What Dignity This?

In that great game 'Oregon Trail', the best job one could have seemed to be banker. Each one did have its outstanding features, but for my money, you couldn't beat banker. I guess that what set it apart were the intangibles. There's an air of class, sophistication and dignity to being a banker. You wear a fine, well-tailored suit and have as your workplace a building with much gravitas to it. That at least is the situation of my imagination.

I believe that is the case for the big time bankers who do not even deal with the public. Of course, those ones are probably in the biggest trouble of all these days, but supposing that we are discussing an honest banker, that's what I'm picturing and admiring. Consider alternately though the banker who is reduced to handling the business of consumers. I still think that it's a dignified position to be a banker in one of those local neighborhood branches. It's good, honest work, though it may not be so lofty.

Too much to bear, however, would be the branches you see in grocery stores. I don't think I could take it. If I imagine that I have gone through whatever schooling and committed myself to a conservative, sedate sensibility based on the great dignity of my vocation, I would be entirely unhappy with conducting serious fiscal business mere yards from the baked bread and within the same building as a deli and florist. I would regard such a post as beneath me. To go to work in a three piece double-breasted suit alongside high school burnouts who wear load-bearing belts and day-glo vests? That would be untenable.

I guess it's probably a low rung within any bank's organizational structure. I wonder whether you start there or whether it's below the starting point, and only for those who suffered a terrible fall from grace. On the other hand, I will concede that for particular types it might be even more desirable to be a banker in a supermarket. What need to pack a lunch? What need to run errands? Even so, I would just as soon have it the other way. I'm sure that's not too much to ask.