WELLS FARGO GREEDY BASTARDS

WELLS FARGO GREEDY BASTARDS

A cranky opinion for

CRANKY OIPINION SATURDAY

The following is the opinion of a cranky old man with limited knowledge of the topic opined.  Opposing opinions are welcome, but they are wrong.  As always, please, no name calling, that means you, you big stupid-head!

The CEO of Wells Fargo recently decided to step down after his bank got caught creating false accounts and ripping people off in tiny pieces (mostly, I think, service charges.) Poor bastard, it wasn’t his fault, the fraud was all done by lower level managers and clerical workers.  I suspect the scaty-eight million dollars he took with him in bonuses and stock options will help take the sting out of his leaving.

I have to admit, that even though I have read about this case several times I’m not completely sure how much any customers were hurt by the bank’s illegal activity.  I don’t think anyone was beat up badly ala Bernie Madoff, I think there was a lot of nickel and dime expenses but that no one was seriously financially injured.

I believe that is why this fraud went on undetected for so long.

Who I really feel sorry for are the low-level bank employees that helped perpetrate this fraud.  Were these employees bad people?  Did they walk away with scads of money? I don’t think so.  I believe most of the perpetrators were pressed to open new accounts no matter what.  If they didn’t meet their quota they did not get a good review, did not get a raise and were rightfully concerned about keeping their job.

Apparently, everyone at the bank (and I suspect other banks) were pressured to bring in new business.  In effect, everyone was expected to be a salesperson, and an awful lot of people are not cut out as salespeople, I know I am not.

When news about Wells Fargo came out, I was not surprised.  Several years ago, Mrs. Cranky told me the reason she left working at her bank was she was being pressured every day to open new accounts.  She liked her job, she was good with numbers, but she was told to ask every customer questions which directed them or encouraged them to “take advantage of the banks many products.” She was expected to open a certain amount of accounts (think quotas.)

I found that difficult to believe.  How could anyone expect tellers or even their supervisors to have a quota of new products they had to sell? 

Apparently, it was true, and what fries my patoot is I know God damn well that if people were being pressured at every level, then every level on up, especially the CEO, knew about and were responsible for this pressure.

What suddenly set me off about banks abusing of their hard-working, salt of the earth blue collar employees?  Recently I read a comment on an ancient post I was researching for my weekly re-run. 

I found it very interesting, as it relates to this Wells Fargo story and confirms what my wife told me many years ago.  The comment was on a post about a sales job I almost took and why I could not sell something to someone whom I knew did not want what I was selling.

This is the comment made over five years before Wells Fargo was sanctioned for opening unauthorized accounts, mostly by lower -level employees who felt pressured to do so:

“I just left a job at a big bank about 3 months ago (I have another job now) where I had to start selling things to every single customer. this would be fine, if I didn't work in IT/tech support for that bank. customers don't want to get help troubleshooting their quicken/QuickBooks access for 45 mins and then be asked, ‘have you thought about starting a supplemental IRA with us?’

that is so obnoxious. “

This comment was on a post from September 2011.  Interesting isn’t it.  I wonder how many thousands of employees’ lives were made miserable by the high-pressure tactics forced on them by the bank’s executives.

I hope the CEO and other high executives of Wells Fargo run into a Mr. Even Steven. 

FUCK’EM!

The preceding was the opinion of a cranky old man, and I’m pretty sure management, Mrs. Cranky, agrees.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/25/investing/wells-fargo-workers-mental-health-nightmares/index.html?iid=ob_homepage_deskrecommended_pool 

WHY GOLF?

WHY GOLF?

 I often hear people make the comment,

“I’ll never understand why someone would spend so much time chasing a little white ball trying to put it into a little hole.”

Now I do understand that sentiment; I often wonder why people sit in a theater and listen to actors semi-sing the lyrics to a story that is done so much better on a movie screen with real dialog, special effects and a really big picture.

Here is the thing about golf, it teaches you much about life.

You Learn:

Life is hard – If just making contact with a club on a little white ball is not enough, golf like life, is loaded with hazards.  Trees, rough, sand, water, trenches…all to test your skill and your temperament.

Practice makes better – Like most of life, there is no perfect in golf.

Keep your head down and your eye on the ball – OK, keeping your head down is not always a good idea in life, but metaphorically it is always a good idea to keep your eye on the ball.

Life is not fair – You learn this when your best drive of the year reaches the water hazard that you thought was out of your range, and you are penalized a stroke for your very best shot.

Karma exist -  You learn this when you hit a horrible shot and it bounces off a tree and onto the green one foot from the cup.

Stay in the now – You are only as good or as bad as your last swing.

Perspective – No matter how bad a player you are, you will find yourself behind a foursome of players that are even worse than you are and taking forever to finish the hole.

Humility – No matter how well you are playing, there is always someone much better…usually in the foursome behind you waiting for your slow ass to finish the hole.

Golfers are the best – I have never met a golfer that was not a really nice person…except for those slow horrible players in the foursome ahead or those impatient asshats in the foursome behind me.

Life should be like golf for this  last one:

Golfers have no race or ethnicity – There are Black people, White people, Asians, Indians, any number of races and cultures, but on the public courses I play, there are only Golfers!  

So, there you have it people who don’t understand golf. 

Now someone just needs to explain to me why I would pay $150 to watch actors pretending to be animals singing every line in the same fake sing-song style of every single musical ever performed, when I could pop in a DVD of “The Lion King” for nothing.

The Logic Train Does Not Stop At My House

The Logic Train Does Not Stop At My House

Mrs. C complains that I often make fun of her idiosyncrasies.  She thinks she has no idiosyncrasies.  I guess if you don’t call hiding food from you husband, or not wanting to walk on the sidewalk, or dipping your spoon in pudding instead of scooping it, idiosyncrasies, then she is correct.  Just when I get used to one “unusual modus operandi” I uncover another.

The other day my garage door remote was not working.  I figured it needed a new battery, but I also thought we had another remote that would have a good battery.  I looked in a small kitchen storage thingy that is stuffed with assorted papers in little filing slots and then pulls open for extra stuff storage.

I was pretty sure that this is where the second remote was.  When I opened it up, a wad of about 220 old losing lottery tickets spilled out. 

“WTF!” This was not good.

Mrs. C was not home; she was working at a ballroom dance competition.  Mrs. C does not want me snooping around in this cabinet.  I could not stack all those tickets back in a way that would allow me to put them back and also close the door. 

I did find the other remote. 

When Mrs. C called later that day I confessed to her what I did. 

“I can’t close that kitchen cabinet thingy and also put back all your lottery tickets.”

“What were you doing in that cabinet anyway, and don’t you lose those tickets?”

“I was looking for the other garage remote, which I found, and what the heck are you saving those tickets for anyway?”

“Never mind!”

“You’re saving them as a tax write off in case you hit the big one aren’t you.”

“Maybe.”

“You realize that more than half those tickets are older than a year and couldn’t be used as a write off don’t you?”

“Maybe, just don’t throw them away.”

“As ridiculous as it is to save a fist full of losing tickets so when you hit for $100,000 or more we would only have to pay tax on $99,815, at least let me toss the tickets from last year and older.”

“NO! (exclaimed with a tone bordering on panic) don’t throw any away, they might change the law.”

For my next comment in this exchange I need to tell you that we have a storage unit which cost, I don’t want to say how much, every month where she keeps crap that her kids may want someday.  This shed is full to the brim and may contain about $250 worth of crap that her kids will never want, but say they might.  For the cost of this storage unit over the years I could purchase 10 brand new of whatever is in there.  I look at it as spending “X” dollars every month to keep a happy marriage.  

However, I am not above poking her about it from time to time.

“Maybe we could put the losing lottery tickets in the storage unit,”

“Just put them aside, I’ll fit the back when I get home.”

Then you’ll never guess what she called me.