Tom Ferris loved his job.

He was offered branch management positions time and time again, but he preferred to stay in his position as a teller. Eight hours a day, five days a week. No politics, no overtime, no drama. Just a good salary and a decent benefits plan.

He knew pretty much every regular customer who came into his small suburban branch, so it was easy for him to spot the out-of-place young man in a thick cotton sweatshirt with the hood up on this particular Tuesday in late July.

Tom watched the stranger fiddle around with deposit slips at the side table in the lobby, then called out, “May I help you?” in his Friendliest Teller Voice.

The young man walked directly to Tom’s window, then nervously slid a slip of paper across the counter.

“Little hot today, isn’t it?” Tom asked without looking at the slip.

“What?”

“I said it’s a little hot today. Probably a little too hot to be wearing that hood, don’t you think?”

The stranger scowled and pushed the slip of paper towards Tom and tapped on it.

Tom lifted the slip and giggled, then read it out loud: “This is a stick-up.” He laughed again. “Oh, that’s adorable.”

“Look, I’m robbing you,” said the flustered stranger.

“Yes, I understand that. But who says ’stick-up’? Are you supposed to be Steve McQueen in The Getaway or something?”

“The what?”

“The Getaway,” Tom said with his Polite Teller’s Smile, as the stranger just stared at him. Tom rolled his eyes. “You know, heist movie, 1972. A classic. You have seen it, haven’t you?”

“Well no, but I—”

“Of course not. Clearly you’re not familiar with the heist movie oeuvre,” Tom said with a shake of his head, “otherwise you wouldn’t be making so many mistakes.”

“Mistakes?” the stranger sputtered.

“Mistake number one, you came in here on the busiest day of the month. It’s the first tuesday, which means that people will be coming in to deposit their unemployment checks. The lobby is already starting to fill up. So there will be more witnesses.”

The stranger became agitated. “Look, pal, I’ll blow your fucking head off,” he said, pointing something through his right hoodie pocket towards Tom in as menacing a fashion as he could manage.

“Mistake number two, you’re pushing your finger too far out through your pocket. Now I can clearly see that it’s just your finger, and not a gun.”

“It is a gun!”

“No it’s not, it’s your index finger. I can clearly see it. If you’re going to mimic a weapon, just push your finger out enough so that there is a slight bulge, not a pointy thing. That way no one can be certain if it’s a muzzle or not.”

“Maybe it’s a knife!” the stranger barked, loudly enough to turn a couple of heads in the lobby.

“It’s not a knife, either. You’re desperate. Perhaps even stupid,” Tom said, maintaining his Polite Teller’s Smile, “but no one robs a bank with a knife. It’s too personal. Too messy. Knives are used in crimes of passion and immediacy, not planned heists.”

The would-be robber simply stood there, sweating profusely, his face flashing between anger and utter incomprehension. Finally he pulled the hood back from his wet, greasy hair, unzipped his hoodie in a huff, and leaned in towards Tom. “Okay, fine. What else?”

“Look up over your left shoulder,” Tom said.

The sweaty thief did so, and found himself staring into a large dome-covered camera.

“Mistake number three. That’s a high-resolution surveillance camera. It just captured your face at sixty frames per second. And the facial recognition software this bank uses is from Inimitech, the same outfit that designed a similar program for the FBI. A cotton hood and a day’s worth of scruff aren’t going to be enough to disguise you.”

“Dammit.”

“Mistake number four involves the fact that your fingerprints are all over this place because you’re not wearing gloves, and I’m not going to even mention the fact that you’re wearing a shirt bearing the name of the place where you likely work. Do you have a car waiting outside? I bet you probably parked your own car right in a front space. My god, boy, do you have any sort of plan at all?”

“Okay, okay, I get it, Jesus, lay off already.”

The stranger’s expression turned from frustration to defeat to sheer panic in an instant.

“Alright, look,” Tom said, “I’m going to let you out of this, and no one has to know.”

The stranger nearly gasped in disbelief as Tom glanced at his watch.

“My lunch break is in five minutes, and I’m starving, so here’s how we’re going to wrap this up,” he said, grabbing a slip of paper and a pen. He scribbled on the paper for a few seconds, and then slid it across to the failure of a robber.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a list of classic heist movies. You are going to rent every damned one of them, and watch them in their entirety, in the order listed there.”

Tom reached into his pocket as the stranger perused the list.

“My car is the blue Civic in the back of the parking lot,” Tom said, handing his keys to the stranger.

“What?”

“My car. You’re going to take it down the street and have it washed and waxed on your own dime. And I don’t mean the do-it-yourself place on Madison. I want you to take it to Buggy Bubbles and get the Max Wash with the tire shine and the clearcoat protectant.”

“Are you serious? Man, that wash is like twenty bucks!”

“Given the choice between twenty dollars and twenty years for attempted armed robbery with a deadly finger, I think you’ll find you’re getting the better deal.”

“Fine, dude. Whatever,” he said, shoulders slumped.

“Great! On your way, then. I want that Honda back in the parking lot and shining like a diamond by the time I finish my Hot Pocket. And after watching that list of films, I do hope that if you are still interested in knocking off a bank, that next time you try the Harwick Savings and Loan down on 13th Street. The staff is fairly dim and their camera equipment was installed in the Carter Administration. They also launder money for the DiPaolo crime family, so no one is going to search particularly hard for the thief, provided he only takes a few thousand dollars.”

“Uh. Okay. Um… thanks?”

The defeated young man turned away and made a hasty retreat through the door, with Tom calling, “Have a nice day!” in his Friendliest Teller Voice.

Tom Ferris loved his job.