mr.sumo snr. <mr_sumo@hotmail.com> wrote:

> I get the reverse treatment at the local shinkin bank whenever I go up to
> the counter and politely tell them I want to perform a 'furikomi' in their
> ATM corner.  They girl with the biggest balls (that could actually be
> their problem) rushes out from behind the counter and 9 times out of 10
> points out the 'ENGLISH' button on the ATM screen.  At this stage of
> course I switch to facetious gaijin mode (maybe that should be 'more'
> facetious) and ask her to point out the option which means 'furikomi' on
> the English menu.  Of course there isn't one 'coz...well I don't really
> know why not....
> 
> So the penny drops and the nice young girl with giant balls (now the size
> of peanuts) knuckles down to helping me 'furikomi' in Japanese.  I'm not
> lazy - I just don't read bank names in kanji very well - and hell, I'm
> paying service charges every month so I might as well get a bit of
> hands-on help.

Something similar happened to me at the old Dai-Ichi Kingyo. To help the
poor helpless gaigin, the person who had asked for the furikomi sent
instructions in English only--bank name, branch name, account name,
account number... and "current account".

I know how to do furikomi, since I've done it many times before, so I
wnet through the whole sequence on the assumption that "current account"
meant *futsu yokin* since all previous transfers had been to *futsu*
accounts. Wrong. So I tried again, assuming I'd mis-typed something.
Still wrong. So I was going to try each of the other options in turn,
when the auntie bustled over and pressed the English Guidance button for
me (prehaps she assumed I couldn't read it). 

At that point, I had a suspicion I knew why I hadn't pressed it in the
first place, so I said "You do it, then", and gave her the paper. That's
when the fun really started--there was no "current account" option in
the "English" menus, and it soon became clear that the Dai-Ichi Kingyo
programmers hadn't bothered testing those menus either, because she got
stuck in a loop and had to call for help. Eventually, there were three
people trying to get this furikomi to work, with me trying not to laugh
too obviously. The most senior of them ended up switching back to the
Japanese menus to try each option in turn....

________________________________________________________________________
                   Louise Bremner (log at gol dot com)
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