Carol Hutchins
thirty-four years behind the teller window at a small-town Nebraska bank
$14/hour , set by Carol Hutchins. Your first session with them is free.
I started at First State in Chadron in 1984 and retired in 2018, and in all that time I never once told a customer what to do with their money. Wasn't my job. My job was knowing their names, noticing when the same overdraft kept turning up, and never making anyone feel small about it.
My granddaughter talked me into this. She set up my account and said people pay for what I did free at the window. I was skeptical. For my first session I over-prepared, printouts and all, and the young man just wanted somebody to open a bank statement with him because he hadn't looked in eight months. We opened it together. That taught me plenty.
So that's a session. We sit, coffee on my end, and look at whatever you've been avoiding. No lectures. I watched wheat farmers lose everything through no fault of their own. Shame has no place at my counter.
More background
What I know from the window: reading a bank statement line by line, spotting the charges people forget they signed up for, overdraft patterns, keeping a paper check register (laugh if you want, it works), and how to walk into your own bank and ask a question without feeling foolish. Good for: folks who haven't looked at their account in months, older people whose kids handle too much for them, young ones who never got taught the basics. Not for: anybody wanting advice on what to buy or where to put money. I never gave advice at the bank and I won't start now. No investments, no insurance, no tax questions. And I'm no counselor, just company. Availability: I keep farm hours, so I'm best between 7am and noon Central, and I don't take sessions on Sunday. Between visits I might mail you a little worksheet, an actual envelope with a stamp, because things you can hold get done. I'll ask after it next time, gently, but I will ask.