Types of ATM users: Part 2

Some ATM users rather stand and wait to be helped by the sympathising onlookers while others walk in in twos to be taught step-by-step on how to operate it.

Last month, I wrote about the different types of ATM users. I promised to bring you the second lot of this crazy group. Here we go again. Where do you belong?

Ditzy Doreen
Ditzy Doreen queues happily outside the doorless ATM booth in the sweltering sun, chatting to one of her friends using her many free Warid minutes. She enters the booth and begins the process of locating her ATM card. Hmmm.

Could it be in the side pocket of her big bag? Naaah, maybe the smaller bag then. Out comes the sub-bag, and then from the sub-bag a wallet with multiple compartments. Not in there either. Where could it be? Oh! She remembers she had placed it inside her trouser pocket .

With a nervous giggle she retrieves it, trying to ignore the poisonous glances of Angry Asiimwe burning into her back from outside the booth. She gets her money and then, wait a minute, the card goes back into the slot again. Whatever could she be looking for? Ah yes, she wants to get her mini-statement. And then have another receipt to show her balance and then perhaps get tempted to withdraw some more cash for a rainy day.

The Villager
The Villager is just a villager. Having recently checked into the city as a student or for a first job, the ATM is a strange and exotic animal in The Villager’s world. In the queue outside the ATM, The Villager’s every muscle is tense and alert. She will carefully observe what people are doing inside the booth and when it is her turn, she will sidle in, looking nervously from side to side as she clutches her new bank account details in her hand. Her courage will fail her as she debates how to slide in this magic money card. With the words of her father still ringing in her head (How to handle city people Lessons 1 to 5- “Trust No One!”) she will stand dazed in front of the machine until a kindly ATM guard offers to help. Male villagers, on the other hand, leave nothing to chance-they enter in twos with a more experienced person to show them the ropes.
Please stand patiently and wait as the intricacies of this machine that vomits money at one’s request are explained.

Happy New Year!