Japanese Banks, by the numbers

Anyone who has lived in Japan long enough to need a bank card should be able to relate to this story. Stereotypically the Japanese are seen as the technology center of the world. Well that just isnt always true. Heck, they have above ground sewage along the curbs.

Today i went to my local bank to transfer money home. If you want to do this here, allocate an hour or two. I entered the bank at noon with a paper written in perfect japanese that informed the staff to take my money and transfer it to America. (this paper...again in japanese, was mailed to me from Llyods International bank that is handeling my transfers, so it was pretty straight forward). I went in and showed the paper to one of the 32 staff workers. Yes, i counted the number while i wasted my afternoon. 32. He was really confused and took me to a bench to wait. Finally he passed me off on some lady who asked me if speaking in Japanese was ok.....I said no. That didnt deter her. I just looked at her and told her (in japanese) i had no idea what she was saying. So like most people, she spoke sloooower and looooouuuuder...which still made noooooo sense to me. Then she got another lady who spoke (im assuming) clearer japanese. Nope, still no good. Then finally she got some guy who came over with perfect English. Better than mine. WHY didnt they get this guy 20 minutes ago? He was so proud of his english he just blabbered on about all kinds of services his bank offers, when all i want is to transfer money home.

Side story, while waiting, i watched one of the 32 staff members. There is one lady who is in her bank uniform and sits by the couter and says "Hello, welcome to our bank" in japanese to EVERYONE who passes her line of sight. She is like those annoying holiday toys that have lasers and when you break the beam is screams "have a holly jolly Christmas". She was so annoying, i purposly walked past her 3 times just hoping she would realize how doltish her job was. (look it up)

Back to transfering money. I had to take the money out, i think to prove that i had it. Then write my name on a piece of paper (all in capital letters) and then show it to 1/32 of the bank staff, who then put the money back into my account only to transfer it electronically to my home bank. The sheer stupidity of this 90 minute proccess warrents such a lengthy blog. Now i have to wait a day to see if these people did correctly.