Since when is to decision a real verb? that’s what I’d like to know. Why, I think this world is really going down the tubes. Back in my day we always used to make decisions. We never had to decision anything. One never had to utter the phrase "while I am decisioning the loan…." It’s the vast right wing conspiracy, that’s what it is. [Not really. I just felt like saying "vast right wing conspiracy," that's all.] what it is is banking. Some of the all time worst-constructed sentences are in our in-office literature. For Example a hand out on insurance products included the following question: "Do you and your member know the difference between the Gold and Platinum plans?" I don’t know what my member knows. I guess the real question is: what did my member know and when did she know it?
Monthly Archive for August, 2004
three odd new verbs for your enjoyment
1. collateralize: to supply collateral for a loan, e.g. "bluebook* the vehicle to determine whether there will be enough value to collateralize the loan."
2. bluebook*: to determine the value of a used vehicle via this system, e.g. see the above.
3. amortize: (AM-or-ize) despite the fact that it is pronounced like a word that just might mean "to render amorous," it really means something you will never care about unless you’re planning on taking out a boat loan, e.g. "amortization rates are based on the loan to downpayment ratio." [I think!]
I just rented The Stone Reader, which is a documentary about trying to find a writer, Dow Mossman, who wrote one great novel, The Stones of Summer, and then evaporated into the ether. More than being about this book–which, by many accounts, is just a sort of average, hip, late 20th century Bildungsroman-type nothing-special yet sort-of-intriguing book–the film is also about reading and being “transformed” (I hate it when people say that–can I just say “affected?”) by literature. Since this is my career, I find this sort of thing mildly intriguing at worst and–heck–engrossing and lachrymosifying at best.
Here are the two best gems of the film (neither of which is the filmmaker’s–though it’s to his credit that he knew them):
“The present moment is unlike the memory of it. Remembering is not the negative of forgetting; remembering is a form of forgetting.” –Milan Kundera, Book of Laughter and Forgetting
“I like to fold my magic carpet, after use, in such as way as to superimpose one part of the pattern on another. Let visitors trip.” –Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory
I might add, on a similar theme:
“The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past.” –William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun
This just in: In banking terms, when discussing the wiring of funds, the recipient is the same as the receiver. I learned this today in training.
In training today we watched an informative and artful video entitled “The Guest.” It featured a charming, eloquent, clever and charismatic main character, Ken, who began his commentary in a local greasy-spoon-type diner. The waitress, Shirley, was an exemplary customer service representative who put the guests at ease with her folksy, down-home hospitality (read: had a wicked cheesy southern accent). Ken wished Shirley sold life insurance.
Several vignettes demonstrated examples of alternately excellent and mortifyingly bad guest service. In one, a party hostess (dressed in black and with too-dark lipstick) beat her guests about the head with a platter full of assorted candies and confections. That would never have happened in Shirley’s diner! In another scene, Ken was anxiously waiting for his bank teller, Nancy, to address him by name. He is hopeful that she will do so when presented with his driver’s licence (after failing to read his name off the deposit slip and check he handed her). Alas, after a careful study of Ken’s license, all Nancy has to offer is “Have you gained weight?”
Watching this video changed my life. I now know that beating customers guests and commenting on their obesity is not a good idea. Good thing I wouldn’t have been able to do that anyway, since our guests will be visiting us via telephone, and dessert platters will be unable to reach their thick skulls (or greedy mouths) no matter how hard we try!
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