my money’s literally no good there

every now and again i start to realize WHY our economy is collapsing…

…and i got a good glimpse of earlier this week.

i needed to float some cash to the ufc so we could pick something up we were splitting the cost on. it made more sense for me to put cash in her account because…

a. i’m free during banking hours for the most part
b. unlike most of society (including the ufc) i still carry cash

there’s a new branch of her bank (university credit union, or “ufcu” for short) in san marcos right next to a brand new gold’s gym…so right after a botched college reunion (it’s nice to see tenure hasn’t effected the loose interpretation of what “office hours” means for my old professors) i hit the gym and then the bank…which is where things got annoying.

i walked in and saw three stand up desks, all with tellers at them…except that’s not what they call themselves any more. now they’re “account service specialists”, which i’ll assume they use because it contains the word “special” and makes them feel such. they are, but just in another sense of the word…

…moving on.

i walk up to the girl that greets me and explain i need to put some cash in my wife’s account, and i know the last four digits of the account number, her birthday, AND her address, which i brought up because we’ve done this dance before at a branch in north austin and this was what they needed to where, less than five minutes later, my cash was in her account.

not so much that day.

at first i was told that because i wasn’t ON the account i wouldn’t be able to do that. after i explained i listed what i knew because that’s what it took at another branch where we’d done this before, i was told they couldn’t do it because they were a “cashless bank”.

“a ‘CASHLESS BANK’?!?”, i responded, “that’s like an booze-free bar! you’re a bank…cash is kinda your gig!”

she responded that if i had a “deposit card”, that the ufc would have to go into a branch and request, that i could deposit the cash, but that without that i couldn’t do it. when i asked why the other branch could do it she again responded to me with the “cashless…” line.

“well now you’re just lying to me,” i responded.
“i am NOT a liar”, she practically yelled. it should be noted that at no point during this entire exchange did i raise my voice or use language that wouldn’t fly on a disney network show.
“but you are”, i explained, “because you told me you were ‘cashless’ and couldn’t take cash deposits, but then two minutes later told me if i had this magical card my wife can score at a branch for me you COULD take the cash, meaning you’re NOT ‘cashless’ – so you lied. i can google the definition of ‘liar’ for you if you’d like, since i know that’s how your generation figures things out”. she sat and steamed in silence so i asked her how we get cash in her account NOW.

and this is where it gets weird…

she told me the only way to get cash in her account was to go down the street to a DIFFERENT CREDIT UNION that had a an agreement with ufcu to handle their account holders business since there used to not be a branch in san marcos.

“let me get this straight”, i clarified, “in order to get cash money into an account at THIS bank i have to go to ANOTHER bank because they have an agreement to handle YOUR accounts which YOU can’t do at the bank where the account is ACTUALLY held?!?! why can they do it and you can’t?”

her response? “because they have tellers”. mine? “ma’am, what exactly do you think YOU do here?!?”

and she said “i’m an account service specialist”. once again…

so i went down the road, walked into a DIFFERENT credit union, and filled out a deposit slip. walked up to the teller. her response was to ask me if i knew there was a branch for that bank down the road and i replied, “yeah, but they won’t take a cash deposit from me – they’re ‘cashless’ i was told”.

“well, you know that’s a lie”, she replied, “having a ‘cashless’ bank is like having a hamburger free whataburger!”

and we laughed…then she called the other tellers (who call themselves tellers) over and i re-told the story and we ALL laughed. needless to say i’m encouraging the ufc to switch credit unions…fuck those idiots.