POS Down

So... My streak of relatively eventless nights has been broken...

At about 2am this morning, PetroCan had a major malfunction... And all of the POS systems went down...

Now, under normal circumstances, this wouldnt be a problem... Of course normal and interac are not two words that go together in Canada... We still have the higest rate of interac usage, leaving a lot of people depndant on the service...

Now, knowing that no interac was going to be quite the problem, signs were placed in strategic places...

On a 12" by 12" plastic board (which happens to be the same yellow/amber colour that is used for road warning signs) were the words "INTERAC UNAVAILABLE"...

We placed these on each of the pumps (In the very centre, right beside where it tells you how much you've pumped), on each side of the glass entry door (slightly below eye level for me, inside and out), at the bank machine (when POS goes down, so does the ABM... we placed it over top of the LCD display)

We also had one on the counter over top of the lotto display...

Get ready for the stupidity...

Guy outside pumps gas, walks through te glass entry door, comes right up to the counter, asks for two packs of cigarettes, and tosses his debit card on the counter...

I gave him the bankest stare I could conjure...

I seriously couldn't believe what I was seeing...

"Well?" he interrupted... I was still staring in disbelief... Blinking occasionally...

"Debit's down"... I wanted to yell and throw the sign at him... But at this point in time, I felt someone had just knocked the wind out of me... with their stupidity...

I had now resorted to trying to blink him away...

Needless to say, it didnt work...

"Why didnt anybody tell me?"

*blink blink blink*

I pointed at the 6 signs I could see from where I was standing (I continued pointing at each one until he looked directly at it, then moved on to the next, and the next, etc)...

He paid with cash, and left... My eyes hurt from blinking...

Not five minutes later aguy pulls up to the pump, gets out, and puts his debit in to pay at the pump...

Fellow employee goes out to inform him that there IS A HUGE YELLOW SIGN THAT SAYS YOU CANT PAY WITH DEBIT! (like my strategic use of caps lock for effect? heh heh heh)

Well, he actually told him debit was unavailable, or something to that accord (I didnt listen in on the conversation)...

Employee comes back in, and we watch the guy at the pump (well... technically we watched the computer (he was behind pump 1 so we couldnt see what he was doing...)

anyways... The computer was giving us the play by play...

**Card Inserted**

**Debit Uavailable** **Debit Uavailable** **Debit Uavailable**

**Card Inserted**

**Debit Uavailable** **Debit Uavailable** **Debit Uavailable**

**Card Inserted**

**Debit Uavailable** **Debit Uavailable** **Debit Uavailable**

Finally he comes inside (now you have to imagine this with a very thick chinese accent)

"Pump no wurkeen"

"Interac is unavailable"

"I put een card, pump no wurkeen!"

"You cannot pay with interac... you have to pay with cash"

"oh"

and he drove off...