This made me recall an odd bank related situation that happened to me a few weeks ago, and which I am still a bit perplexed by.
Due to a couple of things coming up, I needed to stock up on some bills of various denominations. Nothing all that crazy, in my opinion, 20 $1 bills, 20 $5 bills, stuff like that, a few hundred dollars at most. Where else do you get bills like that? The bank, I assumed.
When I got up to the teller, I explained that I needed to pull out X amount from my account, and I that I needed specific number of each denomination. She looked at me like I was asking something completely unheard of. She even told me, I don't think I have the money for that as she shuffled through some drawers.
Eventually she asked another teller who told her she'd have to go to the central terminal (I don't recall the actual name they used) and make a request for each denomination. So the teller walked across the back of the bank to a computer that looked like it was from the 80s. After about 10 minutes of typing, with multiple people helping her, 2 people came out from a room, walked over to a floor vault and opened it. While one pulled out the cash I requested, the other stood guard. It was surreal. They counted the money twice, the teller counted the money twice, and then finally came back to the counter and gave me the deposit. She seemed to be barely holding back her level of irritation at me.
All that for just a few hundred dollars in cash. It had me really wondering if I was mistaken about the role and services provided by banks and whether I was out of line for asking to receive specific denominations. Was I supposed to leave a tip or something?