The BANK

RantWoman confession: RantWoman THINKS she is a big geek but RantWoman sometimes has no patience with electronic media. In fact, the telephone or walking into a storefront are JUST magical sometimes.

This week RantWoman needs to get some information about a business bank account connected with a new title / volunteer role. RantWoman has the bank name and the account number and was delighted to learn that having her name listed on the right line with the Secretary of State means she already has the authority to do a great deal. But RantWoman is getting ahead of herself.

Understand, this bank bought out another bank in the wake of various financial disasters. RantWoman is predisposed to be skeptical of bank consolidation and would reflexively choose different brands if starting from scratch. But RantWoman is sufficiently impressed for the moment.

RantWoman started with the bank's corporate website.
The corporate website had important information readable by Mr. JAWS about a different screen reader, Window Eyes. RantWoman is glad the information was there even though she did not need it.

The Corporate website also had a link En Espanol (tilde intended). This is not the first corporate website RantWoman has visited where Mr. JAWS autodetects and switches to Spanish pronunciation but then does not switch back at the end of a word. RantWoman is not nearly #ux #a11y geek enough to know, is this a defect of the website or something specific to Mr. JAWS. RantWoman does not want to troubleshoot enough to track down the issue. RantWoman just wants Mr. JAWS to switch back to US English pronunciation so RantWoman can get on with life. Luckily, switching to another
window and then back did the trick; RantWoman decided to ignore that section of the webpage.

RantWoman poked around on a page or two and quickly decided a PHONE NUMBER would be the fastest route to help. RantWoman decided this and poked around a couple more pages. Then it dawned on RantWoman, there is a branch of said bank in RantWoman's neighborhood, near multiple bus routes RantWoman rides all the time. RantWoman should just GO THERE IN PERSON, perhaps the next time a bus brings her to that corner during business hours.

Voila. Bright sunshine. A return trip from an afternoon destination. RantWoman laziness and desire to change buses anyway: it's midday. If RantWoman has the coice of two buses both with 15-minute headway, even though RantWoman can REALLY use the exercise, sometimes RantWoman is going to choose the route that goes right past her abode over the one that requires a walk and a weird street crossing.

Anyway,RantWoman got off the first bus in front of the bank branch. RantWoman and Ambassador Thwack the for once more or less appropriately behaving white cane found the entrance to the bank and RantWoman found the line to talk to a teller who summoned help. Help turned out to be the assistant branch manager who offered RantWoman EXACTLY the right help for her level of vision.

RantWoman and Assistant Branch Manager had a productive conversation. RantWoman will need to contact the person who specializes in business banking, but RantWoman came home with multiple copies of that person's business card. RantWoman also came home with a nice glossy printed booklet full of info about the suggested account choices.  Okay, RantWoman MIGHT like a link to find the info on the corporate website so she can have Mr. JAWS read it. RantWoman came home with notes from her conversation with Assistant Branch manager. RantWoman has enough info to have the next step of organizational conversation about our choices and to call the person who specializes in business banking.

Most importantly, RantWoman also came home with a story, Turns out Assistant Branch manager had once worked with a blind woman who did telephone customer services. Assistant Branch manager said she wore three headsets, one for the phone, one for her screen reader, and one for some kind of audio notetaking. Assistant Branch Manager said people who called in never knew his former colleague was blind.

RantWoman was impressed. Actually the former colleague sounded like one of those intimidating wonder Blind People; RantWoman was also REALLY grateful that Assistant Branch manager recognized reasons RantWoman might not be quite up to those standards and worked really well with RantWoman As Is. RantWoman ALMOST feels like an executive!