Tag: bank

How do you make holy water?

April 4, 2011

Losing one’s debit card is not a good feeling.

When going to use it over the weekend as I went to Gelson’s three times at 8am, 12:30pm and 5pm (each time buying alcohol for the shoot) and being served by Dorothy who asked me about the Tasmanian Devil facial tumour disease, I couldn’t find it. Not feeling too worried, I paid with my Australian card and made a mental note to look for it on my desk where I’d probably been buying something online (my new addiction in LA).

This morning dawned and I couldn’t find it on my desk, even when I checked under all the loose papers. So I looked up my last transactions online, breathed a sigh of relief that it hadn’t been used on the weekend and realised the last time I’d used it was to withdraw cash on Thursday. As I’d withdrawn an odd amount, it gives you your card in a different order to normal and I must have left it in the ATM.

I waited for 9am and then raced down to the bank to find out if it had been handed in.

While waiting in line, the older gent behind me leaned in and said “I like your tennis shoes”. I thanked him for his compliment and he said “Where did you get them from? … No, don’t tell me, I’m psychic.” He then looked shifty for a bit and said “You got them on your feet!” I gave him a little haha for his dad joke and then it was my turn at the cashier.

That wasn’t the end of The Joker. While the girl was looking in the drawers for lost cards, he came over to me and said “How do you make holy water?” A little surprised by him continuing to talk to me, I said, “oh, I don’t know.” He then said “You boil the hell out of it.”

While he didn’t get the belly laugh he deserved because I was distracted, when I related the story to housemates Gin, J and Devoir in the car we all let out big laughs.

* Celebrity spotted: Rufus Sewell (The Holiday, A Knights Tale) in a sweaty shirt at the Oaks Deli at lunchtime.

PS The post about my first film shoot is still coming, it’s going to be an essay, so it requires more time than I had today whilst set undressing.

Friday customer service call

January 21, 2011

I received a call today from the bank about the new account I opened before Christmas wanting to know how I was finding the account and the experience thus far.

The short reply was, I haven’t found the account. I haven’t even found the keycard and pin that should have been sent to me. The call really couldn’t have been timed much better as yesterday I popped in to the branch and to ask about it. However, choosing to go to a bank on a Thursday is not a wise move. Being pension day, it is always busy, and yesterday it was so busy that I decided not to bother with the query on my account. So today’s call was great because I found out that my card is waiting for me at the branch.

In addition, I also found out that the Call Guy gets quite frustrated when this happens. He said, and quite rightly so, that if my card goes to the branch, then they should call me to pick it up. I whole-heartedly agree. Call Guy’s rather relaxed attitude led to a far greater conversation than I would usually have with any customer service rep over the phone. I also think there may have been some phone flirting involved…

I also have a sneaking suspicion that he may have done a search for me on Facebook after a little comment about Facebook he dropped in and then a little bit later he stumbled a little over part of his spiel the way you do when you get distracted by something. Either that or his desk neighbour was gesticulating wildly trying to get his attention and provide advice as to how to keep me on the phone for longer. Or maybe that’s just my wild imagination and tickets on myself!

Call Guy also dropped this little gem into the conversation about going in to the bank.

“I actually worked in a branch over Christmas and pension Thursday, you want to avoid that. It’s like there’s DJs or something there, although I don’t think the oldies really go for that.”

I nearly spluttered all over the phone with laughter at this, and barely managed to maintain my composure.

It was a bit of Friday fun and after that 13 minute chat about all sorts of things in a relaxed and unstuffy manner, I think I like my new bank even better.