Being able to admit you feel you may have made an error in judgement is not a damning thing in my opinion...We obviously learn from it and adjust so that it is unlikely that we will make the same mistake again...
One thing I do when realizing I need to stop off and get cash from an ATM...(after I smack myself on the forehead)...
First, I do not think there is a "safe" ATM anywhere...
Second, if I have too, I'm the one who goes and gets the cash...No need for me to "cover" my wife if she wants to go, I'm the one who does it...Call it cavalier, but I am more hyper-aware of whats going on around me during that time more than she ever will be...And thats being nice...
If there is a crowd of cars, or people queued up to punch numbers, I wait...Or find a less populated ATM...
All I'm saying is I wait till no one is walking up to the machine before I venture up there...No need for someone to feel I am a threat to them by standing behind them while they are conducting their business...
This is why I like the ATM vestbules at places where you use your ATM card to access a locked area to the ATM...
Number one it tags your card, and access (big brother arguments aside here
), and #2, sometimes until you leave, no one, even the ones with access have to wait till you leave (or finish your business) to enter the vestibule...(I personally like those proprietary access ATM vestibules)
I actually think we need some more discussion and ideas about this particular ATM issue when we go out into public...
These places are ripe with criminal exploitation and opportunity for someone to take advantage of, even folks like us...Of course they'll never know what they are getting if it actually was one of us...
