T.C. Hamlet
Illustration★★★★In Los Angeles, the Bank of America branch is part of a multilevel building which includes car parks on the lower floors. The bank’s customers did not need to pay for parking if they performed a transaction at the bank and had the teller validate their ticket. However, this privilege was eventually withdrawn as customers learned how to take advantage of the system.
One day, an old man waited in a long line to have his ticket validated. Finally, when he got the next available teller, he deposited a small amount and asked for his ticket to be validated.
The teller obliged and told him there was a small parking fee. “Why?” asked the old man. “You’ve never charged me before.”
Seeing the crowd of waiting customers, the teller snapped, “Mister, I don’t make the rules. I just have to enforce them.” “But I’ve been with this bank for a long time,” the old man replied.
“Can’t you just validate the ticket like you always have?” “Look,” said the teller. “If you don’t like it, talk to the manager. I’ve got a lot of customers waiting.”
The old man returned to the end of the line. When he again got to the front of the queue, he withdrew $4.2 million, walked across the road and put his money in another bank.
The point
When a teller rudely refuses to validate an elderly customer's parking ticket per new policy, the man withdraws his $4.2 million from the bank, illustrating the cost of failing to honor long relationships.