Photo by Floriane Vita on Unsplash
I remember back in the eighties when working for a bank was a career one would share with pride at dinner parties. There was a certain respect and coolness associated with the suit and the briefcase.
Nowadays the briefcase and the banker’s reputation have shrunk tremendously. The smartphone has turned a banker into a 24/7 cog in the wheel of shareholders.
Because it’s important not to dehumanize an entire industry I decided to pay our new bank director a visit. The previous one had been our family contact for almost 40 years. He signed off our first mortgage, gave us a loan for our first company and saw our bank account grow. This new one is rather disappointed with our current life without loans and only modest transactions.
Because nobody answers the phone at the bank, there is no way to make an appointment so I decided to just drop by.
Hola, buenos días, tiene un momentitor? (Good morning, do you have a moment?)
Thankfully some things never change and Andalucian customs still allow for improvisation and unexpected visits. I took a seat and introduced myself. Of course he had no idea who I was out of the 7000 private and 3000 business clients he later told me he had to answer to.
I briefly told him our bank relation history (not many non-Spanish residents have been around for 40 years like us). He looked tired, worn out, trying his best to pretend to care.
I told him about our new life, that we were 5 mins up the road on a beautiful spot in the country. Spaniards all have a great respect for the campo. A notion most of them grew up with and have endearing memories of visiting grandparents and picking tomatoes from their yard.
Es el sueño de todos (It’s everybody’s dream) he said, as he looked at the pictures on our business card. His face relaxed and his eyes started to shine. I told him that we were experimenting with this new life, that we loved waking up in the morning and look forward to the day ahead. That we aspire to living an energy neutral life not only in relation to natural energies but also personal choices, how we spend our time and energy. In other words, we were going to be very uninteresting clients.
I watched the bank manager turn into a person. A person who then went on to say that the world of banks could never be what it was as long as the interests were so low and the shareholders aspirations so high. That they were dealing with an avalanche of work every day as they were half the staff dealing with double the clients. Was that desperation in his eyes? A desire to go back to la tierra tomorrow?
If only ... if only ...
Driving home I imagined all the bank employees stressing through their day, never having the time to get it quite right, seldom getting complimented for a job well done.
I strongly believe in the butterfly effect, what would happen if we all went to have a conversation with someone at the bank? Share a personal story and show the face that belongs to the bank account whilst you meet the face behind the logo.
Last week the cue for the only bank that still deals with cash deposits, led out onto the pavement. I was attended by one of the cashiers who spent the last 25 years of his life in that building. He told me he was leaving at the end of the month. The bank offered him a copper handshake that he had decided to accept.
Las cosas están cambiando mucho. (Things are changing a lot)
My initial frustration of having to wait for 20 minutes to pay €12 dissolved as I realised the systems are crumbling and this affects us all in different ways. I thanked him for his service over the years.
In all honesty, it hadn’t been great but sometimes the truth is not what is needed most.