Not A Blog™

[The classic Not A Blog™ article was originally published on August 26, 2004. At the time this was written, I was working as a teller at a local bank.]

As I have mentioned before in this space, I’m a teller at a local bank. I have somewhere in the vicinity of one million stories which I could share about clueless or otherwise financially inept people. Come to think of it, I could probably base this entire blog on what happens to me at the bank. However, I don’t really like to dwell on work after I’m done working, so I’m not going to blog my experiences from there except for this once. I really need to speak on this topic because it’s the one mistake that everybody makes.

The mistake is this: trying to be funny. Specifically in the case of receiving cash. When cashing a check, it is considered polite to ask the customer how they want their money. Most people don’t care, but some prefer not to carry around big bills since a lot of stores won’t take them, while others don’t like to carry around wads of small bills because they don’t fit in their wallets. One girl specified that I give her uneven amounts of change, such as three dollars and eighty cents in dimes. I wasn’t going to ask why, after all it’s the customer’s money and she really can get it however she wants, but the look on my face must have betrayed my thoughts. She explained that she used a lot of public transportation and it made it a lot easier for her to have exact change, hence the oddball amounts of coinage.

Some people, however, take this opportunity to practice their comedic skills. They use this phrase not as a request for information or as a polite formality, but as an opportunity to bust out some sort of joke. I suppose they’re doing it mostly in an effort to be memorable, which is fine, except that everybody–and I mean absolutely everybody–says the same few lines. I’ve heard them an estimated 2340983572903 times by now and the end is nowhere in sight. Having said that, I will list them here, lest you think you are being original.

The Top 5 Things Never to Say to the Teller Who Asks If You Want Your Cash Any Special Way:

1. “U.S. Currency”
Oh, sorry, all I have are these Federal Reserve Notes.

2. “Green”
Well, the only green bills I’ve got are covered with black ink.

3. “Spendable”
Then I guess you don’t want these counterfeit bills I’ve been giving out.

4. For a really large amount: “Quarters”
Wouldn’t you rather have the green kind?

5. For a really small amount: “Hundreds”
Sure, let me just rip off one of these corners for you.

Having said that, I will suggest to you all that you read Dave Casey’s The Actourist III: Acting from Without column on the TTT site. In it he details the wonderful method of acting that all of you have been doing without even knowing it! I thank you ahead of time for taking that message to heart and practicing it with each visit to your friendly neighborhood banker. That’s right: acting from without trying to be clever.

-Ted