We have all been there one way or another, banks are one of life's burdens that we carry from the cradle to the grave. The dictatorial, condescending and superior attitude of bank staff is something we should be taught to deal with from our earliest school days, so that we are ready armed with suitable anger management skills for the future, but we are of course not. Instead we go out into the big wide world utterly naive as to the 'reasonable policies' many of our major financial institutions are going to face us with over the remainder of our lives.
All this reminded me of an incident many years ago when, green as grass, I attended, with my then husband, for a meeting we had been summoned too at a city centre branch of Nat West in Manchester. Life would never be the same again.
The building was an imposing one, high ceilings, mahogany panelling, deep blue carpet, big red leather chairs and at all of 20 years old, it being my first summons to see the head honcho and all that, I was a
We were ushered by an underling into the hushed inner sanctum and seated on one side of a rather too large desk. The sin wcommitteded and that had resulted in our now being seated nervously awaiting our fate, was to become overdrawn..... by £25!
After some delay the esteemed manger of this institution arrived, somewhat un-punctually and introduced herself curty before sitting down and going for the jugular without any further ado. This was some scary lady, she was at least 5'11'' and bore a greater physical resemblance to a rugby player than the average mousey bank manager....and she took no prisoners!
Having severely reprimanded us for a crime of such severity she set about trying to find ways for us to never again fall into the heinous and totally unacceptable situation of overdraft again. This is where things became a little surreal and whilst life was not controlled by political correctness then, as it is now, I found myself completely incredulous at some of her suggestions and one in particular.
We sat like naughty school children making a list of items we purchased at the grocery store on a weekly basis as instructed. Her plan, she explained, was to go through it item by item and make suggestions for savings! She had already issued us with the standard warning of the great wrath of the bank Gods raining down on us..... and was now into the humiliation phase.
We duly compiled our list and having gone through it at length she asked did I not every buy 'feminine protection'? Well of course I said but I hadn't thought to add those to the list, my mind was racing at this point...what on earth did it matter, it is after all an essential. Of course she had an angle and it was this. I'm sorry guys if you are squeamish on this topic but what followed was so horribly ridiculous it is worth repetition.
What brand did I buy she asked, uh? thought I, but decided best to be upfront and told her, Tampax, this met with instant disapproval. Her arguement was this and it was put most forcefully.
Apparently I was wasting precious money in my extravagant monthly purchase of tampons and I should mend my ways poste haste!!!!! She went on to explain, for all the world like I was actually going to do as she said, that tampons were (and probably still are) subject to V.A.T. and therefor an unecessary expense, whereas certain basic brands of pads were not. She expained further that when V.A.T. had begun to be levied on 'luxury items' tampons had been deemed a luxury (no doubt a man thought that little gem up) but so as to not penalise we women they had decided that a basic version of 'feminine protection' should be V.A.T. free (how kind) and thereby give us a choice....some choice! I questioned her further, only to discover that the frugal brand she was referring too was the delightfully 'quaint' and archaic 'belt system'...something I don't think anyone had seen much past my mothers teenage years, but which were apparently still availabe I was assured.
Thankfully I am not easily embarrassed but I still recall as clear as if it were yesterday my incredulity that I was sitting in a bank managers office and really hearing all this nonsense , I just couldn't belive my ears and what's more, in retrospect I am even more amazed that I sat there and listened!
So, next time some condescending young upstart on the phone quotes bank policy at you chapter and verse in their best 'I'm going to make you feel very very small today sir' tone, just remember....it could be a whole lot worse!
Lord knows what her suggestion would be if she could see my now unenviably large overdraft!
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