Bankers' Sense of Humour

Have you heard the adage “If you want to buy a secondhand car, buy it from a doctor; and if you want to buy a secondhand heart, buy it from a banker”? The logic was that both wouldn’t have been used much by the first owner! Bankers are still perceived to be personification of evil, or at least, reincarnations of Shylock. In a few years’ time, when engineering graduates will take up most of the banking positions, this might change, but for the time being, it is not much use expecting any sense of humour from bankers.

So did I thought.

Until today morning!

Three days back, I had received a mail from Kotak Mahindra Bank – a usual one, detailing safety tips while responding to SMS for banking transactions. But the subject line was intriguing – “Tips for Safe Baking – SMS Fraud”. Obviously, ‘banking’ was misspelled as ‘baking’.

No big deal.

The amusing part of the deal was a message I received from the same bank today morning, with a subject line “Just to confirm that we have not diversified into baking”. Opening the mail, there was more, to have a hearty laugh, which ran thus.

“We sent you an email sometime this week whose subject line read "Tips for Safe Baking: SMS Fraud". We would like to apologize and set the record straight. Kotak Mahindra Bank has not entered the baking business. And has no serious plans of doing so anytime soon, no matter how much dough there may be in it. :). What's more, to the best of our knowledge, baking is more or less a safe activity. Unless, perhaps, you overheat the oven?”

The clever use of ‘dough’ was the icing on the cake, to continue in baking parlance!

Would you believe it? Reading this message in the morning at office lifted my mood up.

So I thought I would better tweet the bank, acknowledging their immense sense of humour, which one would hardly expect from a bank’s help desk.

Hence I tweeted thus, including the bank’s twitter handle, “@KotakBankLtd sends a funny clarification mail on a misspelled warning sent earlier. Never thought bankers could've humour sense! Good one!”

Whatever you may say against them, Kotak’s customer response is fast and prompt. A few minutes later, I received a reply tweet.

“@sajith2009 Hi, plz elaborate your exact issue to assist further. ^Kotak Team”.

I was lost for words. However, I replied to them thus.

“@KotakBankLtd This regarding an earlier mail on 'banking' misspelled as 'baking'. Your clarif mail was amusing and my tweet was appreciative”.

To which, they replied “@sajith2009 Ohh Sorry about that! We have already highlighted the issue to relevant team to rectify the same. ^Kotak Team”

Now, once again I am not so sure about bankers’ sense of humour!