Another Threat

[rowyn]

Today one of my co-workers, Kermit, was teaching me how to do his job. I'm supposed to take over for him so he can retire. He's only part time now. I've gotten too good at my own job, so it doesn't take me very long to do anymore, and accordingly they had to give me a new job. I've already been contemplating ways to make his job less burdensome. So in six months, maybe I'll be doing his job and my own too efficiently and they'll have to find yet another thing for me to do. It's like a vicious cycle. *sigh*

At least they won't give make me a loan officer, like Dale. While Kermit was teaching me, we heard Dale tell a man, loudly, several times, "Get out of this bank." I've worked with Dale for some years now, and in my experience there's only one thing that makes him raise his voice: a threat. I found out later that the guy had said he was going to hire someone to break Dale's legs. When Dale said, "Don't threaten me," he replied, "That's a threat."

That's when Dale told him to get out.

I'm so glad I'm not a loan officer. Some days I really think I need to get into another line of work.

Comments

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Ouch. Good for Dale; hopefully security cameras are running.

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[rowyn]

The security cameras are of little, if any value, in this circumstance, I'm afraid. The cameras are focused on the tellers and approaches to the vaults. While Dale and I are both technically in the "lobby", the lobby at this branch is huge, and there's a massive counter/shelving unit that serves as a sort of partial wall between the section of the lobby we're in, and the section the tellers and personal bankers are in. The cameras don't scan our part of the bank, though presumably there'd be a picture of him from when he came in. I also don't think that they record sound, so we wouldn't have a tape of the threat in any event. But that point is minor: several people heard the man's words quite clearly.

Dale is in a far more exposed position than I, incidentally: he's at an open desk with his back to a window, and in plain view of customers entering the bank. I am tucked away in one of eight roomy, high-walled cubicals arranged at the far rear of the lobby, a good fifty or more feet from the teller line, with intervening support columns and the aforementioned partial wall keeping me from being easily visible. This branch would be a poor target for the most dangerous sort of robbery -- the flashy film kind, where robbers attempt to control the entire lobby and get the tellers to loot the vault. It would take far too many people just to see where everyone is, never mind covering them all.

No defense against the far more common sort of robbery, of course: go up to a teller and ask them to give you the contents of their cash drawer. But that rarely results in violence. Or long-term success for the robber -- that's the sort of theft where the cameras are more likely to come in handy.

Re:

[level-head.livejournal.com]

If the threatener got the impression that he might have been on camera, that alone would pull his fangs.

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[rowyn]

You know, I'm really not sure that it would. I mean, maybe if I pointed a video camera right at him and yelled "Smile!" that would give this sort of character pause. But I think to a large degree, the sort of person who will make this kind of threat in front of several witnesses isn't rational enough to consider whether or not his words -- or deeds -- are being recorded. These people just don't seem to consider the consequences of their actions.

Re:

[level-head.livejournal.com]

It certainly does not work for everybody -- but a person who irrationally lashes out at someone can still consider potential consequences later. Even among those who blast anger so irresponsibly, the great huge majority will be deterred from further action.

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