When it became available at the banks, there were long queues of people waiting to get their hands on them.
In view of the overwhelming response, staff working in the back end office of a bank were activated to help out at all the branches on the weekends.
A lady was assigned to go to a branch near to her home.
When she arrived at the branch on the Saturday's morning, she was told by the branch manager that they do not need any help.
She offered to help slot the new notes into the booklets and was told it was not necessary because customers want to check the notes. Due to this reason, the queue was moving rather slowly as every customer was spending a few minutes going through "checking" the notes at every counter.
Isn't it interesting?
Why are these people checking the notes? What are they checking the notes for? What do they want to check for?
They've never seen the notes before and any form of checking is unlikely to reveal anything to them. If there was something that's not supposed to be printed and gets printed, they wouldn't know it unless they have a picture to compare it to. If there's certain special security features, they wouldn't be able to tell it. Even if the serial numbers on the notes are the different from the old ones, they probably wouldn't be able to spot it unless they compare it to one (we only take note of notes with special serial numbers, don't we?). So are they checking to see if these new notes were torn or defective?
When we withdraw cash from the bank or the ATM machines, we usually count the number of pieces of notes to make sure it's the correct amount and not check the notes. Must of us would assume that these notes are genuine (not counterfeit), unless it's a $10,000 note where we will exercise extra precaution.
When we change for new notes during Chinese New Year for the red packet, we also do not check these notes.
When the country issued new notes previously, how many of us actually bothered to check the notes? Didn't we just say "Oh, this is the new note!" when you got one?
The bank has two queues for customers who want to change the new notes. A normal queue and an express queue for the elderly.
Why not have a queue for those who wants to check their notes on the spot and those that do not want to do so?
Anyway, if I discover a defect in one of the new notes, it's probably going to be worth a lot in the future.