And the Point?
They’re gonna start playing movie previews on ATM screens at certain banks. Now you know that brainstorm must have had some logic behind it, though it was probably kinda flimsy. My guess is that some bank was paying some marketing VP much too much money and he had to justify his existence. ‘Cause I mean really, who in the right minds — enough said — would spend time at an ATM for any reason other than to do their banking business and leave quickly. Since ATM machines, even in nice neighborhoods, attract people who are looking for people with cash. And even if it was a nice big screen, don’t most people have better things to do with their lives than watch movie clips outside their bank.
And then let’s presume that there are people who would actually stand there watching the screen. What do you suppose is going to be the mood of those folks standing behind them, waiting their turn? This movie thing makes almost as little sense as putting braille instructions on the drive-through ATMs. No, this is not a joke, or maybe it is, but we have banks out here in the land of fruits-’n-nuts that actually have braille on some drive-through ATMs. Probably another brainstorm to come out of the marketing department.
Never one to stop at assaulting the handicapped, let me move on to children. I used to drive to work shortly before eight in the morning. Sometimes I would find myself behind the school bus that plies the two-lane road out here in ruraldom. The bus would move along at a fairly quick rate, truth be told, but when it stopped to pick up the children, a whole slew of lights go on. Red and flashing yellow to start, and then flashing red. The flashing red lights would tell everyone in both directions to stop their cars.
The concept is that when children are getting on and off the bus, they might not just be getting off on the side of the road at which the bus is parked, but like the chicken, dart out across the road to the other side. I am neither incautious nor hostile to children in general all of the time, but it does seem to me that in most cases the children don’t cross the road. Wouldn’t it make sense to only put on the flashing red lights when they do have to cross the road? Ya gotta know that the legislation for the flashing red lights was written after a coupla unfortunate accidents, and that it just sailed through without opposition, passed by legislators who clearly leave for work after the buses have plied their routes.
It’s not that I don’t think that blind children shouldn’t be able to watch movies on ATMs on the other side of the road. Rather, I wonder how many people actually benefit from the best of our intentions.
And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.