Memoir Monday: I Was a Bank Teller

Like everyone I know, I had a lot of ridiculous jobs when I was a kid.  I was a paper boy for years, getting up at 5:20 am to deliver papers to 24 houses on Eisenhower and Truman roads and hoping that this friend of mine who inexplicably liked to come along with me for no money wouldn't steal another bottle of my father's Wild Turkey while I wasn't looking; I worked as a stock boy in a food store where everyone called me "College Boy" in really bad Boston accents; I inputted periodicals into a computer system at a library with a lady named Birdie. 

One of my early jobs, which I did the summer between high school and college, was working as a bank teller.  My mother worked in banks, and she knew lots of people who worked in banks, and so I got a job in a bank.  I hated working in the bank. For one thing, I sucked at working at the bank.  The whole goal of being a teller is to finish the day with the right amount of money in your drawer.  If you were supposed to give out three thousand four hundred and fifty two dollars and eighteen cents, according to the computer based on what you inputted throughout the day, then when you count up the money at the end of the shift, you have to show that you in fact gave out three thousand four hundred and fifty two dollars and eighteen cents, so as to prove that you didn't pocket a twenty or stick a hundred dollar bill up your ass or something.  Well, I never stuck a hundred dollar bill up my ass, but I also never ended up with the right amount of money in my drawer.  I don't know why.  It was always embarrassing though.

Once, a guy I knew from school came in to cash a check.  He gave me both the check and the check stub.  I gave him back the check and cashed the check stub.  The next day my boss came up to me, slammed the check stub down on the counter, and said, loudly: "Jay, where am I going to get the money for this?"  Oops.  Wexler=Doofus.  Luckily, since I knew the guy, I called him up and asked him if he could bring in the actual check.  Most people would have probably said they had thrown it away and then gone and cashed the check at some other bank, so as to receive twice the amount that they deserved.  This guy, however, was the most upstanding citizen of our school, the winner of some sort of "most upstanding guy in the school award" at graduation.  And, it turns out, he's done pretty well for himself, now being the Attorney General of New Hampshire and all.  Thanks for bringing back that check for me, Mike Delaney!

This was the first job where I had to dress up.  When I think about the clown-like outfits I wore that summer, it makes me want to cry.  I had one outfit that consisted of yellow pants (that's right: YELLOW PANTS), a blue and white striped shirt, and a blue square knit tie.  I had another outfit which involved a pair of pinstripe pants (black on white) with a pink shirt and a black knit tie.  Put this together with the butthead mullet hairdo I was sporting, and all I can say is OhdearsweetmotherofgodIhatemyself.

Next Memoir Monday installment: How I almost became a door to door meat salesman.

Comments

[Joseph]

amazing

[andrea]

It doesn't do you any good now, but when my mom was a bank teller, they kept a jar of spare money to properly zero out when they closed. So if they were $3 over, they'd toss it in the kitty; if there were 78 cents short, they'd draw it out.