Rants, raves & the occasional good comment

I’m generally quite a merry chap. It takes a lot for me to get worked up about stuff and I would say I’m generally in a good mood. A trip one fine Saturday morning would change all that (probably for life).

I get notification that my new credit card is ready for collection at NedWanks Eastgate. I think to myself well this should be a simple enough procedure. I’ll pop-in on Saturday morning and pick it up before I go and get a few other things that I need at the shops. I did do the pop-in, unfortunately the pop-out didn’t go my way.

I arrive at NedWanks quite early and I’m quite relieved to see that it’s not really busy. I go and wait in line and there are only 3 or 4 people in front of me. This immediately tricks the customer into some sort of false sense of hope. Besides for the people in the queue there are 2 people being served at the counter, one Chinese women and another bloke.

I would like the bank to have some sort of ranking system for customers. There are certain customers that are going to cause problems no matter what. The bank needs to weed out problem cases. The chinawoman was one such person. Besides for an obvious language barrier I don’t think she quite knew what she had come to the bank to achieve. This somewhat complicates matter. Another minor, very minor, little, tiny problem is that bank tellers who mans (or womans) these counters have the soul of inebriate and the imagination of a pot noodle. They didn’t know what the fuck was cutting. So between the 2 of them it was chaos.

Why I say there should be a ranking system is simply for a situation described above. If a “problem customer” does ever goto the bank they hold the entire queue for everybody else especially when there are only 2 tellers on duty. The one teller is occupied for hours with 1 problem customer. These “problem customers” should only be allowed to come in at non-peak hours to spare everybody else the trouble.

So now the queue is building up and the situation around me is getting rather critical. If there are any entrepreneurs out there I reckon you could make an absolute killing by setting up snack and beverage counters in banks by the queues. I don’t think I have ever encountered this many unhappy people in a single place, with the possible exception of WITS and even then as a percentage the bank still wins hand down. Every customer that came into the bank that day left extremely unhappy.

One such unhappy customer came into the bank for the sole purpose of finding the person at the bank he had spoken to on the phone because he wanted to hit them. (And yes I mean this quite literally) Apparently he had called the bank and they told him he was stupid. Let me tell you something, had this guy got hold of the bank employee I have no doubt he would have thrashed the moron to within an inch of his/her life. Although from this incident I did learn something – the reason they keep that bullet-proof 10inch thick glass between you and the teller is not necessarily in case of a robbery its more for their own protection. The tellers don’t have access to vast amounts of money in any case-that’s in the safe. I can only deduct that the glass is therefore for their protection.

When I enquired why there are only 2 tellers on an extremely busy Saturday morning I got a surprised look, as if the answer was so obvious, that “The otha werkas are going to have a lunch” Hmmm… Dreamin’!


Eventually I get to the front of the queue and I’m really fed up now, over 75 minutes have elapsed and all I need to do is collect an envelope with my card in it. I decide to try have some fun with the teller but it backfired so dramatically I will never try pull this type of shit again.

Teller: “Can I help you sir?”
Me: “I very much doubt that! Originally all I was here to do was to collect my credit but now I want to cancel this account”

When I looked back at the expression on the teller’s face I realised I had hit a brick wall. It would probably take the entire bank as on organisation working together, in unison, to actually manage to close an account – so I gave up.

Me: “Just give me the card so I can leave please”

The teller opens the drawer full of envelopes and it’s quite obvious to anybody on this planet that it’s ordered alphabetically. That anybody actually excludes any bank employee. She was fishing for this envelope for ages before eventually getting it for me. I started to question whether the Chinese lady earlier was actually at fault or whether it was all the bank’s screw-up – difficult to tell really (For any Big Lebowski fans I would like to include this quote “The Chinaman is not the issue here dude!”)

Wow I just realised this may be my longest rant ever and I’ve still got lots to tell so I’ll cut the rest of the story short. There is a pin attached to the new credit card that I wasn’t told about so it never got encoded for me. What this meant is that I couldn’t even use the card after all that and I had to return to the bank a few days later to encode this pin. A similar process repeated itself which I won’t go into.

Let’s tie up this story by simply stating that you should avoid all banks at all costs, because they certainly try avoid the customer at all costs. The conclusion is that now I’m a bitter, unstable person thanks to NedWanks.

Thank you for reading if you were bored (and sad) enough to make it this far!

**READ THE DISCLAIMER BEFORE CONTINUING

A happy camper?

I’ve done some fantastic things in this short life of mine; Challenges met, competitors bested and obstacles overcome. To name all of them would be impossible, but one of my proudest moments in life is making the decision to never go on camp. Any of my friends will tell you that I boast about it on a regular occasion.

Now maybe I’m a little f*ckin’ nuts (in fact we probably agree on that) but spending time on a campsite with a bunch of people that you mostly don’t know or like, sleeping on a steel bed, getting crap food, participating in compulsory activities, having limited free time and a curfew plus rolling around in your own filth is hardly likely to excite me. That fact that you pay for it on top of all these factors just boggles my mind.

We all know that most kids go camp because of peer-pressure or because their parents want to dump them somewhere for a while whilst they are on their overseas trip. To me, there was absolutely no logic on going on camp, ever! How could going on camp with all these rules ever compare to going on holiday to Cape Town (lets say) where you could run wild as you pleased?

Over the years I’ve heard a lot of so called pro’s to going on camp. The debate on which camp is the least religious is always a promising argument to try convince you to go. Also the camp that allocates the most ‘free’ time to its campers is always going to be popular. Let’s just stop and think about this for a second; why not just NOT go on camp and have 24 hours free time a day instead of 2?

Visitor’s day on camp has always struck me as comical. Parents can come visit their kids on a certain day. This usually results in them bringing them food for them because they haven’t been fed properly for weeks now. What usually happens is parents bring some type of fast-food such as McDonalds or Nandos. If it was any normal day of the year and a kid got offered McDonalds for a so called special meal there it no question he would throw himself around and give a big argument about it- but not on visitors day.
In recent times I’ve heard of camps banning visitors day because it makes the kids home-sick. To explain that the previous statement doesn’t exactly entice me to go on camp, I should hope, is unnecessary.

I’m going to propose a new type of camp and I would like your comments on whether it would be something you would like to attend as opposed to the more traditional camps. If I get some positive feedback I can forward on the ideas to the camp organisers.

The camp is for all people who dislike camp (quite ironically) and these are the rules:

The camp goes to Sun-City and the camp-site shall be the Vacation club.
Anybody that initiates a song after a meal or any group activities whatsoever will be shot on the spot.
There are no muddies.
Volleyball tournaments are strictly forbidden.
Please note to all campers, action is not guaranteed at all! If you not getting any outside of camp why do you think you will get any inside. If you’re a n00b, you can’t hide it just because you’re on camp, people will see straight through it.
Tochnits about who to give a heart to, an old man or a new born baby or any similar discussions shall not be tolerated.
If you keep kosher that is perfectly kewl, however unfortunately it’s your own problem.
6:30am prayer wake up is allowed but if any campers are woken up by you then you will be forced to move to a separate room. (or go home)
The head of the camp isn’t choosing rooms. You decide on your own rooms.
Girls and boys may stay together, infact it is encouraged. (If you decide to share a bed it will be appreciated that you are so considerate. All it means is that there is another spare bed free)
After hearing about the state of bathrooms on camp I had to put this one in here also.They will be Nazi like toilet inspections. Anybody doing anything wrong will be beaten with a big stick with a nail in the end of it.
Otherwise it’s a free for all. You just sign a form and you’re allowed to come and do as you please.



**If you are a sensitive person then don’t read this note. If you are strongly associated with a camping movement do not read this. If you liked camp do not read this. If you liked encounter, shabbatons or any variations thereof do not read this. If you were a muddy on a camp do not read this! I hope that excludes anybody that would take offense from the note. It is mainly for comedic purposes and I accept no responsibility for hurt feelings.