Circling the Drain

The Mother of All Boredom

Published Oct 5, 2020 Updated Oct 5, 2020 Culture

4 min

CREATIVE ROOM

Circling the Drain

Homepage

Love

Solidarity

Wow

0 comments

311 readings

reactions

You cannot read any more publications this month without being logged in.

To enjoy unlimited access and take full advantage of new features, log in or create an account by clicking below. It's free! Log in

The Mother of All Boredom

Allen Smith

Contribute

I have no idea why the bank hired me. Apart from a warm body and pulse, I didn’t have a thing to offer Ferneyhough Savings. They didn’t have much to offer me, either. Unless, of course, you count never-ending boredom and the $9.65 an hour entry level tellers make. To be honest, I didn’t even want the job. I was just trying to survive until ski season.

Bank tellers are a dying breed that have succumbed to a lethal combination of online banking, electronic deposits and Square Cash. Unlike my counterparts of the 1950s who actually worked for a living, I spent the majority of my day staring into space. Occasionally, a waitress would come in with a wad of cash and $234 in loose change she collected from tips. Once in a while, a kid would want to cash in his piggy bank, but that was about