RIP Cheque: Burying A Legacy

Thulaganyo Jankey | Tuesday October 10, 2023 06:00

I was inconsolable. For the millennials, a cheque book is a little book with printed cheques that are used as a sort of promissory note. When you feel too important to pay off your creditor, you take out a cheque leaf and write down the amount you owe them and off to the bank they would go.

I wanted to put on all manner of armour to confront whoever came up with such craziness. Banks are peopled with smart employees and when they come up with such decisions usually they will place a little footnote at the end that says something like ‘Do not reply to this number/email’. So basically you will be talking to phantoms if you try to reply.

How do you chastise an offending phantom? The chance to vent has gone up in flames faster than Sandveld farms. It seems there is a gore fest of bedlam in our way of doing things, our roots, and our culture, our us.

How do you stop the use of cheques? Every self-respecting businessman always had a cheque book in their cubbyholes or briefcases. Not only was the cheque book used to pay creditors but it was also an accessory of sort. Every man about town with a decent bank balance had to have a cheque book. Every man about town with a bank balance teetering around single digit bank balance had to have a cheque book.

The latter usually kept a façade of a healthy bank balance and their cheques usually came back with a red-inked Refer To Drawer squiggle across its face. This was the main cause of street fights when cheques were in use.

The creditor returned with a dishonoured, red-inked cheque and a red face and hunted the dishonourable debtor until a fight erupted. Sophistry also meant the real guys with money instead of slapping down money on your palm will say ‘I will write you a cheque’ and act all important in place of doing the needful. The bank was also careful not to adorn every Tom, Dick and Patty with a cheque book. Such characters were deemed not fit enough to carry a cheque book because it was feared they will indiscriminately write out cheques for people who don’t even know where the bank is. Writing out a cheque had its own level of swag and panache.

When you write out a cheque for someone, you do not just whip out a cheque book and quickly write the details. You slowly take out the cheque book and start waving it about while engaging in a little chit-chat about the weather, the political situation and some nonsense that really has nothing to do with the debt. This is in order for those passing by to see that you have a cheque book. After that you write out the cheque slowly, gingerly and ceremoniously so that more people will see you writing a cheque. This was the official way of doing it and it irked creditors. It didn’t matter though because the same creditors would put those they owe through the same routine.

So it was the universally accepted standard albeit sometimes grudgingly depending which side of the cheque you were. With the death of the cheque, it means all those who are over 60 years of age will have to go through a crash course in cellphone banking basics which is going to be a mammoth task for these tech aliens. That also means very soon all employment adverts will have a line that says ‘No baby boomers, no Gen X. Only Gen Y/Millenials are eligible. We no longer use cheque books’.

The cheque is pushing up daisies and so here we are all bent out of shape because we have been shorn of one of our adornments that completed that businessman look. Remember the telex? Remember the telegram? Fax? All pushing daisies now! No matter what your legacy is if your bell has rung, it has rung. It is time for new leaves to bloom.

RIP cheque. (For comments, feedback and insults email inkspills1969@gmail.com) Thulaganyo Jankey is a training consultant who runs his own training consultancy that provides training in BQA- accredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email ultimaxtraining@gmail.com.