24 May 2006

Banking in the Sandbox

With my supervisor from the travel agency out of the country for the next 3 months, I have been nominated to handle the company finances. Last week I went to the bank to have my name added to the account. For the record, let me just say that here in the Sandbox they have security down to an art.

I showed up at the bank with my passport and a typed letter that basically said that my name needed to be added to the account. 10 minutes later and no questions asked, the bank guy brough out some things for me to sign. He points to my supervisor's name and says 'sign here'. At this point I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be signing my name or my supervisor's name, but he was pointing to my super's name, so I sign my supervisor's name like I think he's telling me to. He does the same thing again, so I sign his name again, figuring that if I'm doing it wrong the guy will tell me, but he doesn't say anything, so I assume that everythings done correctly. And that's it, I'm officially added to the account.

On my way out, I went to withdraw some money to take back to the office. The teller had to call upstairs to get the things I'd just signed and when they were brought down he just looked at me like I was an idiot, and he was pretty much right. He asked 'your name is Kyle?' and my response was 'no, why?'. Apparently I was supposed to sign my name, not my supervisor's. But here's the kicker. Instead of having me go back upstairs and do things the right way, the teller, with no authority at all, tells me to cross out where I signed my super's name and sign my own. So that's what I did and I walked out of the bank with the biggest stack of money I've ever seen.

Kind of makes me grateful for all of those annoying little security checks that they do at my bank at home before they let me make any changes on my account.