely to each one of us. It puts daddy in a whole new light.  He seems less alone. He must have realized how much his little girls and boy loved him and wanted to be with him.

I realized that Pecan Sandies was a sacred icon on the desktop of my life. Press the icon and a big picture of my Papi pops into my head. 

Hearing Mom Again

If you read my previous post Selfish Mom Needs, you will understand what hearing the word Mom means to me.

The light of my life came to the school yesterday.  Since graduating from college he now has the time and the inclination to come back to his martial arts school to train. This means, dare I say it, that I will see Beloved once or twice a week. Joy, joy, joy!

I’ve been missing my kid for four years, especially the last few months. He’s been studying for finals and had six papers to write, meaning little to no sleep, lots of stress and little time for visiting. I was worried about him.  Now that he’s out of school, I’m hoping those dark circles under his eyes will soon be gone.

Knowing he is done with college, I can’t let my hopes (of spending lots of time with him) and my expectations to become unrealistic. I have to keep myself in check. He still has to find a job and when he starts working, again I won’t see him as much as I like. I know that I will go to the school anytime he will be training. I know I will be deeply disappointed if he doesn’t show.

Luckily for me his goal is to finally get his black sash this summer, meaning that I will see him more often.  I can be Mom again. I can hug my kid, give him a kiss, and tell him I love him to his face. Sometimes he can tell that I need to be Mom a few minutes longer, so yesterday after class, he asked me, “Mom, do you want to go with me and get something to eat.” Like, yeah!  Joy, he said the word, Mom.

Afterwards he decided he would drive me home, even though it was out of the way and Dad was still down the street at the school giving a lesson and would be done soon. He said he wasn’t done talking with me.  Joy!

So I will relish the time I do have with my Beloved.  It brings such joy to my life.  And once you’ve tasted joy, you want it everyday. I’ll settle for once or twice a week.