January 9 – “Uh oh”

I spent some time at the bank yesterday.  I didn’t intend to spend as much time as I did, but I knew I could be in for trouble when the teller told me right up front that she was about to leave.  Not a good sign when they are in a hurry.  And then I presented her with my first request.  We had some savings bonds that were no longer accruing interest, so we wanted to cash them in and move them into our saving account.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Well I also had a check to deposit, and we wanted some in checking and some in savings.  Again, sounds very simple.  Well, for yesterday, right at my teller’s anticipated departure time … not so much.

First she needed the code for cashing the bonds.  That one she had no idea about, so she disappeared to find out from a supervisor.  That accomplished, she waded into the process, and eventually counted out the money.  As she finished recounting out loud to me the final penny involved, a strange look came across her face.  She looked from the pile of money up at my smiling face and said, not so much to me as to herself, “Oh, wait.  You said you were depositing this into another account.  I didn’t have to count out the money at all, did I?”  I almost answered her, but thought better of it.  Any distraction might cause her to lose focus.  Undaunted, she moved into the second part of the process, entering the deposit information.  All of the data entry went fine, but when she pushed that final “enter” button, something obviously came up wrong.  Her brow furrowed and a frown appeared.  And she uttered that most dreaded of words, “Uh oh,” followed by the equally frightening, “Let me get some help here.”

This time the supervisor tried her hand, starting from scratch with whole thing.  After deleting all of the previous work the teller had done, she assured us that she knew how to do it “a different way.”  Red flag number two.  Sure enough she got down to the final “enter” and was rejected.  Seems the computer did not like that we wanted to split up the deposit into more than one account.  Confused it, I guess.  That only made the supervisor more determined, however.  She again deleted all the data and moved over to her own computer station.  The teller, obviously relieved to be out of that loop, set about tallying up her till so she could get out there.

The answer to the whole dilemma proved to be quite easy, after all was said and done.  The bonds had already been cashed in.  She simply cashed the check.  Convinced that the transaction was now an all-cash one, the computer was happy to oblige any and all commands it received.  We just had to discover what language the silly thing wanted to talk in.  Great communication principle, there.  It’s not enough just to say what you want to say and assume the message has been delivered.  First you have to connect.  Take the time to know enough about the other person to “understand his language.”  Then make sure you have his attention.  Then speak his dialect.  It will do wonders for a relationship. 

OK.  Marriage Counseling 101 lesson done for the day. 

John 8:47 says, “He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

Father, thank you for becoming a man so we could understand how to connect with you.  I’m listening.  Help me to be a connector like you.  Amen.