A tale of two cities (or at least two banks)

I do the finances for a dance school with several studios in DC and MD.  I wear a bunch of hats in my job and one of them is making deposits of donations and grants.  We have an account with Bank of America which has branches conveniently close to all of our studios.

Sometimes I make a deposit when I'm visiting our Friendship Heights studio in NW DC.  Though there is fair amount of street activity a couple blocks away near the Friendship Heights Metro station and shopping areas, there is very little foot traffic in the vicinity of the bank.  The bank branch usually has a young guy at the front desk greeting you as you come in, asking what you need help with and directing you to one of two or three tellers at the windows or the assorted managers in cubicles for loans or opening accounts.  I typically ask the tellers who wants to take care of me, as they rarely have any customers doing transactions and it's usually a quick deposit.  They have lollipops by the window for customers with kids or customers who are still kids like me.  Never a line, as the branch is heavily staffed.

The beautiful old H street bank

Usually I make deposits at the branch at the intersection of H and 8th Streets in NE DC.  As it's located at the transfer point of several bus lines as well as the center of a busy business area, there is a lot of foot traffic in the area all day long.   The branch usually has a line of at least four to six people (today was a record: thirteen) waiting for the tellers.  Sometimes there are two tellers, but frequently there is only one, sometimes doing a series of complicated transactions for customers.  No lollipops.  I've spoken with the branch manager about the staffing and she says she has asked the region manager for more staff but he refuses to provide more.  She gave me his card and I wrote a very pleasant letter asking that he provide more staff to improve the customer service at the location, saying that it was unfair that some people have to wait much longer for the same services, just because of the branch location and its greater volume of customers.  He never wrote back. 

In today's record line, as exasperated folk began to vent, one woman said the lack of staff was all because of the zip code, a polite way of saying race, as everyone in line except me was black, which is usually the case at this branch.  Several people in line gave up and left.  A older woman who had been waiting for a long time asked the DC police officer behind the glass (many banks I've walked into have a rent-a-cop security guard, but this branch always has a MPD officer on duty inside) to let her use the bathroom.  At first he said there were no public restrooms but he eventually got the keys to the back office area from the manager and escorted her back.  As the people in line got angrier at waiting, I started to think the policeman wasn't there to deter robbers as much as to prevent irate customers from laying waste to the bank's furniture.

It seems to me that Bank of America, like any business, should realize that black dollars matter.