Mid Town Check Cashing

Once upon a time there was this humble country boy who finally received a payment for a task he did about a year ago. ‘Twas of course a surprise for him to receive this compensation after all these months of waiting. The timing was perfect, he was in dire need of some hard currency upon receiving this payment. The problem was simple. He never received a cheque from a foreign bank before. Thus the story began. A journey through the mazes of the Indonesian banking industry (insert orchestrated music here).

Well, of course the country boy didn’t have to be over melodramatic like that. But I guess dramawas one of his middle names anyway. The next day he was so cheerful. First thing in the morning he was already in his local bank. Trying to clear the cheque under his account number, it was so surprising that the bank would not accept it. They'd only accept any cheque issued by the same bank at the time being - due to the proximity to the New Year banking holiday.

He then asked around on how to cash in his hard earned forgotten payment. People would direct him to a local branch of the foreign bank (cheque issuer). To the local branch then he went, even though it was almost at the end of the west side. The parking was awfully cramped. There he got a heated discussion with the security personnel about where and how he should park his carriage. It was extremely maddening. When he reached the customer service clerk, this was what she had to say: “Sorry Sir, we cannot access this account on your cheque since it was issued by our head-office for corporate clients only”. The simpleton then let go a small sigh when he found out that the issuer office had in fact resided in the same building that he works everyday of his recent life. “Don’t forget it’s in the 6th floor!” she added.

Frustrated and furious he tried to go down to the stall where he left his horses and carriage behind. The lift wasn’t as friendly as he hoped though. First he took a lift which didn’t plan to go down to the stall. After that, the other lift went mad by delivering him up and down to different floors that he didn’t intend to step on.

Without further ado he finally reached his own office building and directly he went to the 6th floor as directed. Another security personnel made sure that what he wanted was actually the 15th floor. The trick was, he had to embark at the 8th floor and had an exchange to the fourth lift on the left side prior to continuing his journey to the 15th floor.

Ding. The lift door finally opened to a confusing room. Filled with a confusing system of get-your-waiting-in-line-number buttons and more directions. He pressed a button and a receipt nicely belched out from the little printing machine:

Your Number: 3041

Now Serving: 3039
Please be seated. You will be served shortly.
28.12.2006; 12:37

Yippey. Not too long of a wait he thought. Yeah, that was like 45 minutes before he realized that he “might’ve” just pressed the wrong button since the subsequent numbers were never going to be called. People started to leave the premises, even the new clients behind him already got served. It wasn’t fair he said to himself.

He went back to the machine and pressed a button with the “Cash. One Transaction Only” written on it.

Your Number: 5082

Now Serving: 5079
Please be seated. You will be served shortly.
28.12.2006; 13:28

Ding. Another bell rang for the number 5082 to a teller number 6 shortly after that.

The clerk was a mean-looking I-don’t-need-any-man type of a woman. He just loved her for the fact that she was very efficient. In under 2 minutes, the country boy finally touched his cash. All six hundred thousand of it (in local currency). He thanked the woman and he went out gratefully.

At least he learned something today: Learning by doing is annoying. Not having enough information is frustrating.