After 5 years in the teller biz I finally faced the big "R"
Friday is generally the busiest day of the week at the credit union. On July 16, I showed up at work at 9:30 a.m. The CU had been open for an hour but it was still looking pretty slow--only one car in the drive-thru and a few in the parking lot. I took my usual Friday morning position at the drive-thru backup station next to Tiffany.
At about 10 a.m. I was helping someone in the second drive-thru lane and gossiping with Tiffany when I heard "you know what the #$&* to do!" come from somewhere behind me. The obscenity caught my attention. It is not uncommon for a member to get upset with us—people yell and swear and storm off.
I turned around to see what the fuss was about. There was a guy standing right behind me up on the teller line. I saw a gun, a bandana and Jamaal's drawer being emptied. My first thought was "are you serious?" My second thought was "this seems pretty serious."
The robber was wearing a tan fisherman hat, sunglasses and a red bandana tied around his nose and mouth like he was an old west bandit. He was wearing a green flannel shirt and white batting gloves. He was pointing a gun at Jamaal and told all of us to go stand "over there." He used the gun to gesture toward the front door.
The robber was standing right behind Jamaal when I turned around
While he seemed to be making this statement to Jamaal, Lisa and Chelsea (the three tellers he was facing) I figured there was no point in me sticking around up there on the teller line. Tiffany and I followed the others and walked down from the teller line to the front door.
As we were walking I was very deliberately trying to make sure that Mistie and LoyDean, who were sitting in the desks in the lobby, were aware of what was going. They saw all of walking away from the teller line and saw what was going on. Other workers, however, didn’t catch on so quickly. Jayme Webber was walking to LoyDean’s when she saw all of us standing by the door. She said, “What are you guys doing?” It was just in a regular voice, but in the silence of the moment it seemed like she was yelling. We nodded toward the action. “Are we getting robbed?!” Again, in a much too loud voice. Thank you, Jayme, for stating the obvious.
It was really surreal. We just stood by the door, watching the robber clear out all of our drawers. The first thing that popped into my mind was wondering what personal items I had up there at my station. I have my teller money in the top drawer and I generally put my personal stuff i.e. my wallet, keys, cell phone and sometimes my iPod in the drawer directly below. I very clearly remember thinking "I hope my iPod's not up there!" [I think Traci found that really disturbing when I told her I was thinking about my iPod. I think it confirmed her theory my CDs are my most valuable possesion--but it's not like I had Traci stashed away in that drawer.]
We didn’t have to lie on the floor, we weren’t tied up and the guy didn’t even tell us to be quiet. We decided to be quiet of our own accord, thinking it was probably our safest course of action. You don’t really want to disturb someone wearing a mask and holding a gun.
After he had cleared out all of the drawers he walked right toward us on his way to the door. My heart started beating faster as he got closer. “Count to 10 and then do your thing,” was all he said as he left the building.
Thanks to the quick thinking of our assistant manager, LoyDean, we all headed to the window in Kim’s office to see if we could see which way he was heading. He got into a green Chevy Blazer that was parked directly in front of the window where we were standing. I was thinking “I wonder if he can see us all looking at him. Is he going to shoot us through the window if he sees us?” We got his license plate number and watched him casually drive through the parking lot. Mistie had already locked the doors to the building and it was time to figure out what to do next.
The Robber came up to the teller line through this entrance
Post Robbery
We all stood there a bit stunned, but I guess our bi-annual robbery training was in our heads somewhere. Someone got out the suspect description forms and we started filling them out. Both LoyDean and Mistie had already pushed their alarm buttons and someone was on the phone with the police.
As the girls immediately started chattering, I tried to focus my mind and write down everything that I could remember. It amazed me that after staring so intently at this guy, the second he left all of my memory was all mixed up. For example, I was sure I had seen his eyes. I thought they were brown. Every other employee wrote that he was wearing sunglasses.
Though my sense of time was all mixed up, I think it was probably about five or ten minutes before the cops showed up and started handing out more description forms. It was nothing like CSI Miami (oh, what a let down). No one was looking for prints, taking photos or looking for strands of DNA. The FBI showed up a few minutes later and gave us some more forms to fill out. One by one they interviewed each of us and let us give our version of the story. I was hoping to impress them with my impeccable recollection of the event, but I couldn’t really tell him much more than what I am sure everyone else had said. There really wasn’t much to tell. The guy was so covered that none of us could even identity his skin color. I heard him utter two sentences. He came in, took the money and left. There wasn’t much else to say. I am sure that Horatio Cane and his CSI crew would disagree. They would let the evidence do the talking.
A few minutes later the CEO of Cyprus and one of the vice presidents (my neighbor Brett Hales) showed up. I thought it was funny that it took a bank robbery for CEO Dale Catten to come out to our branch and meet some of our employees for the first time. Our piece of crap HR director showed up as well. He’s never around when you need him and now he’s here when we don’t. He was in charge of arranging a counseling session. I told him that I thought he should arrange some pizza. He agreed.
Robbery Pizza Party
We were closed from about 10 a.m. until a little after 2 p.m. During that time we had a sign up on the front door that said "Temporarily Closed." I am sure that Cyprus Credit Union members rival some of the dumbest people in this universe. People kept walking up to the door, looking at the sign, pulling on the door handle, realizing it was locked, looking at the sign again, and then pulling on the door one more time. Those that pressed their faces to the door could see that we were in the back eating pizza. Closed for a pizza party! What are they doing?!
Lunch time was a chance for all of us to relieve the tension a bit. We could all discuss our version of the story. It seemed like most people were dealing with everything pretty well. There was a lot of joking around. I could tell that Jamaal was a bit shaken up. He had the first and closest contact with the guy. Lisa, who was sitting next to Jamaal was really upset. She cried and cried through her interview with the feds. She went home before the counselor showed up and didn’t come back to work the next day.
The pizza party also served as a buffer time between the robbery and when the robbery counselor was able show up. At about 1 p.m. a gray-haired man with soft features and listening eyes arrived to talk to us. We all sat in a circle while he explained that the most important thing for us to do was to find someone who willing to just let us talk. He also said that after something traumatic happens people often go into shock and it takes a few days before the true emotions start to come out. He had each person in the circle tell what they thought and felt and the time of the robbery and what they felt now that a few hours had passed.
At 2 p.m. we had to open up the doors again and get back to work. It was a little bit weird to go back up to my station and see that there was no money in the drawer. I think it was a good idea, though, to just jump back into the game rather than to have more time to think about it.
The next day I headed off to San Diego for a family vacation. I am sure that there was lots of talk going around the credit union. It’s good when we have something to talk about—it keeps work interesting—but I’m not sad that I missed it. I was relaxing on the beach and it was about the furthest thing from my thoughts.
So after five years of tellering, I’ve now been robbed. I guess I can go get a new job and feel like I’ve had a fulfilling career.
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