Illness

Working with so much money, I've learned to despise the paper form of currency. Money is dirty, fragile, easy to loose, and it can spread all sorts of ills (I've been informed that if one handles cocaine, then money, the next people who touch the money may fail a drug test!). One of my coworkers said that the tellers and the first to get all of the sicknesses going around. So naturally something has been going around and the tellers are dropping like flies. The branch has been very un-busy this week-- perhaps to do with the new onslaught of fires are the loads of ash in the air, and possible also because some head cold is going around. I always subconsciously tied sickness to icky, cold weather, however the weather has remained stubbornly beautiful (although now it gets fairly cold at night).

The ash-- how quickly I forgot how awful it is. Since we leave our windows open, our floor quickly turned colors. Charles took it upon himself to clean the floor, and after mopping if three times gave up. So when everyone started sneezing, I figured it had something to do with the ash. But when the sneezing didn't stop and only got worse, I had to succumb to defeat and focus on getting better.

Which means that I missed Halloween weekend (woohoo!). My coworkers warned me about it-- police come in from surrounding counties and the State troupers are called in for crowd control. Over 30,000 come to Isla Vista (IV) to party on Halloween (which is a week long celebration here). Parking becomes a nightmare, and the only way to get a spot is to just not leave. The frat next door was selling parking spots for the evening for $60 a piece. The rodes are closed and the only ones allowed into IV are those whose license states an address in IV. So Charles and I stayed in and tried to sleep through the noise of yelling and parties and loud music. It is strongly my opinion that Halloween is a holiday for children and watching scary movies while handing out candy-- not the drunken spectacle it has become here.

So I will celebrate Halloween in my own way-- were having a costume contest at work and I plan on winning dressed as a pirate. Hopefully I'll be well by Wednesday.

I'm Going Back!

As rewarding as giving angry customers their own money may be, I have decided that I will go back to school next year. Forget finances, in the end we all have to do what makes us happy. Going with Charles to a few of his classes reminded me how much I miss school, and that my dream job as a college instructor requires at least a masters. So, no more wasting time-- I want to get back in the swing of things before I start forgetting what I've already leaned. So Charles talked with the Graduate adviser and explained our unique situation, and it sounds like they'll make special consideration for me, even though they might not be able to fund me. So I'm going to talk with her today and then start getting together my application. I never thought I'd be so excited about going back-- but this is what I really want to do.

So, back at the branch-- Alan, our merchant teller is on vacation this week, so they have chosen me as his temporary replacement. It's about time I've received some recognition-- however being merchant is very different. Businesses send one of their lackeys to the bank with way too much money which I end up having to organize and count. And being organized myself is was quite a challenge keeping my money neat-- let alone fit is all in the drawer. Then they all wanted to make change. I'd like twenty five dollars in pennies. You wouldn't believe how heavy coins can get! So throughout the day I was frequenting the vault with my little rolling cart (even the guys can't carry that amount of change) and loading up. See, if I get 500 in quarters, 500 in dimes, 200 in nickels, and 50 in pennies, that might make me to lunch! By the end of the day, counting out all of my money was quite a chore-- it took me an hour to get it right-- it was a little over $100,000 in my possession. I could take this and buy a house! Well, maybe not in California, but at least a nice car... Of course I'm sure bank robbery doesn't look nice on one's resume. So I stuffed as much money as I could in a little bag and sent it away-- only to start again the next day.

Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue

This Monday is Columbus day, which in short means that I get the day off. One of my customers was impressed a young person would know what year Colombus sailed to the Amercias, and gave me a Wall Street Journal so everyone would see that I was smart. I still work every other day of the week-- but I also get paid for Monday, and since I'll go over the 40 hour mark I'll get overtime. Since school has started-- we've been a little short staffed, meaning I get more hours.

Christine, the teller supervisor, has transfered to another branch. And our assistant manager has been on vacation. That means of our four usual supervisors, only two were working. So for the week we've been understaffed, and James, the manager, swamped with work. Plus, the regional manager came for multiple visits since our customer satisfaction scores are down to ream us out. Oh, and since all the students are back, we've been crazy busy. Also, this week was spirit week. The regional manager was very disappointed to see that a few employes didn't wear red on Tuesday, so we were instructed that we absolutely had to wear Hawaiian casual on Friday by pain of death. Everyone received several memos about it, and every employee was called and reminded to wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans. And James brought in back up leis to complete everyones look.

The whole Hawaiian thing confused the customers. They thought we were getting a jump start on Halloween-- we also brought out the good candy. I got many compliments on my 'costume'. At least Holly-- the regional manager-- was happy that we were 'spirited' and all dressed up. Although I'm sure the confusion with the costumers won't help our customer satisfaction scores. We were just glad we got to wear jeans and sneakers.

So after that long week I'm glad to get a long weekend. I might crash some of Charles classes on Monday, or go shopping.