Banking Could Be Better

     Today while at the bank I was once again frustrated by having to talk to the teller through a wall of glass.  The tellers have microphones, but they don't seem to use them much, and when they do they often fail to speak from an appropriate distance into the mike.  I have to ask them to repeat information, which adds to the slow line problem--always lines for doing banking errands.  I really don't understand the need for the glass, since Hong Kong generally has a very low crime rate and guns are illegal for ordinary citizens.  

     Today I was acutely aware of this customer NOT first situation.  Here are the tellers secured unnecessarily behind glass, yet the the real security risk seemed to be mine.  The teller windows are so close together that it would have been fairly easy for the customer standing at the next window to view my account numbers that I'd handwritten and handed to the teller, as well as hear my through-the-glass-wall, raised-voice conversation, as he's lolling at his window waiting for his teller to return from an interminable backroom errand. 

     Certainly there are services in the U.S. that could be better.  But overall I think that Americans' expectation for prompt, respectful and skilled service has driven business competition and improvements that make our country's customer experience generally quite a bit better than average, relative to the rest of the world.  

     Hopefully I won't be eating my words after I return to MN next week and re-start life on the home front.  I guess I'm getting ready to leave, as evidenced by my dwelling on something that I don't like.  Overall, I have very few negative things to say about the last few months of living here.