Standard Bank employee: Listen to me!

I popped into Standard Bank’s Norwood Mall branch to reset a card’s PIN and was standing behind a clearly anxious woman in the queue. I overheard she needed help with a Marketlink account and was told to wait in the Enquiries queue for help. There were two people in Enquiries helping customers ahead of her and she was a little impatient, stepping in and out of the queue.

She cornered an employee, I believe his name is Zubeir Ahmed (or something like that, I caught a quick look at his name badge), and asked him to help her. He was a little gruff when he answered her question and explained to her that she either had to fill out a form and wait in the Enquiries queue or fax the form to the bank to do what she needed to do. She didn’t seem to understand what he was saying or asked a related question and his response was to become more impatient with her, interrupt her and repeatedly tell her to –

Listen to me!

She dropped out of the queue after that and disappeared around the corner, possibly to get the form he offered to print out for her.

Doesn’t sound like much of an issue but this sort of patronising approach bugs me and, Monday morning notwithstanding, all he probably did is add to her anxiety instead of easing it with some patience and consideration.

Image credit: RUDE! by sheriffmitchell, licensed CC NC SA 2.0