Every day, thousands of people get in their cars and drive to an ATM. Some ATM's allow you to stay inside your car and simply pull up next to it to preform the transaction — it's pretty neat.
Here are some basics to using a drive-thru ATM:
1. Pull up close enough to be able to reach the machine out your window. If you don't do this, you might have to open your door and half-way get out of the car and it's kind of awkward.
2. Put the car in park. By putting your car in park you don't have to keep your foot on the break and that's just one less thing to worry about.
3. Select the correct language. This goes for any ATM. Accidentally choosing a language you don't speak ends up being very confusing and unpleasant.
4. Take your receipt. Or don't even have one printed in the first place, that's an option too.
5. Take your card. That's important.
6. Roll up your window. If you drive an older car and the window takes a minute to roll up all the way you should probably pull forward before worrying about that. Be courteous.
Sometimes other cars will line up behind you as you do your business, don't panic, just finish whatever it is you're doing. It should only take a minute. That said, if you have a more complicated transaction that might take more than a few minutes, consider finding a physical location with a teller that can help you process the requests efficiently, as people who are utilizing the drive-thru facilities are often looking for particularly speedy service and could be easily irritated by a slow person.
Also consider going into a physical location if you are dealing with larger amounts of money, because it would kind of suck if it happened to be a windy day and $200 just flew out of your hand and into cross traffic.
The most important advice and reflection that I can offer is to "be courteous." Which I guess is good advice.
Being courteous lends to having gratitude, and as philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude," so if you want to take a big leap, becoming good at using a drive-thru ATM is the first step to embodying the essence of great art. It's pretty neat.
