Bank employee has a clever way to deal with customer who didn't respect the time difference

Working in banking can be challenging due to the complex nature of work and its fast-paced nature. The pressure to meet deadlines, mitigate risk and handle exorbitant amounts of cash can be a reason for stress. In some cases, certain customers can be difficult to deal with, making the job even harder. Reddit user u/WritesForDough42 shared a hilarious incident that their father-in-law experienced while he worked as a trust agent for a bank. The story has a satisfying ending and has gained 10.6K upvotes and 343 comments within a day of posting. The post is titled, "Ignore the time difference in the evening? I'll ignore it in the morning."

The story takes place in the 1970s before there were email and faxes, necessitating phone calls for long-distance communication. Their father-in-law, Carl, worked at a bank in the Midwest, which followed Eastern Time (ET). Carl was tasked with handling trusts and estates for bank customers. One of the customers happened to be an old lady. The lady's son-in-law, Brewton, managed the lady's estate on her behalf and would call Carl with queries. Carl's calls were not problematic, but the timings were. Brewton would often call him at 8 PM ET, which meant that he would be out of the office and spending time with his family. Wanting to prevent him from calling at the time, Carl informs Brewton to ideally call before 5 PM ET and not Pacific Time (PT).

His requests were brushed aside as Brewton continued to pester him outside of office hours and would demand that he get back to him "first thing in the morning." Being a considerate person, Carl would not disturb Brewton and would ensure to call him only after 11 AM ET to ensure he was in the office. However, it soon reached a saturation point where Carl decided that "he'd had enough." After one of Brewton's late calls, Carl got to his office extra early and called him at 8 AM ET to answer his questions. Funnily enough, for Brewton, who picked up the call, it was 5 AM in the morning. Despite still being in bed, Carl acknowledged that it was early for him but pointed out that despite a three-hour time difference, he decided he would call him since he wanted answers "first thing in the morning." After doing this, Brewton never called past 5 p.m. again.

A lot of individuals found the story very relatable and shared their own stories in the comments section. u/Luke1521 commented, "When I worked the 3rd shift, my brother had a habit of calling around 3:00 PM when I was sound asleep, always apologized and then would do it again. I waited for his wife to be out of town and called him at 03:00 AM. Two nights in a row, he finally got the message. u/K1yco pointed out: "People always feel like their timezones are the canon timezone. 'I called you guys when you opened for the last five days and nobody would pick up.' Sir, you're three hours ahead and our hours say Pacific, so you're calling us while we are still asleep."

Editor's note: This article was originally published on September 4, 2023. It has since been updated.