In order to serve you better...

My bank stood me up yesterday. Maybe that's not something new for a bank to do except for the fact that this time it left me standing out in the sun as well. After my weekend grocery shopping, I had stopped by the spot where it was last seen, and it wasn't there any more — I mean, it was there, the building, the doorway and all that. But the glass doors were closed and barricades of banners and posters stopped me from entering even the ATM lobby.

I must say the bank people were nice enough to give me an explanation right at the doorstep. The banners and posters — all six of them — stated in big, bold fonts that they had relocated. The message was in fact reassuring and made me feel sort of nice about being stood up by my bank. "In order to serve you better, we have relocated." They also informed me that I could access all their services on the net or by telephone.

However, as it was the last day to pay up my credit card bill, nothing short of a physical Cash Deposit Machine would do for me. What they failed to tell me was their new location in my neighbourhood. But how could that be? Going by elementary school lessons, when someone is relocating, there has to be a ‘to' that completes the move just as there is a ‘from'. So, after searching in vain for some fine print that revealed the vital information about their new location, the truth stumbled upon me. My bank had terminated their services in my neighbourhood!

If one of those six banners had told me just that, I wouldn't have felt good in the first place and later felt like I'd been taken. That wasn't serving me any better. True, there were other branches I could access if I didn't mind finding their location first and, more importantly, a parking space close enough. And that wasn't serving me any better either.

The corporate world's obsession with sugar-coating anything that has to do with change or challenge can sometimes be ridiculous. For banks, it is almost like a figure of speech. Like a metaphor or a simile in banking lingo. The difference is that it is not used to bring out the meaning more emphatically, rather than covering up what it really stands for. It is worse than the ‘dangling modifier' in its ambiguity and complexity. It's like an anticipatory bail for a verbal crime that is all too clear once you set aside the veil of ambiguity.

Bitter truths

Such communication underestimates the reader's intelligence by shamelessly suggesting sweet nothings and you are supposed to swallow the bitter truths without a frown! Here's a similar sweet pill that was shoved down the throat of unsuspecting customers, who were already plagued by the bug of recession: "In order to help you manage your finances better, the bank has reappraised your credit limit." So considerate of the bank, you are supposed to think. Despite falling short of your credit needs, you are expected to feel gratified!

"In order to enhance your credibility and credit rating"... they convincingly pre-empt the demand of Dh500 for a no-liability letter. That's the money you owe the bank in order to put on record the money you do not owe them! Again, it's that one pre-emptive phrase, which at once justifies their ransom and makes you feel good when you are being ripped off!

Between these euphemisms and the euphoria they are expected to trigger, what's outrageous is the assumption of naivety they lay bare. All right, so my bank has relocated to an unspecified location to serve me better. When they decided to leave me and my neighbourhood in the lurch, they could have said, "In order to serve you better, we have shut down". True, that didn't make sense. But somehow that seemed to make more sense than it did now.

Sudeep Koshy is a writer and columnist based in Dubai.