Customer Confidentiality

One of the staff from the Wayside Tavern struts into the bank.
This person is often entrusted to carry a deposit to the bank and deposit it over the counter, and that is the full extent of their involvement with banking matters.
They are not a signatory or in any way authorised on any bank account belonging to the Wayside Tavern.

Upon fronting the counter this staff member enquires of the teller:

"Does my boss have any bank accounts that I don't know about?"

The teller gazes at their screen and taps some keys on their console.
"Yes, here's an account which you probably don't know about"

"I didn't know that particular account existed" says the staff member, looking at the screen, "I'd like to know what activity there has been on that account."

"There's actually a fair bit of activity" responds the teller, "in fact too much to tell you about.  The account also maintains a significant cash balance!"

The teller then prints statements for the year to date (nine months worth), and hands them over the counter.


***************

Clarification:  The major sin in this tale is by the bank.
The staff member's sin is most minor alongside that committed by the bank officer.

Did he really want the job?

An application for an executive level job progresses through the following stages:

• Emailed application from the applicant, including resume & cover letter.
• Return email & brief email exchange.
• A few telephone calls from Mine Host to applicant.
• Skype call.
• Face-to-face interview.

For an interview with a particular candidate, Mine Host travelled 1700km.  A not particularly long distance in the scheme of selecting key staff.

The candidate was bordering on 60 years of age. An ideal age for executive level applicants.

The candidate brought his sister into the interview.

Oh boy!

You want me to serve THAT?

This happens from time to time, happened again today:

 

Fresh bar staff on the payroll.

Is either new to bar work, or new to the sharp end of the bar trade.

 

Induction goes well, lots of enthusiasm, doesn't have to be told anything twice, actually understands why we do some things (as opposed to doing it "because the boss says so")

 

Then when presented with a real live blue collar customer, in a public bar, she spins around and barks indignantly:

 

"You want me to serve that....?"


 Crikey we lose some promising staff that way.

Union Air

Air France!
With a particularly unhappy dose of the flu, I boarded a flight that was to be of 15 hours duration.
My throat felt like razor blades.  I looked forward to a drink of water, which would have been a lifesaver!

It was 10 hours into the flight before a cabin crew came near to me, and grudgingly provided a drink of water.

I saw the cabin crew for the second time just before landing, when they distributed a "feedback on our cabin service" card, then whisked it away before I could fill it in.

Thus Air France will forever hold a special place on Mine Host's list of unhappy memories.

The only people to arrive rested were the cabin crew.  Their union is retarding that airline, & their national reputation (such as it may be, cough).

Bayonet Charge!

Overheard by one of the candidates during a presidential election debate:

"...we've... got less horses & bayonets nowdays..."   and:
"... submarines.... you know, those ships that go under the sea..."

There are many differences between the US Navy and ours (eg, the US Navy does not have a swimming test - if you can't do two laps of an olympic pool while fully clothed, it is no impediment to enlistment) however, if the informal rules on misuse of teminology are anything like the same, there are a whole lot of sailors right now seething that when they used the wrong word, they had to buy a 24-pack of beer for every man on the boat, while the clueless commander-in-chief gets off scot free!

And... is any reader with a source inside the US armed forces able to confirm the commander-in-chief's statement that bayonets are no longer issued at the ratio of one per grunt?

ABC hubris

Favourite moment of the ABC's tally room coverage of the recent Northern Territory election:

When it became clear that the ALP government had been voted out, a distraught Kerry O'Brien instructed (yep, instructed) a member of the new government, to not change any of the policies of the [defeated] ALP, because the voting pattern had indicated an affirmation of ALP policy.

You couldn't make it up!