Made a phone call to the bank the other day; they had deposited a check I had sent them but days later it still hadn’t shown up in my account. So here’s the story of How Procrastinatress Stood Up for Herself Big-Time.

The phone rep, let’s call her Cathy, told me they had made a mistake in connecting the check with my account. Then she said she “had a call in” to her “banking expert” and that it would take 48 hours to fix the problem. WTF??!! I told Cathy that I wasn’t satisfied with that and if she couldn’t fix the problem I needed to speak to someone who could.

She put me on the phone with her supervisor, “John,” who did the supervisor thing, telling me that “the system is updated every 24 hours and this is something we have to live with every day… so that’s why the update isn’t yet reflected in your account. blah blah” I interrupted him and said, look, John, this isn’t acceptable. You’ve had my money for several days and I need to access it. You’re telling me this isn’t possible… but I don’t believe you. All you need to do is call someone who can punch some numbers into a computer and hit “enter.” You have the check, you’re telling me you deposited it, so how does it take you 48 hours to update the numbers?

John proceeds to spout off about how “he’s never heard of a case where they’ve been able to completely bypass the system” and that he doesn’t think he’ll be able to fix this problem today.

So I said, listen John, you are the ones who made a mistake and I’m not willing to wait around for you to fix it. The only acceptable solution here is for you to get those funds into my account within two hours. Put your thinking cap on.

That got his attention! He was silent for a while, I even thought I had lost connection. Finally he says, okay, let me call my banking expert. (Meanwhile I’m wondering why he needs to call a banking expert if he’s working in a bank! Shouldn’t they all be banking experts?)

After a very short time Cathy comes back on the line and tells me they’re working on it and to just hold for another minute. Sure, thanks Cathy, I appreciate it.

A few minutes later Cathy is back on the line and says, “Ma’am, the funds are in your account. I apologize for the inconvenience.” And I replied, thank you, that’s what I was hoping to hear.

See… sometimes you just have to be pushy to get what you need. Hah!