Money in the Bank

My bank used to be regional, now it's global. Not because their plan for world domination via hammers and burlap sacks worked, but because they got bought by another (big-ass) bank. I should have known that they were gonna be freaking me out by the way I found out about the takeover. You see, nobody actually told me (the customer) that this was going on. I just walked into the bank one day and there was a plain sign in the lobby more or less saying that old bank is now new bank, the management is totally stoked about this and they think you're really going to enjoy having their grubby hands fondling your money from now on.

Between that and the tiny signs posted everywhere that said, when you see "old bank's name" it really is "new bank's name" I was really kind of disoriented. I mean, how Orwellian is that? What you think you know isn't what you know at all because the truth is merely the perception of what we've been thinking all along. Other than that though everything stayed the same, so my nervousness didn't last too long. Until that fateful day.

I go to use the ATM the other day and it seems as though new bank has changed the program. "Gee" I think "This'll be fun!". Except it isn't fun, it's horrifying. They've anthropomorphized their fucking ATMs! Right off the bat it wants me to insert my card so "we" can begin. Who's we? It's me and an ATM machine for Christ's sake. Unless they've replaced the interior of the ATM with a midget who has access to the bank vault...THERE IS NO WE!

It was pretty much downhill after that. It kept saying things like, "Which transaction can I help you with.", and "Hold on, I'm working.". I couldn't get done with that transaction fast enough. I can understand why one would maybe want to do something like this with brand new technology (like dressing up a vacuum to look like a porn star) but everybody knows how ATMs work. I mean, I've been to a lot of ATMs in my day and I have yet to see a person looking at one with a mixture of fear and bewilderment and saying things like, "you mean that little box just gives you money?" or "That machine stole my soul!". And that's the part that creeps me out really. This dumb-shit bank just found a way to make one of the most ubiquitous machines in the world feel like some sort of 1960's space-age wonder box.

Fuckers.