This story takes place around 2004, in a pretty big town not far from the regional capital city. At that time, if you were a very good customer, you had quite a personal relationship with the bank director, so I called him one day to let him know I would drop by the next day in the early morning to discuss the state of my business.

The next morning, I pushed open the door to take a seat in the waiting area right in front of the director’s office. From there, I could cant my head and see through the glass door that the director wasn’t in yet, so I just relaxed and started playing with my phone.

I am definitely not the most patient person in the world, so when the door finally opened, I was relieved, but it was not the director, nor was it any bank clerk. It was someone from the cleaning crew.

Cleaner: “Please get out immediately! The bank is closed!”

Me: “It’s not closed. I just pushed the door open.”

The guy looked quite uncomfortable for a moment, and then he confessed that he had forgotten to lock the door after mopping the floors! And he asked me to get out and not say a word about it.

I complied, and when the director arrived a bit later and made a good show of pulling out the keys to open the door, I told him I was glad he was there because I had forgotten my phone on the chair five minutes earlier.

The look on his face was priceless.

I work as a teller in the drive-thru of a credit union. Our pneumatic tube is broken, and we’ve been waiting for some time to get it fixed. We still have a drive-up window where people can be served, though. We have two signs saying the tube is closed: one before drivers choose between the two lanes and one on the tube itself. Most of our members have been very nice about the situation, even when they’ve had to drive around the building because they missed the first sign. Then, there is this woman.

She drives up to the tube. When she reads the sign, she doesn’t drive around the building. Instead, she gets out of the car and begins to walk across to the window. Her car is now blocking the one lane, which also is used as an exit for people coming from the parking lot. (I know it’s a stupid design, but it’s what we have to deal with.)

She’s walking through the other lane, which is also shared with the ATM, where there is another car almost ready to drive off. It is dark out and she is wearing dark clothes. I quickly hop on the intercom.

Me: “Ma’am, for your safety, please drive around.”

The woman angrily gets back into her car and drives off. The car at the ATM pulls off, and a couple of minutes later, the woman pulls up to the window.

Customer: “You’re going to give me a stroke making me pull around!”

Me: *In my head, while biting my tongue* “If that’s going to give you a stroke, you’d better go see your doctor.”

Don’t we all wish we could say what’s in our heads without consequences?

I started a new job as a banker about a month ago. Both my manager and the other banker, who is training me, end up out on unexpected medical leave for unrelated reasons within ten days of each other. I then get slammed with a bunch of stuff that I’ve not yet been trained on.

Thankfully, the bank I work for has a support line that branch staff can call for help. I call it multiple times. I get the same representative every time. After the fifth call, which requires a long explanation…

Representative: “…but it depends on your branch, really. I’d ask your manager to see how she wants it processed. You’ve called quite a bit today. Is your manager out?”

Me: “Yep.”

Representative: “Ah. Maybe you can hold the paperwork until she gets back.”

Me: “She’s on medical, so we’re not really sure when that will be.”

Representative: “Do you have a second banker to ask?”

Me: “She’s on medical, too.”

Representative: “So, there are no other bankers at all?”

Me: “Correct. Just me and our tellers.”

Representative: “Hmm. How long have you been a banker?”

Me: “About a month.”

Representative: “Oh, honey. Talk about getting thrown in the deep end. Please call us any time!”

Me: “That’s sweet, but I’ve already bothered y’all enough today!”

Representative: “Now, I mean it. You call us as much as you need to! What branch are you at?”

After that, every time I called, every representative greeted me with a cheerful, “Hello, [My Name] from [Branch]!” They even walked me through several tricky processes, step by step! They were lifesavers during the two weeks when I was working by myself. I don’t work there anymore, but I’ll never forget how kind those representatives were. If you’re reading this, thanks, ladies!

Caller: “I need to complain! My PIN has 666 in it!”

Me: “Ma’am! Please stop there! Never reveal any part of your PIN to anyone, even a bank employee!”

Caller: “I didn’t tell you my whole PIN.”

Me: “It’s a four-digit code, ma’am. By revealing three numbers, you make it very easy for someone else to guess your PIN.”

Caller: “Well, I didn’t tell you the godly part, just the devilish bit. You need to change my PIN!”

Me: “Ma’am, we would have had to change your PIN anyway based on this conversation.”

Caller: “Well… good. But if I see any devil in my new PIN, I’ll be complaining!”

I used to work as an attendant for the largest gas station company in my country. At the time, I’d been working there for about two and a half years. The job itself was actually really enjoyable and I loved my time there. Currently, I am working at the same company as a recruiter, and whenever I am offered shifts as an attendant, I always accept them.

I was finishing up one of my last shifts as an attendant, cleaning the oven, doing the dishes, mopping the floor, etc., when a Russian-speaking man came in and wanted to fill up his truck. I tried my best to tell him, in my broken Russian, that we are a fill-first-pay-after-type of gas station. And with the help of a regular customer, we managed to get the point across.

He then went and filled up his truck, the total was about 350L (approximately 92,5 gallons). It was an hour until the end of my shift when he came in to pay. After he entered the PIN for his debit card, the terminal gave an error. After two more unsuccessful tries, I decided to contact our in-house IT team.

It turned out that his bank did not have a contract with our service provider; hence, he couldn’t pay with his card. All that time, the regular stayed there and helped me as a translator.

By that point, I was all out of ideas. I had the regular tell him to wait for a bit until I could get a hold of my station manager. Unfortunately, she didn’t answer the phone, so I decided to call the regional manager.

Regional Manager: “Call the Head of External Partnerships; he has more experience in dealing with foreign banks.”

Unfortunately, that was a dead end because he hadn’t even heard of the customer’s bank. So, off I went, calling the regional manager once again.

Meanwhile, the truck driver had called the owner of his company and told him about the whole ordeal. The owner requested to speak to me. Thankfully, he spoke a bit of English.

Company Owner: “Is there a way for you to bill us and have the charge paid via a bank transfer?”

That lit a bulb in my head. We have a debt certificate form we can fill out, which basically says that the customer agrees to the charge and agrees to pay it by a certain date.

As I was finishing up filling the forms, my station manager called me back, and after I explained the whole story, she told me to call the head of security at our company. He, on the other hand, said:

Head Of Security: “The debt certificate is a bad idea since the company and the driver are from Poland; if they decide to not pay, it would be too expensive to seek legal action. Why didn’t you just tell him to use a nearby ATM to retrieve cash from his card?”

I literally facepalmed in front of the customer. How had I missed the simplest solution to the problem at hand?

I had the regular tell the truck driver to follow me, and I drove him to the ATM. The driver successfully retrieved cash. While driving back, we chatted a bit — as much as I could, at least. He boasted to me how his boss had wired him so much money for the trip that he could buy three cars just like mine with it. He also told me that the first thing he’d do when he got back to Poland was go to his bank and make them sign a deal with our company’s provider.

When we made it back, the regular left, the truck driver paid for his fuel, and all was well.

I gave both the regular customer and the truck driver a free coffee and a pastry of their choice for the inconvenience. In the end, I had spent almost three hours and made a dozen or so phone calls to help the customer. Thankfully, the truck driver was understanding the whole time and didn’t make a fuss about the whole ordeal.

But I learned a lesson: always try the easiest solutions first.