Strange Pulse

I worked in a small grocery store branch. We stayed open until 8pm. It was 7pm Halloween night, and the store was empty. Me and one other teller were working, plus the manager was in the tiny back room. I was staring off into space as the other teller, who was two windows down from me (there were only three windows in the branch), handled a customer who came up to her window. I wasn’t paying attention to anything so it took me a minute to realize, from the corner of my eye, that she was emptying all the cash out of her drawer. I glanced over quickly and saw the customer had a plastic bag on the counter.

I didn’t see a gun, but I immediately felt an acute sense of physical vulnerability. I pretended I didn’t know what was happening, and automatically did what I normally do when bored or unoccupied at work–opened my teller drawer to see if anything needed straightening. I realized he might think I was triggering an alarm and closed it again. Suddenly all I could think of was the fact that if I died, Daniel would be left with two toddlers to care for, and he was in no shape for that to happen. And I walked into the back room. (My window space was right next to–inches away from–the door to the back room.)

The manager was sitting at a small desk and the security monitor above her was flashing. I realized the other teller had already triggered the alarm. I’d heard a lot of nightmare stories about banks being robbed, the teller triggering the alarm, and the manager standing up in the middle of the robbery and asking, “OK, who set off the alarm?” Because it’s easy to set it off accidentally. So I put my hand on her shoulder to get her to look up and told her the alarm was for real.

Just then the other teller came running in exclaiming she’d just been robbed.

That’s about it. I was shaken up, wondered what I was doing working for so little pay at a job that endangered my life, but it wasn’t traumatic. I mostly find my reaction interesting–I can’t believe I just walked away and left her out there alone. But all I was thinking was, “I can’t die and leave Daniel and the kids alone.”

They train bank tellers to go along with anything a robber says. For a couple of reasons. One, they say anyone desperate enough to rob a bank is usually a drug addict, needing a fix, and therefore unstable and potentially dangerous. Do what they say. Two, the money is insured by the government–banks don’t lose money when they’re robbed. Taxpayers do.

I don’t think the guy who robbed us was ever caught. And I don’t think he got more than $1200. Tellers keep their cash drawers very low on money. The drawers are audited often, too, so that they’re diligent about it.

I was never in a big takeover style robbery. But I did fill in at the SeaTac branch the day after they’d had a bomb threat–because none of their regular employees wanted to work. They had installed bulletproof glass a year prior, and had no robberies. Until they had the bomb threat. I always thought bullet proof glass just made the customers more vulnerable–all robbers would have to do is point a gun at a customer, rather than the teller. But I’m wondering if most bank robbers don’t actually have guns, and just imply they do.

A lot of robbers will write a note saying “give me all your money” so they don’t have to say it out loud and draw attention. Tellers are trained to try to retain the note. I’ve heard stories about robbers being stupid enough to use the back of an envelope they received in the mail to write their note on, complete with their name and address.

Branches most likely to be robbed are those located near airports and freeway onramps. Because the robbers can make a quick getaway. Which is why the SeaTac branch, right next to the airport, had bulletproof glass installed.