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From: craig@gendep.info.com (Craig Dickson)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Last Laugh! A Phone Without the ( and ) Buttons
Message-ID: <8351@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 28 May 90 06:18:15 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 391, Message 12 of 12


This isn't strictly a telecom matter, but I was reminded of it by your
recent remark along the lines of, "If you want to know how stupid
people can be, try working on a telephone switchboard."

A friend of mine works for a bank here in California, in the
Electronic Fund Transfer (I think that's what they call it)
department.  If you think you get dummies on a switchboard, then you
have no idea what people will do with ATM's.

People feed ATM's all sorts of cards.  Drivers licenses, Social
Security cards, anything.  People damage their cards and try to tape
them back together.  One idiot even tried to feed a machine a card
that had been torn in half and then STAPLED back together.  (After the
repair bill the bank sent him, he probably will never do that again.)
Some people try to TALK to the machines.

But this is my all-time favorite of the weird-but-true anecdotes she
tells me:

A couple of weeks after San Francisco's davastating earthquake last
year, she got an irate call from a customer in that city, demanding to
know why his local ATM still wasn't working.  She asked what branch
that was, and he said, "The Marina branch."

After taking a few seconds to recover from her surprise, she said, as
calmly as possible, "Does the fact that the building is missing two
walls and the roof suggest anything to you?"