Sunday, June 21, 2009

And I worried when my banker retired

For some reason, I have a banker. I never really had such a person that I could contact in Canada, but I do now. I am sure there is some explanation for it but I really don't care. Truth is, I like it.

Until a few months ago, we had another woman who took care of our banking needs. She had been helping us since we moved here and I was very upset when she decided to retire. She wasn't that old -- probably sixty -- and I was not ready for her to make a life change. She didn't consult with me, but all of a sudden, one day I walked into her cubicle and another woman was sitting there beside her. In true Israeli fashion, she didn't say a word about this woman and the woman made no effort to leave when I arrived. She stayed for the entire discussion. Finally, I had to ask who she was.

According to Dvorah, her husband was retiring and she had decided to retire too. That might sound very reasonable but I was not happy that there was going to be a disruption in my banking life.

In Canada I was a capable bank client. I understood the process and the logic of banking. And if there was something I didn't understand I could always ask for additional information in English. I never figured that the transition to being the family bank activity executor would be much different in Israel. Well, yet again, I could not have been more wrong.

Banking logic in Israel is definitely not derived from the Canadian banking system. For example, you cannot carry over a credit card balance from one month to the next. At the end of the month, the credit card company -- in conjunction with the bank -- swoops in and take the amount that it is owed out of your bank account. And heaven help you if you do not have the funds on hand to pay. I think they send someone to your home to take your children!!! (oh, I am joking, but it's not a bad plan.)

Another example, even when there was monthly interest in Canadian bank accounts, there was no such animal in my day-to-day shekel account here.

And rather than list everything weird that goes on in hebrew when I do the banking here, let me just add that I have to go to a different teller for almost every conceivable action. One deals in cash; another deals in transactions that don't involve physically touching cash; and yet another deals in foreign currencies, while the next one only deals in shekels. Suffice it to say that if you have an iPod, always take it with you to the bank -- along with a snack -- because you are going to be there for a while.

Now with all this banking confusion it would seem to me that anyone who retired would stay far away from the bank afterwards. But no, that is not the case. Today, when I got to the bank to have all my banking correspondence translated and explained to me in English, there was Dvorah hanging out in her old cubicle along with Sari, the woman who took her place. And that's not the best of it..... there was a customer in there discussing his account. Dvorah had just dropped by with her husband I later found out, but it never dawned on her to not be involved with Sari and the customer.

No one seemed to mind that there was a non-bank employee smack dab in the middle of the discussion. I just sat there watching the whole thing. It was better than tv although some subtitles would have been nice.

When the discussion finally ended, I said to Dvorah: "haven't you had enough of this place?" That was my polite way of saying: "What the hell are you doing in the middle of a private banking conversation between a banker and her client?" Dvorah just laughed. She loves dropping by for a few hours now and then just to be part of things again, she explained. So now I see that old bankers never go away, they just cash in and out now and then.

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