Ah, those ATMs ...

My dad, who died in November 1999, never used an ATM. When he needed cash, he did it the old-fashioned way (he went into the bank)--or the less-old-fashioned way (drive-thru). Or, at the grocery store, he wrote his check for $20 over the amount he'd spent. You know ...

ATMs have been around for a long time (the first one appeared in 1969, I just read), and I've been using them for as long as they've been around. And I've never had a problem. (Except for those times when the machine's been "down.")

Until last week.

I'll not mention the name of the bank, for the "issue" remains unresolved. I'll just tell the story. Last Friday (the 6th)  I realized I was walking around with more cash than I needed (and that is a problem I have rarely had in my life!), so I decided I'd put $100 back into my checking account.

So I stopped at our nearby ATM, went through the routines we all know, and fed five twenty-dollar-bills into the machine. Which whirred and whirred and swallowed and vomited forth a slip of paper that said something had gone wrong. I should call such-and-such a number.

I didn't. I walked right into the bank (where I've had accounts since 1979) and told them what had just happened. I answered some pretty odd questions (Did you use an envelope?), questions obviously designed for a dotard (okay, I am "older").

Then I got the "week-to-10-days" thingy.

Today's the 14th, and I've not heard a peep from them.

I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile--a related issue. On some show we watched this week (was it The Daily Show?) there was a segment about how McDonald's is turning toward AI for their drive-thrus. (They just bought a company, I guess, that is advanced in voice-recognition technology.)

My only thought was this: There go a jillion jobs--jobs often held by people who desperately need them.

And so the tidal wave begins to swell, the wave that will soon o'erwhelm us.

I don't remember thinking much about jobs when I started using ATMs--but I should have, for I'm guessing that lots of tellers lost their positions as a result of them.

And now I think about how if I had handed $100 cash to an actual human being inside the bank, then that $100 would now be in my account, snug and safe.

Instead, it's ... where?

In the maw of the monster.