ATM Trauma

I've been wanting to write on this subject for some time, but just did not get some free time. My weekends are usually at home (in Coimbatore) which means I travel most of the weekends. There are a few weekends I end up in Bangalore and that is primarily because of work load at office. This weekend was one such weekend, but there were other things that I had to do and ended up doing less of office work (thanks to a build break too!).

So much for beating around the bush, let me come to the point. I was in and around Majestic, M.G road and Koramangala over the two days catching up with personal stuff. I noticed (have noticed it before too), that most of the time, people make a beeline in front of the ATM's to withdraw cash. The situation is really bad in the weekends, when I have seen meandering lines running into rows and rows. Inspite of the fact that ATM's have mushroomed all over the city, the average waiting time in an ATM is more or less close to five minutes. I am sure the phenomenon occurs in other big cities like Mumbai and Delhi too.

Many a times I have been victimized by these long winding queues. To make matters worse, it so happens that a few folks standing in front of me do everything but keep their card ready in hand. When they are in front of the ATM, they start fumbling for it taking up more time. Sometimes it is a mobile that stalls their procedural process or it is just my hard luck that they grope for the menu and try to make sense out of it (as if all the instructions were given in ancient Arabic). I have even seen a nincompooh who was standing in front of the machine, doing his arithmetic to figure out whether he should be withdrawing Rs 200/- or Rs 300/-. As much as I try to keep my shirt on, there are those "specimens", out there, testing my patience, with their monkey like activities before the crisp notes pop out of the tray and they take that and walk away. They never seem to understand that there are other folks in the line waiting for their turn, and end up taking their own sweet time. Honestly, in my humble opinion, it doesn't take more than a minute to withdraw cash (however huge the sum is), but again the average time spent in front of these machines is nothing less than two minutes (this is excluding the parallel activities that I had mentioned above).

So when I finally get my chance and withdraw the cash, I end up walking with an air of superiority, satiated by my accomplishment. I have even let the devil in me, give a sly look at the other folks patiently and impatiently waiting for their turn to come and I start thinking, "Won't it be cool if the cash runs out just after I take my money"? "What if the system crashes as I walk out of this place?". The other folks would go wild and throw tantrums and I can enjoy watching them. As much as I silently enjoy the thoughts of my cheap thrills, I know that is the last thing I or anyone would want to happen. Having said so much, what is the solution to escape the painful process of withdrawing cash?

I've got a few suggestions that can come handy.

1) If you are a prudent person, take a bulk of money once in two weeks and save the trouble of frequent ATM visits.
2) If you are used to burning the midnight oil, take a stroll at 2 in the morning and get the cash out as your community sleeps over. Of course, the precondition is to have an ATM within a permissible distance.
3) Request for an ATM within your office premises/campus and that way you can hop in anytime or atleast when there is a lean crowd.
4) Use your credit card as much and pay the charges over the net.
5) And finally, if you are the HULK, all my ramblings don't mean a thing to you. All ATM's are yours any time, anywhere!