Those of you who have been paying attention will already know what happened on day 19. After the final consultation meeting I spent a contemplative half-hour at the Serpentine before deciding it was time to cash some cheques.
Everything in my bank has it’s own infuriating little sign. “Take the wait off your feet” a chair suggests, “Your place or my pen box!” the pens cry out. The latter is clearly a question, so why have you used an exclamation mark! It was all beginning to get to me, then something happened. As the teller checked my arithmetic I noticed his name-badge, on which his job title title was ‘Displaced African’. The man was clearly white, which slightly wrong-footed me, then I remembered South Africa. I asked him whether the role of Displaced African was one they had in each branch, or if it was peculiar to this one.
He grinned from ear to ear, delighted I’d noticed. He didn’t know whether there were others, but he clearly did enjoy wearing that badge. He probably liked the rest of the signs too. So it turns out these labels may not have been made for customers after all, but for the staff. And on that basis I’m totally fine with them, because actually I don’t have to spend all day in a Barclays branch, but those guys do.
