Now we've really started something. C8 recently highlighted the madness of standing in a queue at a well-known office supplies store while a staff member stood idly by preparing to meet and greet incoming. The disease has spread to banks. Exasperated Neil Feller, of Potts Point, writes: "The other day I was astounded to go into the CBA at Rose Bay. There wasn't a teller to be seen. No tellers, no windows, no people, no real help at all. There were two of us in the bank with absolutely no idea that tellers were now non-existent. I wandered around looking for somebody to 'serve me' and eventually bumped into a young man who proceeded to spend five minutes showing a young lady how to deposit $200 cash in a 'time-saving machine'. He then spent five to six minutes showing me how to deposit one cheque. This would have taken a teller some 30 seconds in total. So much for the digital age. Three days later my cheque still hasn't been cleared. I like the old banks."
Others tried to avoid queues at the supermarket but found the experience similarly dissatisfying.
"Like Bill Atkinson (C8), I struggle to cope with the bossiness of the self-service checkout's voice at my local supermarket, says Vicki Buchbach, Cook, ACT. "But there is a way around it (besides standing in line for a human service behind people buying months' supplies of foods for platoons). My nine-year-old daughter discovered that at Coles there is a mute button that silences the voice but leaves on the beeps so you know things have scanned."
Also, from Barrie Brown, of East Gosford: "I find it pays to use the 'slow lanes' in our local Woolies, avoiding the express and self-serve lanes. Why? Their plastic bags are larger and comfortably fit our 25-litre rolltop kitchen bin. The others are too small for such recycling."
Finally, the truth about Santa (under 12-year-olds stop here). Peter Rawsthorne, of Largs, writes: "There is no evidence of Santa ever appearing nailed to a crucifix on anything in Japan. It is an urban myth popularised in the early '90s that pops up around Christmas."
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