Indeed. I lived 5 years in Switzerland in the 1980’s including in a rented house where the owner left his military-issued rifle at home for us to play with. It was a beautiful weapon, & as Americans we didn’t understand why more disagreements between neighbors weren’t settled using it. But we assumed the Swiss were more homogeneous & polite so that as everyone had a rifle no-one used it. And this was during the Cold War when it was thought that Ronald Reagan would save Europe from any Soviet attack. Though he couldn’t save Switzerland from the effects of Chernobyl which we experienced while living there.
I worked in Switzerland for 5 years in the 1980’s before Windows when the IBM PC/AT’s I ordered ran DOS with my own menu software. (And my father who fought in WW2 asked “Didn’t the Swiss allow sealed troop trains through their country?”, but that’s not my topic.) Anyway, I once installed a new version of WordPerfect alongside the old version, guess which version was never used? And the poor secretary who accidentally ran the new version couldn’t work with her old files & went home crying for 3 days. I was blamed for not explaining things, but I was sure anyone could tell the difference between the old & new versions - no, they evidently could not.
What happens when you run out of banks, will you put your cashier’s check under a mattress? I’m old & get told what to do at banks all the time, but that’s no reason to change banks as it will just happen again at the new bank. My wife & I don’t have electronic banking & I wonder how long we’ll have tellers to help us. We’ve also had 2 branches close out from under us & force us to use less convenient ones nearby. We can’t change what’s happening in banking by running away, it will always catch up to us.
There are many, many banks and credit unions out there. Not all of them treat customer service as less important than whatever optimization they were trying to do.
Thank you for your reply, and so true. This is an electronic medium after all, and the smartphone, the greatest electronic device ever invented, makes participating in it so easy. Tonight I ate in a restaurant with a paper menu (I avoid QR menus because I’m old) but was able to send photos to my family & meet my wife for dessert by sending iMessages during dinner. I have over 50 years of film, DSLR, and iPhone photos and all are on my iPhone to look at any time I wish. Restricting yourself by not taking advantage of such devices is fine, but don’t pretend you’re not missing out on some of life’s greatest moments.
reply