Ebola and the bank
I had good reason to visit my bank on Monday afternoon. Someone had promised to bless me with a significant discount on quarter of a bale of baby clothes I had purposely been to Kantamanto to bargain for. I need them for the Orphanage project.
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So to my experience of the week. I was only hoping that being the beginning of a month, the banking hall wouldn’t be trafficked by humans. Thankfully, my desire was what I met. In a matter of five minutes, it was my turn to be served.
All the while I was in that short queue, I was lost in the literature of a medication someone had convinced me to accept whilst in town – a slimming pill.
Actually, I began reading the drug’s write-up in the car I had boarded to the bank, and simply decided to continue in the queue. The inlaid information seemed authentic, but the packaging was suspect. I doubt if I will patronise it.
With my concentration divided, I didn’t initially pay attention to the additional mandatory attire of the bank staff. But when I got to the counter, I noticed. All the staff had adorned their hands with cream latex gloves.
Truth be told, they looked like laboratory assistants who had been tasked to pick up certain undignified specimen from patients. My first reaction? A smile. My second? A contemplation.
I was shocked at what I was seeing. All because of Ebola? As the slender teller keyed in my details to get me my cash, all sorts of thoughts crept into my head: “if the bank was caring enough, and not biased, wouldn’t it have made provision for its clients to also wear such protective gear on their hands? Wouldn’t it have made available a pair each to clients at its main door?”
In that short while, my judgment really ran wild. Rage started to creep in. Agh, each of us, other than its staff had accessed the banking hall via the metal handles of the main door. Wasn’t that door’s handle an Ebola-bearing threat in itself?
The pens fixed on the writing counter made for clients, were these not sources of Ebola transmission? The serving counters on which clients rested their hands and in some cases, elbows, whilst waiting to be served, were they not likely transmitters of the virus? Was the bank therefore saying that we whose money it generated into other means of profit, did not matter? Huh, my Ga genes began to cling bells in my head.
All too soon, the lady handling my transaction smiled broadly, wiped her runny nose with her handkerchief which lay beside her counting machine, and said, “here you are madam. Have a blessed day.”
“A blessed day, I surely will have, my dear. But I will also need a pair of those to adorn my hands with. I need to cross-check my cash before departing your counter”. I said, not smiling, but pointing to her gloves. “Oh, madam. Erm … erm … am sorry, but we don’t have any for clients”, she said smiling and sniffing in her mucus.
“I beg your pardon!”, said I. Until I am given a pair, I am not leaving this counter. How sure can I be that those cheques, cash and other documentation of clients you already have attended to, haven’t passed on the virus onto your gloves? I cannot count this cash with my bare hands. I equally need a pair”. And my voice had at that time gone above the acceptable decibel. I was fuming from my ears, mouth and throat.
Agh, what sort of bias was that? How could staff only be protected, and not clients too? For me, it really was a big deal. As I argued out my point to the lady who had blown her nose twice before handing over to me the cash, some clients were freely moving to the other tellers to be served. Unconcerned! As for me, I knew my rights, and was not going to stoop on one leg at the expense of my nerves. I needed a balance there. Ei!
My stir caught the Floor Manager’s attention. Before long, he had brought me a new pair whose smell reminded me of the clinic where I delivered Naa Atswei. Thanking him, I took my time to pass each finger through the flattened latex, took the money from the Teller, counted it with difficulty (because the plastic didn’t allow quick movement), thanked her, and left the counter.
I felt various pairs of eyes at the banking hall watching me in awe. I’m sure they wondered who this “abide-by-the-rule” kind of person was. To be honest with you, I didn’t really feel like I had done well by creating such a scene at the banking hall which I frequented often. But the idea of staff/client dichotomy was what ate me up.
I wore my gloves till I walked out onto the car park and then slipped them off. I was now left with how to dispose of them, because I didn’t want to keep them in my handbag. Of course, in my case, just by handling the cash given by the flu infected teller, I was so sure my gloves had picked up the symptoms of what she was suffering from.
A new bin had been placed by a tree at the car park. In haste did I throw them in, nodding my head in amazement of how far the virus had brought the corporate world. Hmm, this scare!
