By Frank J. Diekmann
The member handed a worn and faded paper membership card to the teller that she didn’t recognize, although the words “Credit Union” could still barely be made out.
“Um, I haven’t been in in a while,” the member said sheepishly, recognizing the teller’s confusion.
“How long has it been?” the teller asked.
“About 17 years,” the member answered, honestly unaware why that would be a big deal.
“Wow. I was one-year old. Do you have an ID?”
“I do,” the man answered, reaching into his back pocket and struggling to pull open a cracked leather wallet that was stiff with age. “I’m Gary. Gary Cicada.”
Finally managing to extract a yellowed driver’s license, he passed it to the teller vaguely wondering what had happened to the counter all of the tellers used to stand behind. And, hey, now that he thought about it some more, where were the ropes and the lines and those chained-down pens?
“This expired in 2012,” the teller said, sounding uncertain as she held it under a bright light.
“Yeah, I’m sorry, but it’s not my fault. It’s hard for me to get to the DMV in time to renew it,” Mr. Cicada responded before trying to make light of it. “Maybe I can get President Bush to pardon me.”
“Yeah, well, good luck with that, since he’s not president anymore, y’know,” the teller told him, smiling at Mr. Cicada’s joke.
But Cicada didn’t know, and he hadn’t been joking. “He’s not?”
The teller began to wonder if this was one of those mystery-shops another teller had cautioned her about and she knew she needed to be on her toes. Seeking to sound knowledgeable, she leaned into the high school history class she had just completed online.
“No, he’s not,” she explained. “He left office and was followed by President Obama, and then President Trump, and now President Biden.”
Now it was Mr. Cicada’s turn to laugh, which he welcomed after nearly two decades living what he liked to call the “underground lifestyle." He was happy the teller had such a sense of humor. What was an Obama? And did she mean that New York real estate guy? The one in the Home Alone movie, which he had watched because he thought it was about him?
The Old Name
He was still smiling when he noticed the teller had waved over the branch manager to provide some help.
“Well, I haven’t seen one of these in a while,” said the manager, gently holding up the membership card, before directing the teller’s attention to some markings. “You can still see it, but barely. That’s our old name, alright.”
Mr. Cicada suddenly looked disappointed.
“That’s not the name of the credit union anymore?” Mr. Cicada chirped. “The reason I joined Narcolepsy Federal was because we all shared a common bond. Is that gone?”
The manager scrambled to remember what the video created by the marketing department had said when the credit union unveiled the new name a decade or more ago, in the process realizing all she really remembered was the folks in marketing seemed to be overly fond of using the words “brand” and “branding” more often than a rodeo.
“Um, no, our original members are still part of the credit union,” the manager related, seeking to soothe the member she now noticed had gotten a bit bug-eyed.
The manager momentarily flirted with explaining the new “brand” to the member, but abandoned the idea and attempted to steer the conversation back to providing assistance.
“So, how can we help you, Mr. um…”
“Cicada,” the man answered, displaying his newly found energy. “Gary Cicada.”
The branch manager was a born-and-bred local who recognized that family name as soon as she heard it. The Cicada Family had thrown a legendary party something that people still talked about 20 years later. The Cicadas weren’t just known for having more relatives than an Everyone Named Smith family reunion, they had a reputation for showing up en masse in town uninvited and, most of all, for being loud. No, that didn’t do them justice, the manager thought to herself, hoping her face didn’t reveal what she remembered her mother calling them, a noisy bunch of hellraisers!
Bad News, Good News, Bad News
The manager was suddenly afraid Gary Cicada had brought the relatives with him. Were they all planning to come in? But just as quickly she brightened at the idea she could make her new accounts goal for the whole year in about a week. Then her brain reversed once more. On the other hand, the family had a reputation for disappearing, and that sounded like some sort of future collections hell. She could just imagine trying to call and shout over them.
“I just wanted to check on my account,” Mr. Cicada told the manager, attempting to explain himself once more. “I know I haven’t been in in a while. Sorry, I really like to get a good rest. I was going back and forth between watching an episode of Frasier and an Expos game and I just sort of conked out. I’ll tell ya, I’m really lookin’ forward to watching those again.
“Although my iPod battery died,” Mr. Cicada added as he dug into his pocket and pulled out an Apple device the young teller had never seen before and that she believed it to be a new, even smaller model iPhone.
Wasn’t Part of the Training
The manager quickly glanced at the teller—who was secretly glad she wasn’t going to have to share the news herself—before looking to the member and clearing her throat.
“Mr. Cicada, we have probably closed your account,” the manager began to explain, knowing full well the CU had closed it out, but she was relying on the conflict-resolution course she had taken (which had said nothing about how to deal with once-every-two-decades-members, BTW, she heard a sarcastic voice in her head saying). “It’s been 17 years and…”
Both CU employees could see the member was getting irritated, and the manager herself subconsciously wished for the old service counter she stood behind when she had started and which separated the staff from members. These new “conversation pods” had their disadvantages when the conversation wasn’t going well.
Gary Cicada began making popping and crackling noises with his arms. He clicked and flicked and his eyes began to turn red. Neither the teller nor the manager had ever seen that before, and they had once had to tell an elderly member who came in every day to “visit with the girls” that there was no more free coffee.
You’ll Hear From Me Again
Mr. Cicada grabbed his butter-colored license and frail paper membership card and thrust them into his wallet with his thin, boney hands.
From his other front pocket he retrieved a Nokia flip phone. “I’m going to tell every contact I have in my phone about this—all 10 of them,” he threatened as he turned to exit the branch and caught notice of a sign urging members to use the CU’s new app and was distracted for a moment wondering why in the world the credit union was now offering appetizers. Probably the reason they couldn’t keep track of accounts!
“And that’s not all,” Cicada said as he reached the door. “I’m going to make sure this is all over Myspace. You haven’t heard the last of me. I’ll be back in 2038.”
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief of CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info. Mr. Diekmann is also author of the new book, ‘501 Name Tags: Everything You Need to Know About Business Can be Learned at a Conference & Forgotten in the Trade Show.” For info: www.501nametags.com.