My adventures with an automatic cheque drop box

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.