The Cynic Express(ed) 1.29: Ghost in the Corporation

     So several big banks have decided to merge consensually and at least one other large banks wants to hold another down and merge. I'm a single consumer, and the tolerant customer of a bank in St. Louis that has been swallowing smaller banks. It's hard for me to grasp the details of multi-billion dollar yearly nets when I've got to worry how long I have before the service charges consume the entirety of my savings balance. But that's beside the point, really. Corporate warsling and yee-hawing that you see on the business pages fail to take into account the ghost in the corporation.

     Case in point: my most recent experience with my friendly neighborhood faceless personal banker was when I called to reorder checks and to see if I could change my address via phone. No, I could not-don't ask me why I thought it was a good idea to try, either, because I realized as I was on hold that I would not want to bank somewhere that would let me order checks and change addresses at the same time, no problem, Mr. Smith. I asked anyway, and when she, the voice of Mercantile Bank, told me I could not change my address, I told her not to order the checks. A week later I went to a branch of my bank-one that does not charge "human teller fees," unlike a bank in Chicago-and filled out the proper forms and reordered checks. A week later, I received my checks-with the wrong address, of course.

     Seems that the faceless woman I spoke to went ahead and ordered checks for me anyway. Mistake or passive aggressive behaviour, but I got my spoonful of inconvenience.

     Therein lies the danger, not only with the great banking mergers capturing the business pundits' attention and fears, but also with corporations in general.

     Corporations may start out with the pure, simple goal of doing business and doing business honestly, with service to their consumers and shareholders as primary concerns. However, when a company becomes incorporated, which is literally "made body" in the Latin, it is not given a soul. Its actions are those of men and women who make decisions and act not as themselves, but as that fiscal golem, the corporation.

     The error, and worse, the passive-aggressive lashing out or the dishonest are removed from the person who commits them; it becomes the Corporation. Some poor guy has his entire line of credit on a card secured by a clerk with an attitude who revels in the fact that when his victim tries to use the card in the next month, it will appear to be maxed out. Some young cynic receives a duplicate set of checks and a duplicate charge. And with the second-hand aggression comes a second-hand rage without a real target. All one can do is shake one's fist at the abstract and go down to the bank to straighten it out on one's lunch hour.