So far we have been wowed by the customer service in Utah. I mean WOWED. Wherever we go there is always an abundance of salespeople or service people waiting to help us. They welcome us to the store, spend lots of time with us telling us about whatever products they've got, even if it's not on commission. We almost even have a Cheers thing going on, where everybody knows your name, at a couple places we've been already. Shout out to Terry at Best Buy! Also they know us at our new bank.
Speaking of our bank. We chose to open bank accounts at a big bank branch here in the U.S. as its main office in Salt Lake City is right across the street from our place. Steve went in on Friday afternoon just to find out what kind of information we would need, and to see if they were open on Saturdays. When we returned the next day, we were greeted by a smiling guy with a firm handshake who knew to expect us. He asked us our names and told us his. Adam. What a guy. We were then shown to the desk of our banker, a young girl with chipping glittery green nail polish. She peeled it off bit by bit and flung it on the floor throughout the duration of our conversation. She joked around with us a lot too. It was endearing and borderline unprofessional. We couldn't tell how we felt about her when we left. There was one incident where we were depositing a cheque from our wedding that said "Mazel Tov!" in the memo. She struggled to pronounce it and then looked up and asked "Are you Jewish?" Yes, yes we are. She made a joke about Jews to us, and we laughed awkwardly. It's wasn't a bad joke, but it felt just a little bit on the odd side. She said "I'm joking!" and smiled a winning smile, and then we were best friends again.
As we were leaving, another couple showed up, also opening new bank accounts. We heard their accents that gave them away as New Zealanders, and Steve said something like "good luck getting a credit card!" They said something back, and off we went.
Flash forward to a few days later when we went back to the bank. First of all, despite the kind of strange interactions with our young banker girl, we were happily greeted by both Adam and her. They knew us by name right away. The contrast between our Toronto banking experiences and this was so stark!
During this second interaction with Banker Girl, we mentioned the other couple we had seen, asking her if they were nice and if they could be our friends. (We're on the hunt, clearly). She said that actually she thought we had a lot in common. One of them works at the U(niversity) too. She looked them up in the computer to see where they lived. Both Steve and I were shaking our heads saying "no, no, don't give us their address!" I mean, we were sure she was about to totally breach some confidentiality rule or something. She shrugged and said it's fine, then told us that they live close by to us. She told us that next time they came in she would set us up.
Later that day, Banker Girl called me and left a message on my voice mail: "Jessica, I'm with the Kiwis now and I'm giving them your email and telephone number. Also, if you guys don't invite me on your date too I'm going to be really pissed!"
HA! Can you believe that? This is where we're living now!
PS: We may be seeing the Kiwis tonight. I haven't invited Banker Girl yet. Yikes!
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