I feel that my chosen professional life (in Marketing/Sales/Events, where there’s variety and expression) is a direct opposite of the Banking world. My prejudice of bankers were that they were strict, monotonous, and follows all the rules. Don’t get me wrong. I feel there’s a certain discipline that is followed by bankers. But heck, it definitely is not for me.

Today I spent almost 2 hours in 6 different banks were my patience was really tested. Here is a roll call on what irked me, and pleased me na din on the different banks.

• EPCI – Irked. They do not allow for non account holders to exchange foreign currencies. I just don’t get the logic on this one. I also don’t like the fact that their tellers were walking around in slippers(?!). As in the pambahay kind.
• BDO – Pleased. For once, BDO was pretty reasonable to me today although there was a pretty long line just to have money exchanged. After experiencing EPCI, I feel that BDO was pretty easy to deal w/. Not too strict on rules, which helps a lot. Their tellers just need to smile some more.
• EPCI – Irked. Most Definitely Irked. Went to another branch to deposit money and after 30 mins of waiting in line (ang laki laki ng banko,- pang 9 or 10 tellers, tapos 3 lang ang utilized, kaya haba haba ng pila), they told me that they don’t allow more than P50K interbranch deposit w/o a charge. I don’t get it. It had worse logic than my first concern w/ them. (Pwede pala ako pumila tapos deposit na lang uli ako, para it’s considered as another transaction. Weird!) They also don’t allow use of celphones inside the bank (which I never did understand).
• BPI – Pleased. Pretty fast, no worries, no pila, thank God. Efficient. I guess the best bank I transacted w/ today. Oh and very pleasant tellers. Maybe dahil walang nag aaway sa kanila sa bagal na pila.
• China Bank – Irked. Not naman slow, but super sungit ng teller. When it was my turn, I went to an empty teller (kakaalis lang ng isang client), sabihan ba naman ako, “hindi mo pa turn, bumalik ka sa pila, at hintayin mo na tawagin ka”. I transacted w/ another teller instead, kse mapapaaway lang ako.
• HSBC – More Pleased than Irked. super, dooper slow tellers although no pila. On a bright note, I like the look of the branch and they have pretty staff.

All I can say is, thank God my office is located along the bank row and that all the banks were walking distance to each other.

It rained pala kanina. Hard. I’m glad I was already inside HSBC (which is sa baba lang ng building namin) and not walking around the different banks.