"hello, welcome to regions. my name is ann"


back when i subscribed to sports illustrated, one of my favorite little blurbs was a short snippet/fact/stat/absurdity that could be found towards the beginning of every issue under the header, "sign of the apocalypse". it would be something like, "the yankees asked the city of new york for $370 million dollars in bonds for their new stadium the same week they signed cc sabathia to a $161 million contract." or "shawn king, a former nfl defensive lineman, says he failed a league drug test because the woman whose urine he had used to help hide his marijuana use turned out to be pregnant". they were always really funny, most because they were insane and totally grounded in this world's reality all at the same time. ever since, i feel like i notice my own personal signs of the apocalypse all the time in my daily routine or reading. this week, at regions bank, one of those such happenstances occurred.

regions bank has been struggling for a while now. having gone in the huffman and/or roebuck branch 5 days out of 7 for the last five years, i've noticed many different attempts to change their look/perception/image at the only level most of their customers will ever see, the branch level. they painted shit kermit the frog green. they advertised by showing people riding kermit green bicycles around downtown and in their promotions/commercials. (i have no idea what that was about.) they added flat screens to their lobby to take people's minds off the fact that they were waiting fifteen-thirty minutes in line because someone had only scheduled two tellers on a payday friday. tellers have always been asked to be nice to the customers, at least i assume this has remained the case since my one year of teller-ship at amsouth before regions bought them out. now, though, tellers are trained to be SUPER nice.

like many businesses in the last five-ten years, name recognition is becoming an increasingly annoying method of welcoming a customer into your establishment. WELCOME TO COLDSTONE!!!, anyone? pet supplies "plus" tried this for a couple weeks two or three years ago until we realized that "hello!!! welcome to pet supplies "plus"!!! can we help you???" rang entirely insincere and counter to the sentiment we want our customers to feel when they came in the door. regions has tried to institute this method in the last year or so, at least if the branch manager is taking notes. it's funny to me, because the effort is absolutely and directly related to the idea of "if the cat is away, the mice will play", meaning if the branch manager is in her office, i will be warmly greeted upon entering the branch. all of the customer service reps. will smile a fake smile at me as i move past them. i will be told "good-bye" as i leave. it's a wonderful put-on. if she is not there, though, well, it's a different story. the csr's don't look up as i walk by. i am not told "have a nice day" when i exit. i'll eavesdrop on conversations concerning haircuts or old people. i'll smile and think, "that's more like it. at least now, you are being yourself". when you approach the teller line, name recognition effort has been more successfully indoctrinated. "hello. welcome to regions. my name is ann."

i love ann. she is a sweet older lady. great at counting. very generous with giving out paperclips and rubber bands to separate my change order. she's awesome. the perfect teller.

i digress.

let's just choose to ignore the "welcome to regions" endeavor. it seems that it's here to stay. nevermind that it implies that the customer is either an idiot or asleep when they take a right/left into the bank next to the big regions sign, walk into the building that reads regions on all four sides and then through the lobby where every piece of literature is marked with the regions logo. i get it.

let's get to this week's sign of the apocalypse. another personal touch exercise that regions asked of its tellers in the last year or so was to have the teller sign each deposit slip they hand back to the customer. a subtle name to the face of the teller that handled your transaction. i kind of liked it. it was almost like they were handing me their business card. i was happy to take care of you today. my name is ann. come back and see me. i will, ann. i will come back and see you. tomorrow even!

unfortunately, that changed this week. at the end of my transaction monday morning, ann put my deposit receipt into her printer, pulled it out and put it on her desk. instead of reaching for her pen, she reached for something else, a stamp. i thought, what the fuck is going on? why does ann need a stamp? she popped my receipt with the stamp, handed it back to me, and i looked at it. the stamp read, "thanks, ann".

seriously? it wasn't even a copy/mold of ann's hand-writing. i know ann's handwriting! this isn't fucking ann's stamp! not my ann!

some regions executive that is probably paid more than me and most of you was likely presented an idea from below.

minion: listen to this idea, jim. it's fucking brilliant. our tellers have been signing their name to deposit receipts for about a year now, and our research has shown that this takes a lot of fucking time. also, most of our tellers can count, but some of them can't write for shit. i can't tell you how many emails i've gotten from concerned customers saying that they had know idea who signed their deposit receipt. they have threatened to move their money somewhere else, jim, if we don't fix this problem. i know how to fix this problem, jim. instead of tellers using their chicken scratch to personally sign their names and take up to 3-5 extra and valuable seconds of our customers day, we can make stamps for every teller and ask them to stamp the shit out of that receipt with a totally legible, if not totally accurate, facsimile of their name. whaddyouthink???

jim: do it.

so, ann stamped the shit out of my receipt. she handed it back to me with a smile. i smiled back, but it wasn't a 100 percent smile. it was like ann had punched me in the face with a frail right cross. the branch manager wasn't there that day, so i didn't get a "good-bye" from a csr either. i walked by the wackenhut security guy with his cell phone pressed up against his ear. i hoped i didn't get jacked in the parking lot. i didn't think he would notice. i heard the silence tell me to fuck off as i left the branch. i forgot where i was, prob'ly wachovia or compass. it doesn't matter.

nothing matters anymore. soon enough, we'll all be assimilated into this crazy, mixed up machine that tells us we can't sign our names anymore. we'll be issued a stamp and ink pad at birth and that'll be it.

"welcome to regions. my name is ann. my i rip out a small part of your soul?"

sure, ann. be gentle, please.