Sign of the times

After a thought provoking start to the week, debating the meaning of "shared social responsibility" here I was brought back to reality as I queued for a cash machine in a branch of my bank (conoisseurs of wallpaper financial advertising will recognise the figures stretched along the bottom of this missive).

I am glad that they have identified that the role of the branch is to create a 'queuing experience' which can be enhanced,  if I feel the need to flex my neo-liberal volition, by choosing the 'fasttrack' lane. Of course, I would then face the paradoxical experience of queuing in my fastrack lane with all the other individualists who like me would be asking what function qualified as 'fasttrack'.  

If it means that I won't be cross sold to while I try to pay in a cheque ("have you reviewed your finances in the last 6 months?") then great, but I can see it being so popular that they will soon be advertising the 'collective queueing experience' at tills 1-5. 

Claus Offe (speaking at the Council of Europe conference) provided a telling reflection on the predicament of the individualistic consumer when recounting being stuck in a traffic jam and looking across at a sign which read, "you are not stuck in a jam, you are the jam."

So a big thank you for my bank providing the Alex Ferguson route to financial satisfaction as an alternative to standing with my fellow consumers in a more involved "queuing experience" in the slow lane. Freed of my social ties to my fellow customers I am liberated to enact my authentic self and carry out whatever mundane task I can't do online and go on my way to my next frictionless transaction. Well in Marx's terms at least we know where we stand with the banking crisis, we have had the tragedy now bring on the farce.

Comments

[Pragmatist]

Excellent. I love the patronising heading "Did You Know?" They assume your knowledge base is so small that this is an Amazing Fact.

[Bruce Davis]

I'm quite surprised that no-one has pitched a sitcom in the style of the current 2012 - surely "Bankers" has potential?

I have now used this 'fast track' experience - oddly the woman on the desk was quite chatty so it became slow track... I was expecting ruthless neo-liberal efficiency.