Gas Cap Lady

So, if I have ever claimed to have met the most unintelligent person in clover, I take it back. This lady takes the cake... although, maybe she is from langley, the water isn't so good there...

Regardless, I will get on with my story with the following assumptions 1)this lady is from cloverdale and therefore 2) is easily the stupidest person in Cloverdale.

Picture this, a beautiful summers day. Birds are chirping, the sun is shining, somewhere children are kiling tiny creatures with magnifying glases or gasoline.

Now into this picturesque environment, insert rusted out Honda (cue lightning strike).

This lady pulls into full serve, whilst I am aiding a handicapped women pump her gas (for people with certifiable disabilities (generally people with one of the little blue signs), our boss allows us to do full serve at a self serve stall, freeing them from the discomfort of having to get out of the car and allowing them to feel much more generous when it comes time for tipping). Now the difference between self and full serve, or at least one of them, is that full serve nozzles have a catch so that you can set the gasoline to pump and then let go of the handle to go do other stuff. With self serve, there is no catch, so you constantly have to be holding the nosal in order for gas to continue comming out. SO needless to say, I had two options, I can tell the handicapped lady that she has to wait for me to come back and continue pumping her gas, or I can wave to aknowledge the lady in full serve and signal that I will be thre as soon as I can.

I opt for the second option.

The lady stopped in full serve, waits a few seconds, then gets impatient and revs her engine. Not once, but twice. This is not cool. I would put this at the same level as raising your hand and snapping for service at a restaurant, just plain not cool.

Anyways, after the second rev, I'm looking in her direction, and she is giving me the "I'm waiting for YOU to get your ass over here" look. Although, I was not motivated to help her at this point, I did not go out of my way to be slow. I finished my transaction with the Handicapped lady, and headed over to impatient lady. And this is where things got interesting.

**side note, in order to save time, and hopefully clairity, I will abbreviate a sound the woman made several times with the Symbols *#* Dont ask me why I chose these, because there is no reason. But the sound the woman kept making was kind of a huff/sigh, like the sound you would expect a 16y/o girl to make as she is walking to the door to go to her boyfriends house and her parents tell her she has to vaccuum the living room before she is allowed to take the car.**

I greeted her, *#* she complained about how long it took me to get over to FULL SERVE!!! Asked for $10.

I asked "regular?", *#* 'yes.'

I asked her to turn her car off. *#*, she does.

I ask her for the key to her gas cap. She tells me its unlocked. (Although it clearly had a lock on it, it is entirley possible that it was unlocked). I tried to open it. It was locked. (keep in mind this is not really the cap, but the little hinged door that covers the gas cap)

I ask her if she has the key to unlock the gas cap, *#* she claims it doesnt usually need a key, and begins fiddling around with the buttons around the left side of her dash. No luck.

I ask if her ignition key opens the gas cap as well (quite frequently it does). *#*, she puts her key into the ignition and starts her car up (totally not what i meant) and she asks me if its unlocked not.

No, I answer. *#*

She suggests prying it open, because it should be unlocked.

I try, but sure enough, there is quite a catch, and there was no way I could get it off with my fingers and no way without damaging the car.

I ask to see her keys, with the hopes of finding the one that opens the cap. *#*

She takes her keys out of the ignition, takes off all the keys but the ignition key, and hands it to me. Perhaps I was going to run off with her keys and sell them on the black market, which leaves me wondering, who told her.

Since it obviously wasn't going anywhere else, I try the ignition key in the lock. Perfect fit.

I fill her gas, take her money, and she leaves. Thank God.

High School 'Friends'

It amazes me how some people, now that we are beyond our high school years, think that is ok to simply forget that they spent five years ignoring my exsistence and then show up at a gas station two years after graduation and pretend that we were 'bestest friends' and then reminace (I don't know how to spell that word... so sue me) about all the fun times we had.

And you'd be surprised how much this happens.

People that wouldn't give me the time of day.

People that I had in numerous classes with in 8-12, but probibly still didn't know me by first name.

People who went out of their way to make me feel as unimportant as possible.

These are the people asking me how I'm doing, telling me I should give them a call so that we can "go hang out." Not that I ever would, I hope that some of them realize that I see through their pitiful attempts to patronize me.

"Oh how you've changed, Neal... I can barely recognise you" (thats because you have'nt talked to me since grade 7 grad, you stupid bag)

Of course I feed them my GSA smile, which they seem to feed off, like it makes my day that they recognise me. They get to leave thinking in some special way they've touched my heart.

I get to stay, thinking 'thank-God we carry peptobismal'

Naivity

Two apologies...

First, for not updating this blog in the last few days (I've been busy, im sure you could have guessed)

Second, for my creative (but undoubtably wrong) spelling of the word Naivity in this title...

Anyways, I just thought I'd add a few little something to make your day.

I was working a shift the other day with Amanda, and we spent the better part of two hours talking about the various parts of the job of GSA that really suck. And I don't mean the parts that we hate doing, simply the parts that make us loath comming into the store for our shift, or the parts that make us want to hit the magnetic door lock and curl up on the flor behind the counter and eat $.05 candies for 8 hours.

Anyways, as to be expected, we had a lot to talk about. Of course, never in front of the customers, that would be very bad.

As it turns out, we were approcahing the end of our shift, we were in the home stretch, the final hour. And we started discussing the joy that we would be experiencing with our release, and how great it would be to not have to work for at least 8 hours.

As we were about halfway through our little song and dance about how great things were gonna be in an hour, a customer walked in.

And afetr leistening to us celebrating, but without knowing what it was we were celebrating, he decided to inform us that he thinks it's great that two people can be so enthusiastic about working in the service industry, and that our cheerfulness really made his day.

I never said that this guy was an idiot, but I just thought that it was quite humourous... They can't all be interac ladies, you know!

Mr Lotto

So, i am a firm believer that if you have an addiction, you should at least have the decency to be addicted correctly.

If you're an alcoholic, know all the ingredients to mix your drinks.

If you're a smoker, know what brand you like best and know it visually so as to help service clerks who do not smoke (especially if its an obscure brand).

And if your a gambler, like my next PIQ (person in question, that is), for God's sake, KNOW HOW TO BUY LOTTO!

There are two easy ways to buy lotto tickets.
1) (easiest) fill out your own form, provided at a counter in every lotto selling retailer. you choose your own numbers, your own plays, and everything to your own liking.
2) (only slightly less easy) ask the service clerk for the plays you want. If you want a double, three plays, no extra, the service clerk can provide for you a ticket which has three plays of 6 numebers plus a bonus for both the 6/49 and BC/49. If you want a 6 pack, the service clerk will provide for you 6 plays for the Super 7.

Now there is a slight problem with these two systems... They are, more or less, non interchangeable. If you fill out a card, we can not substitute the 47 for a 32. We can not skip the extra for a week. We cannot add an extra play on the ticket. And for the other way around, we can enter in personalised numers into the machine by hand, but the process makes it so time consuming that most people are not even taught how to do it.

Now that we have the background set up, as per usual, Il get on with my story.

A man comes into the store with his card of pre selected numbers (some people reuse the same cards because it contains "lucky numbers" -- which they have never won the jackpot with i'm sure-- which they hold a special attachemnt to for whatever reason).

Now, when he hands me his card, he says to me "6/49, no extra."

I run the card through and while I'm waiting for the ticket to print I'm making myself more and more confused thinking about his comment.

So, since I have nothing to loose, I ask him "Did you want the 6/49 no extra in addition to this ticket?"

He freaks out. "Why do you guys always ask me that, I want this [his card] on 6/49, no extra."

At this time, I am quite pissed off that he's yelling at me (this is after the piercing guy btw) and I decide I am going to make a stand and not let him leave without me being the winner of whatever argument he wanted to start.

"I was just checking to make sure that I was providing you with all the tickets you wanted, sir"

"All I want is this [his card] 6/49, no extra! Is that so hard?"

"Well sir, a lot of people will bring their ticket and then ask for additional tickets in the form of a quick pick"

"Well I don't care what other people want, I was just making sure you didn't mess it up"

"Sir, the card determines what it prints off, there is a YES box and a NO box for the extra, and if you only want 6/49 you check here"

"I did"

"Then why did you ask for a 6/49, no extra?"

"I didn't"

"Then what did you say"

"I wanted my card, 6/49, no extra"

"If you've used this card before and gotten the right ticket, why would you need to reiterate what you want?"

at this point, he left... without responding...

I take this as a personal victory =D

Piercing Lover

So, as everyone undoubtably knows (or maybe not), I like piercings. i currently have two non mainstream piercings: a lip and an industrial.

Now I realize that piercings are not for everyone, and I would never expect anyone to get piercings of their own for my sake. I also respect that many people have the opinion that piercings are bad, as I have had numerous people, that repected and still respect, tell me that with my lip ring I look more like a fish than a person.

But what seperates these people from my next idiot is that 1) I know these people and 2) the idiot was an ass about it

Let me begin my story.

I was working another long saturday afternoon, doing my weekly nine hour shift when a guy approaches the till. I would estimate his age to be about 23, but he had the classy cloverdale "I work on cars and roll around in pig manure for a living" look that we all know and love, so i may be off by a little. He was quite a bit larger then me, a normal analogy would be - I could eat people your size for breakfast- although its probibly more likely - I rape little girls your size at breakfast-.

I had watched him pump his gas (as we had several customers in the store at the time, but none at the till) and so when he approached the counter i knew exactly what he would be purchasing (unless he threw in some cigs as well, but that is a miniscule variable).

When I announced his price, he swore at me saying "You fucking retard!"...

"What?!?" I replied.

"What the fuck is that on your face"

"It's a lip ring, sir" I said.

"Guys don't wear facial jewelry!" he yelled at me

Thats when I decided that for my own sake I was just going to ignore him for the duration of the transaction.

He was muttering other things, but I was too busy ignoring him to hear them.

I just wish I had had the courage to say these next two things -->

Sir, if you are reading this, Body Modifications have been plastered all over our society over the last several years.

Besides, shouldn't you be home beating your wife for vacuuming while your watching WWE?

Slurpee

So I'm going to take a short break from my usual ranting in order to tell a tale of my least favourite piece of machinary.

The Slurpee Machine!!!

You see, the slurpee machine is, as we preofessional GSA's call it, possessed by demons (this is the technical term). And not the cute ones like in Ghostbusters. These Machines are possessed by the spawn of Satan, the ultimate of ultimates, created and operated in the pure representation of Baalzebub himself.

Dr Faustus would have asked this slurpee machine for supreme powers in exchange for his soul.

To put into perspective how evil these two machines are, I shall give you but a glimpse of the inner workings of their evilness

For starters, they have a keen ability to predict the future. They have what is known as a "defrost cycle" which is used to keep the slurpee from getting to grainy. During this 10 minute cycle, the slurpee will go from the happy little soupy solid we all know and love into a very runny liquid syryp that is deprived of CO2 and is completely devoid of all the frozen goodness that is the slurpee. At the end of the cycle, it takes approximately 5 minutes to reach the desired consistency again.

This cycle will, without fail, start 3 minutes (give or take 2 minutes) prior to the arrival of a large population of slurpee consumers. I kid you not. If ytou want to know when there is a need for two people to be behind the till in order to get customers out in a timely fashion, you just have to wait until the slurpee machine beeps to tell you its going on a break and then wait a few minutes (and the amount of warning time is inversly proportionate to the temperature outside... if its 25C out, you have about 30 seconds to get ready).

The second worse part about the slurpee machine is their inane ability to tempt people.

There are little blippity buttons each of the slurpee machine nozzles. When anyone of the lights is beeping that means that there is something going on with the slurpee machine that prevents the nozzal in question from containing slurpee of the desired taste or texture. Sometimes its because the slurpees are on defrost, or they are out of syryp, or they felt like shutting off for a few minutes (for some reason they do that).

Regardless, as soon as those lights start to flash, ever person in the store has to line up for themselves to test the machine, as if they have the magic touch to bring it back to life.

There could be a crowd of 15 people standing around the slurpee machine, but I can bet you that 95% of them are gonna check to see if the slurpee machine had frozen in the 4 seconds since the last person tried it.

My final peeve about the slurpee machines is the slurpee itself. I dont know how much experience you (my readers) may have had with slurpees, but the syryp used in them is slightly more durable than the plastic coating they put on yaghts. I kid you not. Some days if you forget to wash the florr around the slurpee machine for, say, 30 minutes, the syryp becomes the super adhesive men have been searching for since the beginning of time. If you step in it, your leg is more likely to tear off your body then your shoe is to come off the floor. Worse yet, if you use the wrong kind of cleaner (Mr Clean is particularly bad for this) the chemicals react with the syrup and become a polymer, which then molecularly bonds with the floor. You no longer have tile and syrup, you now have what I affectionately like to call tilerup. Slightly more durable than diamonds, this stuff is not likely to come off the floor in this lifetime, although if I could find someway to extract this, i think it would look lovely on some sort of necklace or engagement ring...

Head Office

There is nothing so irritating as someone who makes it into the big leagues of a major corporation through a strict regiment of brown nosing and blow jobs.

Now I'm not saying that my current complaint is a prostitute, but it would appear that honesty and moral decency are not two of her strong points.

You see, we have a bitch from head office (I can now safely call her a bitch because 1) I'm sure she doesn't read this site 2) I don't need to work any more shifts with her and 3) I know what she's been telling my boss (not directly to my boss, but through the regional manager, I might add) about me)... anyways... She'd doing the last part of her training, in which she has to work three weeks as a GSA and learn as much as she can about our duties, responsibilities, and problems so that they can better understand where we are comming from when we call in with comaplaints/requests etc.

She is training at our store.

Now her primary duty is to do as much till work as possible, as that is primarily our job. There is no problem here, except that it means I have to find alternative things to do when she is working to keep myself busy (and there are only so many times you can mop the floors and windex the glass in an hour).

Well, it turns out I was doing a whole lot of things that she felt necissary to tell her superiors.

For example.

I was talking to Erin behind the counter (I started at 1pm, Erin finished at 1pm... the overlap of our shifts was exceptionally minimal, and she was (if I remember-- as this day seemed uneventful so i didnt store any of this into my long term memory) doing paper work (READ: not serving customers) when I was talking with her. (please also note that because I had not started my shift yet, and erin was wrapping up her shift (and you do not get paid if the paperwork takes you longer than your shift allows, neither of us were technically chatting on paid time)

Next is one thing that I will admit to being worng, but will not accept that she went to Head Office to complain about. I sat on the counter. At our gas station there is a counter which wraps around the till in a (sort of) U shape. on one end of the U, there is the tills, and the space where we serve the customers. On the other side is the lotto machine and a ledge which, conveniently, is the shape/size of my ass. I occasionally sit on it when my feet are tired, or there is nothing at the moment to do (out of respect, I stand whenever there is a customer in the store). Having 4 people on staff at the time (two regular workers, one assistant manager and one trainee) there wasn't a stone, thus far, left unturned, and I hopped up onto my perch for a few minutes. I don't know exactly what was said, but there is now a message in our internal communications book stating that if we are caught sitting up on the counter, we will be fired.

Next we have the infamous penny throwing incident. At our petro can, we have a policy that if you purchase something while on shift, you need to stand behind the counter and have another employee ring your purchase through (like you were an ordinary customer). One of our emplyess did just that. He had waited until there were no customers on the lot (let alone in the store) to make his purchase. I threw a penny at him. A single penny, with an underhand gesture. From the note chastising us for the complaint, you would think I was throwing bricks at the elderly amongst my sacrificing of kittens and listening to Led Zepplin records in reverse.

Finally, we have the instant where I snuck up behind Amanda and made her shriek. Amanda was not serving a guest; nor was I. Neither of us were doing anything dangerous that could have been disrupted by her surprise.

Im getting tired of typing, so I guess I'll close and ignore any complaints against other members of the staff.

Although I will admit that my actions as covered in this blog entry are not the most mature (or mature at all, really) the fact remains that I don't think they in any way hinder my ability to do my job, or my ability to do my job well.

With the three secret shoppers I have had in the last month I have recieved two 90% rating and one 100% rating. I have worked 9 hour shifts dealing with the types of customers charactorised by these blogs and have managed to (almost daily) end each shift with a smile on my face, my tasks completed to the best of my ability, and a following of protocol that has garnered me the aforementioned S-S ratings.

Although I do understand the need for seriousness in the workplace, I do note that my behavior is never directed towards customers, never hinders my ability to do my job, and has allowed me the privilage of being the proclaimed favourite coworker of three of the other eight non managerial employees at my gas station.

I guess there isn't really much else to say but "suck my cock too, bitch. there are plenty of positions I could put you in"...

(If only I could say that in real life...)

Explaination Part Deux

This other one was pretty self explainatory, but since I made mention of it, I felt that this, too, should be explained with a little more detail.

You see, if you ever find that you are filling up a jerry-can and you put just a little too much in, the proper protocol may be to:
1) Offer the excess to another customer who is filling their tank
2) Put it in your own vehicle's tank (heck, you paid for it)
3) Drink it, and put the rest of us out of your misery
4) Pour it on yourself and light a match in order to accomplish the above.

The proper protocol IS NOT to pour the excess into the recycle bin next to the pump.

THIS IS A VERY DANGEROUS HABIT!

As I've said before, I often dont understand how action superceeds logic with some of these people.

Moreso, I dont understand how some of these people can still be in the breeding population. Darwin must be turning in his grave.

Explaination

Since I mentioned it before, I figure I should elaborate a little, and introduce you to another form of idiot. We shall call him the Inconsiderate Parental Unit.

So you are filling up with gas, in fact you are finished filling up with gas, when you realize "I Don't have My Bank Card or Credit Card on me." So what do you do?

Some people like to drive off... this behavior is very frowned upon... Some people beg and plead... While this behavior is also frowned upon, watching people squirm has become a passtime of mine, and as such I've developed a soft spot. Now, although I would let you get off if you made yourself look particularly patheti-sad for the cameras (so I could have a permanent reminder of one of the reasons I stil work at a gas station), Company protocol requires that I obtain something of equal or greater value to the unpaid gasoline. Licenses and other forms of identification do not work, as we have stacks of them in a drawer from people who will "be right back."

That being said, most people will leave faceplates, or cell phones, or books of cd's, or various other things. But not our I.P.U. He goes straight for his wife's most valuable asset when he cannot pay for his $35 worth of gas. He leaves his young child.

Its as simple as that. Child, in a gas station so dad can run home. That would be a great bed time story for the Child Care Workers, I would think.

But he did come back, and in good time too.

What to do When Your Car Catches Fire

Now, near as I can gather this happens far less frequently as portrayed in Hollywood movies, but happens none-the-less. With such an intricate set of moving parts set around the combustion of some very volitile organic substances, it does not surprise me that something could inevitably fail, producing flames and smoke and what have you.

Now common sense would have you know that if your car begins to smoke, and you think it may have caught on fire, and you do not have the proper safety devices in order to extinguish the fire, you should do two things:
1) Park the car some place safe
2) Remove your self a safe distance until emergency personel are able to extinguish the blaze for you.

Our next idiot was able to do only one of those.

Now, I don't know about you, but should I ever start driving, and I suspect my vehicle is on fire, I would much rather pull my car into a crowd of Nuns and Orphans then pull it into an 8 pump gas station filled with people pumping gas.

Now let me just point out the stupidity in its full form. He didn't just pull into the gass station, he pulled into the centre pump... heres a map of our pumps: numbered for east reference-- x's making the location of the burning car, r's making the path he took into the lot...
__________________________________________
Street
__________________________________________
...r.......--------Fence-------------------
...r.......................................
...rrrrr...................................
.......rrrrrrrr............................
..............rrrr.........................
.........[--]....rr...[--]..................
.........1--2.....xx5--6..................
.........[--]......xx[--]..................
....................xx.......................
...........................................
.........[--]........[--]..................
.........3--4.......7--8..................
.........[--]........[--]..................

Thats where he left his burning car!

Once more, he didnt inform anyone his car was on fire... He just got out of his car, checked the hood to see that it was infact burning, and then started running down the street to safety.

Crack Fiend

So, as I'm sure you have realized in the last 10 or so minutes it has taken you to read all my posts thus far, that I deal with a lot of stupid people. A LOT! Now, there is a level of stupidity that goes over and above ignorances, and seems to defy all common sense.

Now, being that I work at a gas station in surrey (eww surrey), I also get the joy of working with a lot of burnout/crack-fiends. Now a lot of burnouts/crack-fiends are simply people that made very poor lifestyle choices and are stuck with the concequences, often a decreased mental capacity,and/or an inability to connect action to consequence. My next idiot, although probibly not helped by his addictions, most likely suffered from the two former problems long before he touched any narcotic.

You see, he was pumping his car with his engine running. Although, this can be done without problems many times, the chances of explosion are severly increased, so much so that it is universal gas station policy to require cars be shut down to pump gas.

Now, I wouldn't have even noticed, had a customer/former employee notified me of the possible catastrophey in the making. So doing what any knowlegable GSA would do, I turned off his pump. to stop the flow of gasoline.

When he came inside, I informed him that he would need to turn off his ignition before I would be willing to allow him to complete his fill.

He proceeded to inform me of his vast knowledge of four letter words, inform me that his car would not restart if he turned it off due to a uncharged battery, inform me that his years on this planet exceeded my own, inform me as to the promiscuity of my mother and to her working in the sex trade, and inform me that he didn't give a fuck what i thought.

I informed him that despite all of the things that he had just taught me, that I would not start his pump up again until he complied. He, obviously pissed off, went back to his car and turned it off. Now I'm not sure if it was the fact that I had won, or the fact that he was obviosly an easy exploder (and, as the f.employee/customer pointed out, had a 6" blade tucked into his belt) but I allowed him to pump the rest of my gas.

and I let Geoff (the guy working with me, not the f.employee/customer) handle the till when the guy had finished pumping his gas.

Debit

So under normal circumstances I would refrain from posting any stories solely about the inability of some people to use interac. Although Canada is the top nation as far as interac usage, there are still many millions of people who still do not use it frequently enough to fully understand the implications and risks associated with the process.

That being said, most people understand that if you do something, you should be willing to own up to it. (Even 80+ y/o immigrants who probibly don't speak a word of english come through our store and make many different purchases problem free because they understand all of this)

And that being said, I shall now introduce to you the Interac Lady. (Please note that under normal circumstances she would have been "Soccer mom"-- the type of lady who would beat up a referee-- but due to the circumstances, "Interact Lady" is more suitable).

So throughout the day we do many thousands of dollars of purchases. This day was just such a day, with somewhere in the range of $10k in (relatively) problem free gasoline purchases. Now, I don't know how many of my readers (if I do have any to begin with), but occasionally you run into a problem where vapour pressure builds up in your engine and you cease to be able to pump (there is a sensor on the end of the nosal that detects when your tank is full, and the added pressure tricks the sensor into thinking the tank is full when it may, indeed, be running on empty). By now all of my fellow GSA's are nodding.

Now that you are familiarized with a little bit of background, I will add this little bit of added knowledge. If you pay at the pump, and you put the nosal down into its holster-- at any time, for any reason, for any amount of time-- YOU (not me, not the guy at pump 4, not God, or Alah, or YHWH, or Budda, or Society, or the Media, or the Kindergarten teacher that touched you inapropriately -- but YOU) END YOUR TRANSACTION. It's as simple as that. It's like hitting send on an email. No take backs. No exceptions. I'm sure you're guessing where Im taking this, but I will finish none the less.

Her first purchase of $3.73 was hassle free. But when it came time for the second purchase (which, due to her termination of the first purchase-- was an inside sale) all hell broke loose.

Suddenly, it was everyone, but herself of course, who was at fault for the additional fee that was to be incurred for making the second purchase on her interac (she at the time was carrying "no cash" at the time-- although I could see the wads of money poking out from her faux leather purse-- and would need to pay the additional $17 second purchase with interac as well). But of course, idiots do not simply allow stupidity to die. They have to push every last breath out, kicking and screaming all the way.

She decided that since it obviously wasn't her fault for the fee the banks charge on interac purchases, or her fault for the second transaction, that I would need to cover the costs.

Yes you heard right.

This bitch-- driving around in a cherry red BMW, with an $80 manicure, a fesh head of bleeched hair, buying super premium gasoline-- expected me to pay for her idiocy.

Now, not only did she request it, she demanded it. Very vulgarly I might add. After explaining to her why she would be charged for a second transaction regardless of how much she yelled, she became quite irate and began the finger pointing/ fist shaking argument (perhaps this strategy works somewhere). I could hear my coworker laughing in the back, he wanted no part of this.

It became obvious to me that this is one of the adverse affects of womens lib. If husbands had continued beating their wives-- like theyre supposed to-- this bitch would have been much more submissive. But no.

After 5 mins of her yelling, and me trying not to yell back (oh so hard btw) I finally caved and said "Have your fucking $.50, its not THAT much money."

I felt like less of a person afterwards. Like she had won, despite my being right. I didn't pay the 50 cents though. I was tempted to write it down with all of her information (I had her full name due to the interac, plus I could have her LP, make/model of her car) and mark it as a drive off. But again, I didn't.

My life is now meaningless. I have stolen $.50 from my boss.

And a cookie.

...And a hotdog.

Update

So, since I dont have a lot of time today (I'm definately not out of stories... in fact, today I have a great I.I./Lotto tale... but that will have to wait till later) I'll update you on the happenings of my hero.

Amanda's letter to my boss got mixed reviews. For her complaints against the incompetent-one my boss requested that she "stop speaking on behalf of the other employees and let them speak for themselves" (I for one would never as I am non-confrontational).

In regards to the garbage/asshole Amanda got 500 TU/W (employee bonus) points, a gold star, and a pat on the back. Apparently this is good behavior.

I'm gonna yell at the next person I see do something stupid (like if the guy who poured his excess jerry-can gasoline into our recycle bin comes back, or the guy who left his 2 year old in the store as collateral because he forgot his wallet at home).

I'll tell you how that goes =D

My Hero

SO I show up to work today, and Amanda (My Firend/Co-Worker) is busily trying to write a letter and do her shift changing paperwork.

She was the person who would be working the rest of my shift with me, so i figured I would wait until Adrian had left before enquiring as to the contents of the letter.

Turns out there was an ordeal.

You see we have dumpsters on our site. Dumpsters that we pay to have emptied out every so often.

Now there is also an ordinance in Surrey that determines how much garbage any one address is allowed to produce, and that amount is covered by property taxes. If you produce more than that, you have to pay for it from your pocket.

People often seek to avoid this added garbage fee by dumping illegally. Such was the case today.

Turns out that someone had ditched a sizeable amount of filled garbage bags outside of our store, near the dumpster which we pay for. Since Amanda did not see the person, she figured there was little to be done. And since there was no point to be made by leaving the garbage sitting there she started putting the trash in its proper receptical.

In the process some tearage occured on the part of one of the plastic bags, and along with some ooziness came a letter/envelope, comeplete with address and name.

A short phone call to the operator and she had the phone number for the person who had recieved the letter.

So she proceeds to phone up the person, and, since they didnt answer, she leaves a long message on their answering machine comprised of some very colourful four letter words and some blatant attacks upon the moral fibres of the individual involved in the littering.

So, figuring that she could probibly get in quite a bit of trouble for that, and since she had other things as well to complain about (namely a slacker employee that everyone bitches about but our boss refuses to do anyhting about {asides from politely refusing her requests for raises}) Amanda writes a very long letter to our boss.

Amanda is now my hero. Few people have the unabashed courage to stand up to the assholes in this world. Fewer still have the balls to tell their boss they suck at choosing employees.

*Standing Ovation*

Intercom

So I'm doing my Graveyard "training" {May 4/5 2004} (the necessity of me training is beyond me, but I obliged none the less). I was working with Adrian (if you knew him you would understand the pain with which it was to spend 7 hours near locked in a gas station with him).

Anyways, due to the price of gas, we have had a lot of drive-offs (the technical industry term for people who fill up their tanks and then leave without proper money transfers).

To combat this plague during the graveyard shifts, our store policy is now prepay after 2230... no exceptions.

Enter- the Intercom

Now this isn't your fancy office intercom, but it is an intercom none the less, and as such there is a level of respect which is not only polite, but demanded.

But due to the ignorance of the gas consuming population (I hope this stupidity becomes apparent over the next few months-- and just because you are reading this and aware of the stupidity does not mean you are immune) this machine is often ignored.

Insert Idiot #1 (Stereotype: the Ignorant Immigrant)

He pulls up to the pump and removes the nosal. The buzzer goes off telling me I have a customer, I go to the intercome and give my speech**, and then politely wait for him to come in. He does not. I got again to the intercome, recite my speech** and he looks at me giving me a "Ok me and then I'll come in and pay, look". I give him the "I have nowhere to go, sir" look. He taps his watch. I glare, go to the intercom, give the speech a third time. He comes inside. He asks me why im not clearing him. I tell him it's because it's prepay only at this hour. He tells me he "doesn't want to put his credit card in our pump for fear of it reading his information". Apparently his mistook prepay for pay at the pump, but thats okay. He then starts raging about how if had just told me to come inside he could have been on his way home already. (please refer to speech**). He leaves without further incident.

But it isn't long before we meet up with-
Insert Idiot #2 (Stereotype- Berserk Bitch)
She comes inside after hearing my prepay intercom message and begins to try to tear a strip off of me. Apparently it inconveniences her to come inside and pay with cash prior to pumping her gas, rather than coming in to pay for her gas after she has pumped her gas. (This logic is illogical for 95% of peopleas most put in an even amount (such as $5, $20 or $45 etc) regardless of how much their car can take. Not to mention that when you pay cash (like this woman was) you have! to come in anyways. Not to mention that prepaying stops you from overshooting, so you only get the pre designated amount.

Now I would have let b.b. get off with only an honourable mention in my blog had it not been for the lie she then told me. She claimed that she came in at night all the time, and has been for years and has never been asked to prepay (as if that ads any validty to her arguement anyways). But I can say for a fact that all of the current graveyard wors are resposible and asides from the occasional forgetful clearance would follow protocol and get everyone to prepay. So inevitably (even if they recognise her-- and I didn't, neither did adrian) she would ahve been asked. Anyways, she bought her cigarettes and left.


There were more idiots that night but I won't continue as this blog is getting quite long as it is, but I promise I will be getting more stories up as they occur as well as stories from my fellow industry workers.



**My intercome speech is quite consistent and follows this basic guidline--

"Sorry for any inconvenience, but due to the recent increase in drive offs we require that all patrons prepay prior to pumping gas. Please hang up your pump and either prepay inside or proceed with the instructions on the display to pay at the pump"

under normal circum stances the people will satrt to move as soon as I start talking over the intercom, so I'll cut it short, and not finish the entire message, but that is dependent upon the circumstances.

Angry for No Reason

Okay, so for our first tale we have to go back... way back... To May 29, 2004.

I was working a nine hour shift (not nearly as bad as one might think) and we had reached the last, I dunno, 20 mins or so. It was cloudy out, and so it was much darker than normal (usually its not quite black out at 940 at night).

Needless to say, It was hard to spot that a small black car had pulled into full serve. I didn't. The person had come inside the store, more than likely fed up with waiting, and asked me if all the pumps were pre pay at this time. I informed that no it was not, but since he had come in, I could prepay for him inside, which is quicker than prepayng at the pump.

He said okay.

I asked him where his car was.

He pointed out to full serve.

Sure enough there was a car parked there. I informed him that he was in full serve, I apologised for not seeing him, and I also informed him that full serve is $.04 more per litre. I gave him three options 1) I could clear him at full serve, and he could pump his own gas and pay the extra $.04. 2) I or the person who was working with me could come out and do the whole full serve job (including the windows and oil) or 3) I could prepay him at a self serve pump and he could drive himself around to it and pay the lower price. He chose option number three.

So he goes out, takes the nosal out of his car, yanks on the hose with all his might (pulling the hose and nosal off of the pump) throws them across the parking lot speeds around to the stall I had prepaid him at, pumps his gas and peels off...**

Slightly excessive, i would think.

**denotes that the preceeding paragraph wass not actually seen by me, but was what my cooworker has said to of seen. I did see the hose and nosal d/c'ed as it was brought inside after the incedent.

Beginnings

So I'm not sure why I am creating a blog... yet... and if you are reading this, then it means that I have finally decided to share the knowledge of it. At this point I don't know when Im going to do that. Perhaps I'll wait until after I have a few posts under my belt.

Oh! I know!

I'll start posting my stupid gas station stories!

Perhaps I'll get some of my friends to send me their stories as well, Ive heard some wowzers on their part.