As you may have heard, my bank, Washington Mutual, dug itself a grave in the subprime lending department. It was “acquired” by JP Morgan Chase just over a year ago. For the last few months I couldn’t help but notice how this change in corporate ownership has affected the identity of the branches I frequent, mostly downtown, in Highland Park, and Eagle Rock.
It’s been quite fascinating to me: color shifting from “fun” and “funky” “WaMu” purple to Chase’s “strong” and “trustworthy” cobalt. Typeface changed from the stupidly quirky Missive to… something so unremarkable and conservative that I can’t even picture it. And then the entire layout changed. Branches were gutted; the tellers-in-the-round thing was scrapped and replaced with the super-traditional tellers-in-a-bullet-proof-vitrine. Dress code changed; apparently employees are no longer required to leave their shirts untucked.
Some branches were a little faster in the makeover process than others, and I liked seeing the odd straggler with its patch of purple poster amid the sea of chipper, superhero blue. But to be clear: it did not make me nostalgic. Call me old-fashioned, but I think financial institutions should use capitalization (no pun intended). And call me cynical, but I always, always thought “cash, deposits & free smiles” was the dumbest thing ever. Mostly I just feel sorry for the earth that has to swallow all that mess of obsolete metal, particle board, plastic and paper. Or did they recycle?
To be fair: I hate — “hate,” a strong word, no? But I really dislike them — the Chase billboards. People in Los Angeles do not need to be reminded that they are stuck in traffic, thanks.
I didn’t know anything about Washington Mutual. That’s so interesting about their laid-back attitude. It IS weird to watch corporate makeovers like that happen… reminders that those boxes are shells for a reason.