Thoroughly Modern Millie

I went to the bank yesterday. In my line of business, contracts are irregular but not infrequent, which means that checks need to be run to the bank irregularly and fairly frequently. In the interest of saving time, I often let client checks pile up for a week or so before running deposits--the joke is that the way to make a pending check arrive is to deposit the others.

While I was handing checks to the teller for deposit, she asked if I was aware that they had added a shiny new feature to the mobile banking app--I could now deposit checks from my home office--she thought I might be really interested, since I seem to be in so often.

Sure enough, after that bank visit and picking up Little One from school, and getting some more ice cream (Jr. Firefighter is home from college for the summer, and this wreaks havoc on frozen inventory), I swing by the mailbox on the way up the drive, and there it is, another check.

Oddly enough, I find myself torn: Yes, it is a good idea to reduce trips, with all those pesky carbon emissions, traffic congestion, and such. Yes, it is an ease of burden for the busy to be able to take care of errands in a few seconds. Yes, reducing the amount of paper reduces cost, both environmental and administrative.

But. When I walked into the bank, the manager looked up from his desk, and greeted me by name. I still remember when he came to this branch as a teller, long before Little One was born. I think of the times a trip to the bank counted as human contact, during those years as the tired mother of two young boys. I think of the time that same bank manager flagged a transaction because he knew I wasn’t in Texas (having a spa day and buying a flat screen TV) because he had seen me just an hour ago (and he knew I wasn't a Red Door kind of girl). I think of the phone call from my mother's bank when something didn't seem quite right with her, and I wonder if my bank will still be around to provide that same human connection and safety net. Can the mobile app call my kids when I'm 84?

I could get on my high horse and justify a drive to the bank since the carbon emissions don't apply to me in my electric car (and it's true), and discount my contribution to congestion since I try to combine trips. But it's still a car on the road, and an electric car is at best a compromise (maybe I should get a bicycle). So I take the newly arrived check, endorse it "for mobile deposit," snap pictures of it, and send it off through cyberspace. And fight the urge to email the bank manager just to say hi.