Banking and the Web

As you may (or may not know) I’ve worked at a bank for almost a year now. In this time, I’ve noticed something disheartening, at least to a person who is paid to stand behind the counter and play with money—

Due to internet banking, lobby traffic in banks has slowed down considerably.

This prompted me to tumbl this on July 5 2011:

Save a teller’s sanity; walk into the bank

I like to think I’m prettier than the ATM. Also, I rarely make any annoying beeping noises…

Though having only 3 customers in eight hours did increase my statement folding/envelope stuffing productivity to 6 ready-to-mail statements per minute.

(I digress, I apologize.)

Anyway, during my shift at UNCC as a clerical worker, I came across some paperwork from 1994. Those papers contained old student ID numbers. My supervisor assigned me the task of shredding all of the files because back in the 1990s the student ID numbers doubled as students’ social security numbers.

I asked my boss, out of curiosity, why the university would do anything so idiotic (but I worded my sentence inoffensively, as to not insult the institution I both work for and get an education from.)

She replied, “You just didn’t really have to worry about gettin’ your identity stolen back then. People carried their social security card in their wallets even. Also, it was easier–universities needed unique numbers to identify each student, and the social security numbers they had already provided that.”

I interpreted “back then” as back before electronic banking and the widespread use of credit cards, back before online shopping and e-commerce, back before the days of web 2.0.

That leaves me with a question: have technology and the web 2.0 made the world less safe?

A butterfly,

Ashley (Susie)

p.s. before anyone switches from credit/debit cards to checks or cash only, I want to warn that those aren’t entirely safe either.

Firstly your name, address, banking institution, routing number, account number and signature are on checks.

Secondly carrying large amounts of cash is unwise.

I suggest we return to the barter system. Unfortunately my only talent is baking pies, and the current pie-laptop exchange rate is approximately 1000 p/l.

(I suppose all the pies have to be Apple.)

The Road to Wisdom–Piet Hein

The road to wisdom?—Well, it’s plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.

Susie Homemaker, Reg, Mother…it’s all the same to me

I wrote about having a blog in the previous post so that I could explain adequately why I am called “Susie.”

So here is something I’ve written before on the subject:

11/30/11

I never realized how eccentric I was until my new roommates moved in.

I guess I should back up a bit and explain; I live with Charles, my ex-step brother, in a duplex. He was denied unemployment and still can’t find a job, so I pay his rent.

Rather, grandma secretly puts money in my bank account so I may pay his rent.

Well, he finally wised-up to this save-Charles’-man-card scheme of grandma’s. Thus, he decided to rent out his half of the duplex and live on the couch instead of being bailed out by two women.

Luckily our new roommates happen to be mutual friends of ours, so we get along well. This may be in part due to the “talkin’ to” Charles gave them on their first night, when I, predictably, was in my room writing a treatise on the political development of Canada (all this “evolution not revolution” nonsense pushed my 1000 word minimum to 10 pages.)

It went something like this:

Charles: “…and this is Ashley’s coffee cup. Do not touch her coffee cup…all the dishes should be done promptly and put away, except for the coffee cup, which stays on the counter to the left of the coffee pot… Make sure you unplug everything and keep lights off and stuff, Ashley’s kinda freaks out about that…she’s probably asleep right now, she always goes to bed at 9:00 but stays up ‘till 10 doing whatever…and you have to be really really quiet. She does not like noise. Do not make noise after 9.”

So I’m the crazy b**** who keeps everything clean and goes to bed early. They’ve taken to calling me Susie Homemaker. Or Mother.

 

 

The begining of another compilation of my insane ramblings

I’m not going to lie; I’ve blogged before. I’ve blogged a lot.

I’m not going to tell you what I blogged was anything interesting, I merely thought I should let you know that somewhere out there on the web is another compilation of my insane ramblings (and two of my closest friends’ thoughts as well).

The other blog is silly, really. We changed names to protect confidentiality—what good does that do when we described places and situations accurately? Our names of course, were made up on the spot, late at night after a choir concert (I am a nerd, I know).

So, I’m Reg, and I’ve kept a blog at The Daily Dust (yes, there’s a Tumblr too) for almost a year now.

(I feel like I’m at a Blogger’s Anonymous meeting. Want to be my support group?)

The other blog has gotten both more and less silly with time. Issues arose—friends moved away, I moved away, friends drifted apart, family disputes occurred, family died, and friends became tentatively engaged, and so on. In other words, life happened.

Part of the reason, I suppose, that I perceive the other blog as more silly is that my friends and I hide our identities. I shouldn’t be ashamed to claim my life, though I know I’ve said some cringe-worthy things in the past that I would love to erase.

Another reason could be my tendency on the other blog to exaggerate events, in order to make them less identifiable as actual events in our particular lives and also occasionally to help construe them in such ways that I could better present my own interpretation.

(The last sentence=sometimes I lied, but only a little.)

I can only hope that others too have said equally cringe-worthy things as well. Even though their words might not be permanently accessible to everyone with an internet connection, I can only hope that they (and perhaps you) could empathize with me.

I don’t mean to present this in such a way that cries for acceptance or attention. Being understood a little more than before will suffice.

A butterfly*,

Ashley (or Susie, whichever you prefer)

*as opposed to a Chinese philosopher.