In the world of banking, the people on the front lines of the industry are known as tellers. These are the people who are expected to help customers with all of their day to day banking needs. It is often a thankless and miserable position to hold. These are their stories. These are their legends…

Once upon a time, a woman came to the drive-thru window desiring to cash a few checks. Nothing major, just the standard small checks to be cashed.

As I greeted her, she insisted that she had multiple accounts with our bank, so even though the checks she wanted to cash were drawn on other establishments, I would be able to cash them for her. Unfortunately, she did not provide me with any of the numbers for these multiple accounts.

She gave me her driver’s license, so I looked her up by her name. No luck. I asked for her social security number. Keep in mind, I didn’t ask her to yell it over the speaker for all the world to hear. I told her I would send out a slip of paper for her to write it on, which I would then shred once I was able to look up her account information. Once again, she insisted that she had multiple accounts, and that the other employees at the bank knew her. One of those employees was helping another customer. The other was at home with a bad back. That left me, her, and her social security number.

Look, even if either of my co-workers had been available to come to my rescue and say, “Yep, that’s her,” that still wouldn’t have given me any of this woman’s account numbers against which I could cash her checks.

I feel the need to re-emphasize this to the general public, when a bank teller asks for your social security number, it isn’t so they can steal your identity and rip you off. It’s only so they can verify that you are who you say you are. It’s only so they can look you up in the computer system to make sure you have all these multiple accounts that you claim to have.

The fact that this woman had to give me her social left a poor taste in her mouth for the rest of the transaction. I remained polite and gave her the cash. I threw in the usual “have a good afternoon.” I got a “yeah, you too,” which was dripping with sarcasm. But really, who am I to complain about sarcasm?