This happened with me yesterday.
I told one of my employees to go to SBI and deposit a cheque.
The employee went to SBI, came back to shop and gave me back the cheque.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Madam-ji in bank said she will not deposit cheque,” the
employee replied.
“Is it just my cheque or SBI has started refusing cheques
altogether,” I enquired.
“Madam-ji told me to deposit the cheque in some machine,”
the employee told me. I surmised the reason my beloved employee had came back
with the cheque was because he didn’t know how automatic drop boxes worked.
I sighed and took the cheque to the SBI branch. The
automatic drop box I discovered in bank was just like any other PSU bank machine.
There was a long list of do’s and don’t’s displayed in front of the machine. I
perused the instructions. I found my cheque well behaved to be thrown into the
drop box and submitted it into the mouth of the automatic drop box.
Some whirring noise came from the machine. Then the machine
swallowed my cheque. Then there was some more whirring. I patiently waited for
the xerox of my cheque to come out. Then the whirring stopped. I waited for
some time for my cheque’s xerox but the machine stood silent like a yogi doing savasana.
Savasana as per google means the corpse state. It took me
some time to realize the reason the machine was silent because it had reached
the corpse state i.e. the machine had jammed while my cheque was inside the
machine.
I went to customer service desk and explained my plight to
one of the employees. The good employee came with me to the automatic drop box.
He checked whether I was telling the truth or playing April fool prank on him
in November.
The employee found the machine in corpse like state as I had
left it. I asked the employee can he unjam the machine. The employee shook his
head. I wanted to ask the good employee can I hit the machine. This technique
usually worked on black and white tv sets. May be this machine was from the
same era and only worked when its masochist cravings were satisfied.
The good employee took me back to the customer service desk.
He called someone on the intercom who I believe worked in the bank’s unjamming
department. The good employee explained the situation to Mr. Unjammer and Mr.
Unjammer replied he was currently too busy unjamming some other machines in the
bank.
I asked the customer service guy what must I do now. The
customer service guy asked the same question to Mr. Unjammer. Mr. Unjammer informed
me in case I deposited my cheque’s deposit slip in branch’s non-automatic drop
box i.e. regular drop box then at the end of the day Mr. Unjammer will match my
cheque with the deposit slip and money will come into my account.
I am
writing this blogpost to suggest SBI’s management that they must appoint at
least two personnel per branch in the unjamming department. This will ensure
any machine doing savasana can be repaired quickly. However, in case SBI’s top
management finds my suggestion ludicrous then I request them to regularly
service their machines so that the machines don’t stop working when customers
are using them.
To sum up
SBI is the best bank in India in wasting its customers’
time.
