Saturday, October 25, 2008

World's Smallest Bank Teller or Missing ATM Test Scenario?

This weekend being the last weekend of the month, I set out to pay off all my monthly bills like I usually do, one of them being my cell phone bill. For whatever reason, the card swiper wasn't working, so I began my journey to the nearest ATM, towing return and pay in cash.

The closest ATM for my bank was a standalone unit located at the university down the street. As I proceeded to use the interface, the display threw as many offers and advertisements onto the screen as it felt I had the patience to put up with and I did my very best to ignore them all but the sentence, "Ask inside" managed to catch my eye. "Ask inside"? Did the bank stuff a teller inside this machine? Did they want me to break into it and talk to somebody? It was obvious that the answer to both of these questions was, "No," but an assumption about the location was made when a more appropriate message would have been, "Ask your local branch."