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Jack,
You
mean you actually still have a teller. At my bank, I walk into a small
three sided cubicle and stare a a screen which asks me questions via typed
text. Only if I have a problem does a tinny voice ask if it
can help me. I have no idea who I'm talking too. I no
longer even need the art of conversation to complete my
transactions.
I
went to the Bank Manager about a month ago and asked if the tellers were ever
coming back because I was considering leaving. She said "no, no, wave of
the future," and all that. "Soon every bank will be this way." And I
thought -- and every store, every restaurant, soon I won't need to see
anyone...
And
where I teach theatre classes now (while working on my degree), they
teach a few completely over the internet. The primary original
valuable component of my theatre is immediacy... that too lost to commodity and
our knowledge of the ether.
I,
too, miss that bank in Lubbock, Texas with art on the walls, abeit
poor, that I had to dress well to enter as a youngster. At least they
tried.
Doug
Dear Rats-
Was there a time when banks had art in
them? I use a bank in which no matter what branch I go to
there is nothing on the walls except some slick advertisements for the
bank. Ironically these ads are for homes, full of creature comforts,
that you could get loans for from the bank. The colors of the interior
are slate, not blue, rose, not red, and taupe not brown. All muted
colors and no art on the walls.
The other day I asked the teller where the art
was and she replied that she did not know but that 'they", (the management
presumably) were very careful that everything in the bank reflected the bank's
image.
And then today when I went to the bank, one of
the tellers had brought a large bouquet of home grown flowers and placed them
at her station. So there it was all the brighter for being set off by the
muted tones and flat surfaces. Bright peonies, orange roses and white
lilacs crowded together in a cheap non corporate vase.
I stood there in line and wondered if I really
did remember a time when there was art, even ugly art, in the bank.
Surely when I went to the bank as a child I remember a mural of all the cattle
brands of all the ranches who banked at our bank. And my current bank is
the same company as the one my parents used. That seems a long jump from
a mural of the cattle brands of Eastern Oregon to blank taupe
walls.
Jack
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