Anyways, I took the job because I was desparate. When applying to work for Bank of America, I had to go through training at one of their training facilities. Afterwards I would be placed at a branch where they needed me. I got to choose a general area where I wanted to work(like which county), but I didn't really get to choose which branch I would be working. Well I ended up at the Huntington Beach branch. This branch was moderately far from where I lived...a good 30-40 minutes. I wasn't sure how long I would be working there. Driving an hour plus(there and back) for a job that pays $7.75/hour was not ideal for me.

My first day working there was interesting. It was also the first day for this other girl named Buffy. We were each given our COW(Cash on Wheels) which was the money truck that each teller gets. Our manager told us to count all of the money that was in the COW to make sure that it matched the amount that was specified for each truck. Well while I was counting I came across the bait money which was at the bottom of my drawer. This is a small stack of bills, containing a magnetic strip, that we are supposed to give to a robber in the event we are robbed. When this magnetic strip is lifted off the bottom of the drawer it alerts the police and also serves as a tracking device. Well the thing was that I didn't know what this bait money(that we heard about in training) looked like. So I picked it up and waved it to my manager asking her, "What's this?!?" Let me tell you, she freaked out! She came running over to me yelling, "NO!! Don't touch that!" She gave me a slap on the wrist and told me never to touch that...unless we were robbed. She had to call the poloce department to tell them it was a false alarm. The look on her face was priceless. :) Well, I hope Bank of America doesn't freak out over me talking about this. When I went through training, they said that we are not to tell anyone about the bait money...but I don't work for them anymore so who cares. People who are stupid enough to attempt to rob a bank aren't smart enough to know how to use the Web anyways. But hey, if you are planning to rob a bank and are reading this site, don't bother...you will get caught. Banks don't need the bait money to catch you.

Speaking of bank robbery, that was one of the first things I wanted to know about when I started working there. I asked one of my coworkers if our branch had ever experienced an armed robbery. She told me that in the three years that she had worked there, there hadn't been a single incident until the last two months. She said that the bank was robbed once the previous month and once the month before. That did not go well with me. Just another reason for me to not want to work there very long. Fortunately, while I was working there, there weren't any robberies.

Well, when I started working there, I found out through a coworker that about 70 percent of our customers were elderly people. I was all, "Cool. Old people are nice." She reponded by telling me that I will see elderly people in a whole new light after working there. She was right! The old people were mean. I'd say about 90 percent of the elderly people who came in were pains in the ass. When I would ask them if they had their ATM card with them, they would snap back, "What the hell do I need an ATM card for?!?" They also got pissed off because they had to wait in line, so by the time they got up to our window, they would throw fits. They would also get pissed off when you asked for their ID when they would cash their social security checks. One time an elderly man came in and wanted to cash his check. When I asked for ID, he yelled at me, "What the hell do you need my ID for?!? I've been a customer of this bank for 30 years!!" I replied to him, "Well, I am new here. Do you recognize me?" When he said, "No, I don't recognize you", I replied back at him, "Well then how do you expect me to recognize you? Now, I will need your ID if you need to cash this check." After that, everytime he came up to my window, he had his check and ID out. I showed him. :D Sometimes things got so bad, that when I was helping a customer, and I noticed there was an elderly person next in line, I would delay so I wouldn't have to take the next customer. I would sit there and count out the money real slow or I would pretend I dropped my pen so I'd have to bend down to pick it up. Funny thing is that I started noticing that I was not the only person doing this. :)

Working at a bank can be stressful at times...especially when you know that anyone of the people in line can potentially be a robber or a person out to rip off the bank. I once had a customer(hispanic/latino) person come in with a $9,000 check which he wanted to cash. Something was wrong with this picture. I wasn't suspicious because of his ethnicity, but because of the way he was dressed. I would have been suspicious of anybody coming in with a $9,000 check looking the way he looked. When we checked his account to verify that he had funds to cover the check in the event that it was a bad check, there was exectly $9,000 in his account. Something had to be up...well I took the check to my manager and after several minutes of looking at the check and checking his account, my manager approved it. So I gave him his $9,000 in cash and off he went. Well a week later, my manager told me that the police wanted me to come down to the station and ID the guy. He supposedly was a middle man in some fraudulent bank activities that had gone bad. Well, I picked the guy out and that was the end of that. And I thought that kinda stuff only happened in the movies.

One of the weird things about working there was dealing with all of the money. One time this lady, dressed in a business suit and sunglasses, came up to my window with a stack of checks(about 50-100 checks) to deposit. When I looked at the deposit, it was for something like $190,000. My eyes got real big. Considering the average deposit I had done up until then was about $500, this was like the California Lottery. Turned out that she was from some law firm and she was a regular customer, who came in with a similar sized deposit once a week. Damn lawyers! One time I was asked by my manager if I would help the armored truck driver, who was transferring some money to our vault. Well when we were in the vault, he asked me to hold a stack of money which was wrapped in clear plastic. It was so damn heavy. I asked him how much money I was holding in my arms...he told me $200,000. I almost had a heart attack. I've never come close to holding that much money in my life. I wondered for a split second what would have happened if I were to bust out the door with the stack of money in my hands. I probably would have been shot dead. :)

The vault was very interesting. Before working there I had no idea what the vault really looked like. Bank vaults in the movies(like A Fish Called Wanda and The Real McCoy) are just full of drawers filled with stacks of money and jewels everywhere. Not our bank! Our vault had a single cabinet(very flimsy metal door) with a lock that I could have picked with a paperclip. And the majority of the bank's money was kept in this cheap ass cabinet. I couldn't believe it. Who would have thought.

Well, I ended up working there for six months before I landed a job in the Web Support department at EarthLink Network. I was glad to be finally leaving, but I really enjoyed working with with the people(Janet, Jennifer, Buffy, Carol, and the rest). Shortly after I left, Bank of America closed down that branch...so if I would have stayed a little longer, I might have been out of a job...hahaha.