The Adventures of a Small Businessman in the Forbidden Zone
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Eventually he made it across the room and slumped against one of the machines. He managed to get his card into the slot and actually remember and key in his PIN number, luckily without any help from Darren. So far so good. Both arms were supporting his weight by leaning against the machine as he waited for his card and the money. The money arrived but he couldn’t take it. His arms had been superglued to the sides of the screen and he could not move them.
His frustration turned to rage when the machine sucked the cash back in because he hadn’t taken it in the required twenty seconds – a standard security feature. Hey come on, if the customers can forget a box of rabbits you have to admit it is not inconceivable that they might forget the money they just asked for either. I’m pretty sure that it’s down to the lead water pipes but I remain open to other explanations.
The poor drunk tried everything to get free – trying to throw himself towards the wall, contorting his body in directions only a drunk would think might be helpful. At one point he was so twisted up he was strangling himself. Eventually, like Harold Houdini escaping from handcuffs and restraints, he managed to actually climb out of the jacket and ended up sat on the floor breathing heavily. He stood up and aimed a vicious kick at the machine, missed and ended up sat on his bum again. He left on his hands and knees, covered in sweat. No card, no money, no coat. God it was funny to watch. Wish it had been in colour instead of black and white.
Back when McFier had been really driving me to distraction, our branch had received a visit from a personnel officer with Regional Control. He was in charge of staff levels and transfers and interviewed everybody because Head Office had become so concerned at the hours we were working. Which roughly translated means they had become most unhappy about the overtime they were having to pay for.
Anyway I told this guy that I would like a move to the Northwest so that I could be closer to my family and friends. “ The bank is your family,” the smarmy bastard told me. “Do we run any orphanages that I could transfer to,” I asked him. I don’t think it went down well.
Three years later I received a notification that I was being transferred to Manchester branch, perfectly placed for where I wanted to be. Happy? You bet I was. My house went up for sale the same day. Then the boot came in. I received a memo saying that as I had requested the move (back in the eons of time) the bank would not fund the removal expenses. I was not a happy camper. I accepted the move and immediately started applying for other jobs. Unfortunately Northern England was trying to get over the effects of the miners strike. Job opportunities were thin on the ground.
Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the new branch to discover I really, really liked it. All the staff here were friendly and nice. They and the manager went out of their way to welcome me and help me fit in. Even the customers were good fun. A couple of nightclub owners banked with us and anytime the staff decided to have a night on the town (pretty much every weekend) we would be treated royally – no queuing to get in, best seats in the house.
Even though he was a fully paid up member of The Lodge, the new boss was a great bloke. I had been there for a couple of months when he called me into his office for a chat.
“Fancy a drink,” he asked.
“Is the Pope a Catholic,” I replied. He poured both of us a generous shot of Famous Grouse.
“So how is it going then?”
“Fine. I `m very happy here. Everybody has been great with me.”
“Yes. Nice people round here,” he agreed. “ You know I wasn’t looking forward to having you here when I first read your file. Who on earth have you upset? You are nothing like the person described in your file.”
He read out a couple of excerpts for me. I would have sued if he had given me a copy.
I told him that I had been applying for other jobs because I was so unhappy at how I had been treated, but he urged me to reconsider. “Don’t let the bastards grind you down,” he advised me. “ You have just been unlucky with some of the people you’ve worked under. Give it a chance and see what happens.”
So I gave it another chance and settled happily into life in Manchester.
For the first time in six years I no longer suffered from the dreaded PMT on Sunday evenings and thoroughly enjoyed my time at work. The boss was disgusted at the refusal of Head Office to fund my removal expenses and made sure that I was given every opportunity to earn extra money from travel expenses for relief work at other branches and bad debt visits. As I said, I found him to be a very decent bloke.
Having said that, it was while I was working here that I got arrested. There was a clever fraud being conducted that it took the police and us ages to catch on to. Customers would come in to complain that they had tried to withdraw cash from the hole-in –the-wall machine but the money didn’t come out. Later when we checked the computer records they showed that the money had been taken. We were baffled as to what was going on. Head Office insisted that the system was foolproof, the customers insisted that they didn’t get the money and we were piggy in the middle taking all the flak.
The only clue we noticed was the pattern. Always it happened on Thursday or Friday lunchtime, when there was a big queue for the cash machine and customers were drawing out large amounts for the weekend.
We contacted the police and they told us about a scam they had heard of which could well be our problem. Very clever is this. It involves two crooks in the queue either side of the intended victim. The first crook pretends to use the machine but in fact he is actually sticking a piece of black card over the hole where the money comes out.
Then he stands to one side and allows the genuine customer to order cash. The cash can’t come out because it is blocked by the piece of card, which cannot be seen by anybody over three feet tall. Then crook number one tells the victim that his money didn’t come out either and suggests that they both go inside to complain. This allows crook number two to remove the card, take the money and saunter off to pick out another victim. Told you it was clever.
The police promised to put some plain clothes officers in the area to keep an eye on things and hopefully catch the crooks red handed.