The Humble Farmer: Press ‘1’ to be connected with absolutely no one

What can you tell me about modern technology?

Chaplin was kicked out of the country and lived in Switzerland for years because people in power didn’t like what he had to say about modern times.

So it’s with an eye on my back that I’m telling you that today I’m going to go to a bank in town to get a number I need to fill out my late brother’s income tax for 2021. Let’s use my initials and call it “RKS Bank. I’m 86 and my lungs are shot because I live with a woodstove, so even walking to the mailbox is a big effort. When I walk in there today, I’m going to have to sit down for a few minutes to catch my breath before I can approach the window.

20 or 30 years ago I could have called my friends at RKS bank and asked them for the numbers. Before that, in the early 1970s, a branch loan officer was a good friend. I often had business relations with his wife, and his son was one of my favorite students. I always stopped to get $3,000 on my signature. Or pay it back. A large sum at the time.

I knew the employees of two or three branches well and they knew me. At the time, they knew all of their former clients who had paid their salaries for years and years.

But now when you call the number on the RKS bank website for your local branch, after several tries you get the main office in the metropolis. And you are usually unable to log in. Once I explained my connection problem to the operator, and she suggested that it might be easier for me to just show up in person. So here is a member of staff, obviously also at the mercy of a broken system, who understands the problem and is able to offer a practical solution.

You try again and again, however, and finally press “1” to leave a callback number. And after two days, no one called back.

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True. Some lonely seniors may call a bank, ostensibly for information, but really just to interact with another human voice, then buzz for five minutes. Bank staff aren’t the only ones receiving these annoying calls. We all have them and we dread them.

I don’t want to do this, but today I will go to the nearest branch, where I will visit my friends who work there and get a number so that I can complete the income tax of my brother for 2021.

I say “my friends” at the local RKS bank. They are all new people, so I don’t know them. But I knew both grandfathers of the woman who helped me there the other day. So I knew who she was and I could have told her stories if I hadn’t put a monetary value on her time.

It was so much easier 30 or 40 years ago when you could just call the person you wanted to talk to. In two minutes, one more chore was over. You haven’t done more work for the people at the bank by cluttering up their lobby, and you haven’t wasted half a day getting upset and driving to town.

I have always had a good relationship with RKS bank. So I was surprised that when I posted this observation on Facebook, the first comment to appear below was “RKS Bank sucks”.

I have to assume this person was talking about the advanced technology of RKS Bank and not the friendly people who work there.

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I don’t know how any merchant bank clerk should handle lonely souls calling just wanting to talk. But the system that RKS Bank uses now penalizes us all and certainly hurts its bottom line. The way my brother Jim handled it is not an option, but it can work for you in the privacy of your own home.

Jim had a good friend who would call and talk for an hour nonstop. Jim quickly learned to hang up the phone and get on with his chores. Half an hour later, when he picked it up and coughed, his friend was still talking. This earned my brother a reputation for being a good listener.

The Humble Farmer can be heard Friday nights at 7 p.m. on WHPW (97.3 FM) and visited at:
www.thehumblefarmer.com/
MainePrivateRadio.html


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