On the ride there, many questions were being asked.  “I wonder what the bank will be like?”, “Will there be money bags all over the vault?”, and “How big will the vault be?”  By the time we got there, we were on the edge of our seats waiting for the car to stop.  The building was magnificent from the outside and we couldn’t wait to go inside.  Everyone knew it would be a great trip!
     As we looked around all we saw was granite, beautiful gold chandeliers, and the giant, eye-catching, steel vault.  Everyone was flabbergasted.  Shortly we met up with the branch manager of the bank and we began our tour.
     First she explained the job of a bank teller.  A bank teller is the person at the front desk of the bank and the one handling all the money. 

    They have to record everything.  They, like all bank employees, are trained in what to do in case of a robbery. Banks have alarm systems all over the place.  One of them is a silent alarm that will be sent to the police if you pull a bill from a certain spot in the register drawer.  It seemed that most of the alarms were silent because noisy ones would make it more dangerous for the bank employees in case someone was inside robbing them.
     After that we went inside the vault.  That is where all the money is.  Now, normally you expect to see money all over the ground.  Not here.

The vault was actually very organized. There was a mirror at the back of the vault room that made it look like it went on forever.  It would make it nearly impossible for someone to be in there and not be seen or be reflected from the mirror. There were safe deposit boxes on one wall that had locks on them. Most of them were open because the bank was closing down and people had taken their stuff out by then.  Some locks were drilled out because there were no keys or the renter couldn’t be found.  A safe deposit box is a fireproof box that holds a person’s valued objects.  When you rent a box, you get a key and the bank has a key.  If you lose your key, a locksmith has to come and break open the box.  It takes your key plus the bank key to open the box. Identification is needed before opening the safe deposit box and you are taken to a special private room to open it.  The bank does not know what is in the safe deposit boxes and don’t really want to know.

     It was a combination of cool and creepy to be in the vault.  We wondered what it would be like to be closed inside.  There is a vault ventilator which is a fan that pulls air into the vault from the outside.  This allows you to breathe when the door of the vault is closed.  The door of the vault weighs 1000 pounds an inch. There is also an alarm on the ceiling of the vault. If you were trapped inside, you would press the alarm and help would come shortly. Vaults have strong locks. This is because banks don’t want anyone breaking in. All of the safes and boxes in the vault are fireproof.  The walls are really thick concrete, too.
     All around the bank, you can find things such as security cameras and silent alarm buttons. They even have a monitor in their break room that shows what is happening in the lobby.  If there is a suspicious person or a robbery happening, anyone in the break room can see it.  It would be their job to call the police and lock themselves in that room.

     Next we went to the basement.   The creaky steps took us to places where normal bank visitors don’t go.  There was an old bank vault that was used in the old days for foreign coins.  There are old ledgers in there now.  Instead of putting deposits and withdrawals in a computer like we do now, tellers wrote them by hand in ledgers. The ledgers are so old that they will be sent to a bank museum when the building closes.  There were many big rooms with lots of stuff sitting around that needed to be moved from the bank.  Then we went to the bailout room.  The bailout room is a room where all of the people in the building would go if there was a robbery and the robber didn’t know they were there.  If there was a fire and you couldn’t get out fast enough you would go in there. 

    While we were at the bank, the teller explained how to sign up for accounts and the different kinds that the bank offered.  We were lucky enough to get copies of forms that people use to deposit and withdraw money while we were there.  She also explained the responsibilities of a teller and a branch manager.
     We also got to see some special machines in action.  There was a paper money counter, a coin roller, and the ATM machine.  Since we knew that one of our pages needed to include ATMs, we watched the teller very carefully as she took out the roll of receipt paper to put in a new one.

    Even though the whole back of the machine was opened so that we could see its insides, the money was in boxes.  A couple times a day, a teller will open the back of the ATM and check to see if everything is working properly.  He/she will take out any deposited money so that it can be credited to the person’s account.