Customer is always (left) right (out)

Remember those recent banking awards where every bank in the country seems to have won some major gong. Must be a lot like the laughing clowns at the Ekka, where every child player wins a prize!
The NAB (formerly known at the National) has been spending a motza in the media lately boasting about their particular gong - the bank that "looked after its customers the best" prize. In the 1pm to 3pm sub-division. Only joking!
I don't begrudge NAB their win, but I do wonder about their boast that they always put their customers first. I was given the task last week of going to the NAB's pretty little historic building on the corner of Edward and Queen streets in the city to pick up some documents for a friend.
Now, is there anyone out there in Indieland who gets as miffed as your Ann about a lack of signage to help customers in any store - be it a bank, a post office, whatever? And are some of you of sufficient vintage to remember the times you've waited in the wrong queue knowing deep down in your little heart of hearts that you're not in the right place, and that, sure enough, you're going to be told exactly that when you finally shuffle to the front.
Anyway, your Ann was in good spirits as she entered the award-winning, customers-come-first NAB in the city, where she immediately looked for a sign that said something like GENERAL INQUIRIES or HELP DESK or SERVICE DESK. You know, the sort of sign you'd expect to see from a bank now spending a motza thanking its customers for helping it win the bank that, well, you know.
There were a handful of tellers working away with customers, but your Ann is old and wise enough to know you don't go there. As I wandered around the centre, looking for a sign that said something like GENERAL INQUIRIES or HELP DESK or SERVICE DESK, I did notice two work stations where two square-shaped backlit signs did announced four services: New Accounts. Investments. Home Loan Inquiries, Credit Cards.
I'm not sure what my friend's documentation entailed, but I didn't think it would be any of those. Surely not. I wandered over anyway. One of the stations wasn't staffed, and a customer being serviced at the other seemed to be faced with a complex problem likely to last longer than my lunchbreak.
Standing in line for a wee while, I then spied, just to my right, a sign that said: PRE-ARRANGED COLLECTIONS. Now, hands up out there in Indieland who share the opinion I formed at the time that such a spot might just be the ideal place to make a pre-arranged collection? Okay, hands down. And I thank you for that overwhelming vote of support.
I pressed the quaint little bell besides the Prearranged Collections sign. It looked just like the one Dustin Hoffman hit at the hotel reception to book his room with Mrs Robinson. Away across the way, a woman looked over from her little workbooth, and made her way over. I told her I was here to collect some documents. This area, she haughtily informed me, was for collecting cheques or some such thing. Well, excuse me, I thought to myself, how dare I not be up to speed on commonly used and internationally recognised banking nomenclature.
It was then that I might have made the comment, a little sternly to match her own manner perhaps, that I wouldn't have needed to bother her if I'd been able to spy anywhere in the branch that vaguely suggested itself to be a place one might go to for GENERAL INQUIRIES or HELP DESK or SERVICE DESK.
She waved across the room, saying it was over there. She turned to another employee and said gruffly: "Please look after this gentleman" before turning abruptly on her heels.
I said to this male employee: "That lady has pointed over there somewhere and made it quite clear there's a general help desk or inquiries desk I've missed. Please show me where it is as I'm feeling a little silly right now." Right where we were, apparently. Under the signs that said New Accounts. Investments. Home Loan Inquiries. Credit Cards.
To be fair, this young chap was most polite, and quickly found my documents, but as I left, I pondered what ever happened to that quaint old rule of business that went: the customers are always right. And thought that maybe the NAB is no different from the other banks: they badly want you as customers, but just not in person. After all, staff wages cut down on profits, don't they?