James Mok’s Soliloquy

It was no-plastic-bag day Saturday and I was caught off guard as soon as I walked into a supermarket in the morning. Even though the 50 cent a plastic bag proceeds goes to charity, I’d rather do my deed instead. At any rate, I was only going to buy some drinks for the family when I was on my way home with the car, so “no bag” itself was not a problem for me.

The problem for most people would have to be the (lack of) reminder notice to the customers. I didn’t see any notice at the front door but I was reminded as soon as I walked in to the supermarket from hearing the cashier asking one of the customers checking out with loads of groceries whether he needed any plastic bags. I guess he had to either pay for the plastic bags or buy a couple of reusable cloth shopping bags. That reminded me not to buy more than I could handle. Is it so hard to put a poster reminder at the front door?

The next day, I went back with my own shopping bags for more groceries and didn’t need any new plastic bags even though the new bags were free then. It’s a little late but I am keeping the shopping bags in the trunk from now on.

My company account and my personal account are both with the same branch. Normally, by default, my company check written to myself to be deposit to my own account all from the same branch would be considered as fund transfer rather than check deposit, which is immediate rather than the next business day after 4pm. Even if I brought the the cheques to a different branch, so long as the two involving accounts are from the same branch, I could ask them to do a transfer.

There is a another branch closer to my office than the one with mine and my company account’s. They have already screwed up my transfer a few times even when I had it written down at the back of the cheeks for a transfer.

To be on the safe side, I have been asking my guards to bring my month end cheeks to the same branch as my accounts, which is about a 10 minute walk from the office. I have also written on the back of the cheeks for transfer.

A while back, I had several urgent cheeks to be transfered and several not urgent cheeks to be deposited. They are all from the same branch and which I had them do the transactions. The teller asked if the cheeks without written instructions to be transfer could also go thru as a transfer, in which they explained that by default, all cheeks from accounts of the same branch that are being processed in that same branch are handled as transfers.

I had three of these cheeks, with written instructions to be transfer, where all parties are with the same branch, to be processed yesterday. I have to write some other cheeks out from my own account today but just to be safe, I called to check my account balance. Sure enough, the funds were not transfered and I couldn’t write the cheeks yet.

A called to the bank revealed that the teller had asked my guard whether it was OK to deposit them instead and my guard, who did not better, was said to have OK’ed it.

I asked the bank why is it that when I have written instructions for them to deposit, they’d ask whether they can be transfered; yet when I have written instructions for them to transfer, they’d ask whether they can be deposited. Why the reverse quarry when by default they are all supposedly to be transfered regardless? Why would I spend the extra time to write the instructions on the back of all cheeks when a simply yes/no in theory would be sufficient, but in this case, somehow the verbal answer superseded the written instructions?!

The answer? - “Sorry, new rookie teller”

I don’t want to know why it happened, I want to know how to fix the problem!