Real job, fake money: Fleet Bank trainer prepares tellers for the front lines.

Except in one or two areas, teller training at Fleet Bank is as authentic as possible.

"We don't use real money," says Gary Griffin, teller training specialist for Fleet Bank in Western New York. "And there are no actual customers. When we get into customer service, I tell them it's more common sense and common courtesy than anything else - It's what your mother taught you.'"

Griffin, one of a dozen trainers in the Boston, Mass.-based banking company's five-state region, says that not using real money makes it easier for auditing purposes.

"In times past - like when I went through teller training seven years ago - we used real money. But we had to be audited every day," he says.

Plastic fake coins replace real money at Fleet's West Seneca skills center, 2970 Transit Road. The prop currency comes in pennies, nickels, dimes, …