When your Best Isn't Good Enough

My 100th post, everybody! Woot Woot!!!

Last night I had the pleasure of having a trainee working with me at petro can during my graveyard shift.

Now inside, I'm thinking "Woot Woot, Im gonna be able to stock the cooler and sleep for the next 8 hours!!!"

Alas that was not even close to the case...

Perhaps I should start at the beginning.

A month and a half ago (aproximate 42 days ago) our boss hired two new people, in the knowledge that we would be having a few of the long term employees leave, as well as myself as I go back to school for the fall...

these two new people were hired to do graveyard, well not specifically, but they were hired to be trained to do graveyard so that they could fill in for graveyard if needed...

And as such they have been training with heather on how baking works, what tasks need to be completed during the graveyard shift, etc etc etc...

The girl I was working with has had no less than 3 evenings training with Heather... And for those of you who dont know, heather is a superwroman in regards to teaching and efficiency... The amount of stuff she can get done in a night is baffeling...

So needless to say, my plans of having an easy night were pretty much set in stone…

When she arrived, I had her go to the cooler and collect the baking supplies while I served customers… She claimed she didn’t know where any of the supplies were…

Oh Shit! I’m thinking… I remind her where the baking freezer is, where the tray you put the baking supplies onto is, and send her on her way… Whilst serving the myriad of customers that had entered our store…

She comes back, and I ask her to wait a second, and then show her how to dismantle the coffee pots to thoroughly clean the interior… She looks at me like I’m an idiot… So I tell her that this is something that gets done once a week, and since Heather does pretty much everything else, we sanitize the pots every week… (please note that we sanitize the pots each night with bleach and water, it is just one night a week where we unscrew the entire contraption to scrub with soap and water… Our coffee is perfectly safe)

So after showing her the process, I tried to have her repeat it… Which was no problem… She could take it apart and put it back together in just a few short minutes… Its was the process of cleaning that worried me… She must have spent a good 25 minutes scrubbing the insides of one pot… Which is an exceptional amount of time… I have no problems with being thorough… but you have 90 minutes in order to clean 8 pots…

I tried to be polite, I was all like “Deary, there’s no problem with being thorough, but it shouldn’t be at the cost of being efficient”

I think she got the message because she cleaned the rest of the pots in an hour… unfortunately there were too many customers for me to watch her quality… But I’ll assume that it was fine… Maybe I wouldn’t recommend drinking coffee this week… wait till next week after the other graveyard person has a chance to sanitize them…

Our next little obstacle was baking… I send her to get the baking rack, complete with all the goodies she will be baking for the night… She returns and asks:

“What do I do?”

My jaw dropped slightly…

“You put them on baking pans”

“Where are they?”

At this point I feel the need to remind you that this is, at the very least, her fourth graveyard shift…

And she didn’t know where the goddamned baking pans were…

“On the baking pan rack… in the baking area… beside the oven”

Those were said sequentially… I figured the first one would be sufficient… But I added the second when she looked at me like I was crazy (“we don’t have a baking pan rack, silly”) and the third was added when the second location was given and answered with an even more confused look (“And I’m sure we don’t have a baking area, silly”)

I pointed frantically, in case she didn’t figure it out… but she did (thank god)…

“Now what do I do?”

“put baking paper on the pans…”

“baking paper?”

“yes… the silicon baking paper!”

“What silicon baking paper”

“the silicon baking paper you put on the pans”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”

At this point I walked over to the baking area, ripped out a sheet of silicon paper from its dispenser and slapped it down on one of the baking trays, and walked back to the customers I should have been serving…

“Oh! Parchment paper!” she says…

Sure, she knows the fucking technical term… but if you describe it while shes standing to a huge box of it, she doesn’t know what you’re fucking talking about…

Now the fun starts… originally I was going to let her serve customers and do the baking so she could get the handle of it… Which is really the hardest part of the graveyard shift… making sure that you get the baking done in any amount of time, while customers aren’t waiting in lines at the counter…

That was shot down very quickly, as it took her 55 minutes to put the baking on trays (should take about 5 minutes)

I was baffled beyond belief… I have no idea how it could take someone that long… I mean you transfer from a tray to a pan… and put the pan on the rack… repeat nine more times…

So now I’ve resolved to serve customers while she does the baking…

It takes her 3 hours and 40 minutes to do the baking (yes 220 minutes)… She was waiting for items to come out of the oven before she started working on the next batch…

I tried oh so desperately to encourage her to get things done a little more quickly “I don’t mean to be a bother, but you still have a lot more things to do [so stop stuffing your face with candies!]”

I may not have added the part in [ ]…

Towards the mid way point, I was thinking to myself “she’s still going to be doing dishes when the morning shift comes in”

I was almost right… She finished the dishes by around 5am… 5 hours after she started the baking… Not doing anything else… just baking…

I was pulling out my hair… I was smoking… I was shaking from pure annoyance… but I had to do my very best not to make it known to her that I was stressing out at her complete lack of competence because I didn’t want to make her cry…

And guess what the best part is… Today I get to do it all over again!!! Yay!!!

I hope it goes ten times better… Cuz otherwise the morning crew is going to find me hanging from the pipes in the walk in cooler…

More of the Same

Today was more of the same...

It was hot, so we sold a lot of slurpees, so we cleaned up a lot of slurpee, so the floor was perpetually sticky...

You know how it is if youve read half my posts up to this point...

Unfortunately I dont have any epic stories... I really wish I did, it seems like forever since my last epic one...

But I do havea few short stories...

A gentleman came up to the counter and announced that he had $20 worth of fuel, and then asked what the total was (he was carrying nothing)... I was caught of guard, as sometimes i dont care enough to listen to the customers... So I figured he had asked for cigarettes while I was busy not caring about what he may or may not have been saying, and I so i asked him to reiterate which brand as i backed away towards the cigarette display...

He shook his head, said, no cigarettes today, and then enquired again what the total was...

"For the gas?" I ask

"Yes, whats the total with tax"...

"Umm... $20"

"No tax on gas today?"

I was left scratching my head (I think I might be bald now in a few patches)

Are there places where tax is not included in the price of gasoline? So illogical... Although, i dont understand why tax isnt included in our prices here, like it is in places like Austrailia...


And then nothing happened for a few hours...

And then this BITCH came in... Although I didn't know she was bitch when she came in, or I would have locked the door...

I was busy with shift stuff (it was time for me to head home) in between serving customers when she came in and started rummaging through the ice cream cooler... She dug to the very bottom of the cooler, pulling out every piece of icecream on the way down... placing them all over the other side of the cooler and across the newspaper display...

I didnt really care, cuz I didnt have to reorganize it... I was getting off shift within a few minutes...

After she digs, and doesnt find what shes looking for, she grabs a few of the ice cream drumsticks and comes up to the counter... (passing the line up of people at the counter)

She plops her selection down on the counter and asks if this is all the flavours we have...

I tell her that she knows better than I do, as I havent searched through all the ice cream cooler recently...

Then she started screaming at me...

"Blah blah blah You only fucking work here, of course you dont know if theres more flavours of ice cream, why would I expect a retarded gas station employee to know if theres icecream flavours blah blah blah"

I let the other employee serve her, and I went back to doin what i needed to do, and then shifted and changed clothes (out of my uniform) with just enough time to get to the parking lot and give her the finger as she drove off (she must of put in quite a bit of gas into her SUV)...

probibly a little more risky than i should have been, especially if she complains to my boss...

Meh... I'll let you know if anything happens...

Two Short Stories for Your Amusement

I dedicate this first story to Share and Jo. May this story bring as much joy to you as it did to me! Keep reaching for that rainbow.

So I am serving customers (wow, eh?) when a slightly larger kid comes up the the counter. He was pastey as could be (would have made me look like an 80 year old beach bunny for sure)

but

he was totally decked out in baller clothes (hence the dedication at the beginning of the story). I'm talking baby blue jersey, bling, matching baby blue pants, bling, pimp glasses, bling, a durag, and bling... Did I mention he had more than his fair share of bling?

It was quite the sight to see.

What transpired next is beyond comprehension... His phone rang...

'Wow' you're thinking..

He answers his phone as follows

"Yo, yo, yo! Wuz up boyyyyyyyyz!" AND there was coriography (even though I dont think there was anyone in the store with him)... It wqas a triple hand jab on the 'yo yo yo' complete with side stepping action...

I was almost moved to tears...



My second story involves a couple comming into the store and asking for a box of condoms...

I pick up one of the boxes from behind the counter and start the transaction when the gentleman asks the girl to grab him a slurpee as well (while he does the debit)...

As she is walking over, he quickly leans in and asks "do you.. umm... have them in a smaller size?"

Now I'm not one to make fun of people because of their penis size, and don't get me wrong, thats not what I'm doing here... It's just the idea that this guy could be so embarassed to ask for a smaller size, when she obviously knows, or is going to find out soon enough...

I mean she asked for the condoms first, it's not like she's gonna be like "teenie weenie? no thank you!"

She came back over to the counter and asked what we were talking about... He looked like he was going to die!

"I'm sorry, we don't have the ultra thins... we do have these" and I pulled out the studded condoms...

He seemed so relieved... As if I had saved his sex life for another 15 minutes (at least until he could get her home and get the lights off)

My Feet Hurt

So its the evening after a shift from hell...

In order to cover from an ill co-worker, I agreed to take her shift...

Which conveniently started 7 hours before my shift...

Thats right everyone, applause please, I did a 15 hour customer service shift!!!

By the end of it, i was halucinating... and I started to forget all the things I had been storing to write out for today... in fact, for the moment, I have forgotten all but one (I kid you not, I cant remeber the punchline for any of them)...

So, its about 4 am, and I am busy in sanitation land... Pretty much praying bleach on every exposed surface in the entire store...

Graveyard is also the shift in charge of making sure the batroom can make it through the day... So a thorough cleaning and stocking of the various papers is in order...

Not a problem...

I finish, and it looks like an add from Mr Clean (I may have made the *ping* sound as I cleaned the faucets... but pleaase remember, by this time I had been working for 13 hours)

Next task was cleaning the counters by the slurpee and coffee... So i go and do that, followed by mopping of the floors, and changing of the garbages..

About 20 minutes had passed (thankfuly 20 minutes without a customer) since I had finished cleaning the washroom, when a car pulls up... Two men get out, one places two half smoked cigarettes (still lit) on top of the propane tank cage, and proceeds to start pumping fuel (needless to say I wasn;t impressed, but thats not the story here)

The other comes inside and heads straight for the bathroom...

He exits the washroom a short time later, and walks to the door... As he's standing in the doorway, he turns back to me and says:
"How often do you guys clean the washrooms"

"Every night"

"Well thats probibly the most digusting bathroom I've ever been in"

"what?"

"I think there was piss all over the place"

"Oh, thats mop water"

"If you say so"

and then he leaves...

Needless to say, im curious, so I head in the direction of the washroom...

Open then door...

And look at that, there is piss everywhere!

On the walls, over the toilet, in the baby changing station, the sink, the mirrors, the toilet paper...

And to top it all off, he didn't even flush...

And since he was the only person in there (Unless I fell asleep and did that) you can be quite sure he wont be welcome in our store again...

Fuck, I hate people (sorry, I didnt feel I swore as much as this disgusting act warrented)

Too Good Not To Share

I was sorting things out on my harddrive, and I came across these... they're too good too delete, and too good to not share...

Life of Me

I'm running out of ideas for new post names... SO thats what you get, lame isn't it?

I hope this post isn't as lame... But I make no promises...

So today I got the lovely job of "clean up all the things that never get cleaned because people from head office are comming into the store for inspecting like reasons and heaven forbid they see the store how it normally the other 362 3/4 days of the year (I may have pulled that figure out of my ass)...

Today also happened to be a day that we broke 30 C inside the store (according to our thermostaty like thing)…

And, as I recently learned, the 7/11 has shut down, leaving us, chevron and shell as the sole slurpee distributing agencies of any calibre in the Cloverdale area… (and I’m pretty sure we have the slurpee selection of the two combined)

My job of cleaning became my job of cleaning the slurpee area…

And, to top it all off, the exploding slurpee machine is still out of commission… It exploded on another person the next day, so we won’t open it back up until a specialist comes in (An old priest and a young priest is what I asked for…)

You would not believe the number of people who bypass the two yellow “Out of Service” signs on the slurpee machine (one covering the flavour and one hanging from the handle, obstructing the slurpee distributing nozzle turn projectile slurpee launcher—Josh/Sharon, a /comment verification for my readers of the set up would be much appreciated) only to have the cups knocked out of their hands… Then they turn to me, as I frantically try to clean up other messes, as if they’re stupidity is my fault…

I even had one person ask me why we had it packed up… I explained the exploding slurpee story… He shrugged and moved the sign to pour… As he’s pour, he looks over his shoulder at me and says, “it’s not me that’s going to have to clean it up”

At that moment in time, there were two things I wanted more than anything else in the entire world:

1) I wanted the slurpee machine to explode and launch his slurpee straw directly from his cup and directly into his brain

2) I wanted the entire medical world to forget that the cure for a slurpee straw in the brain is to remove the straw (thus disallowing the removal of the straw rendering him forever a reminder that signs are to read and followed)

Sadly, neither occurred L

After trudging knee deep in slurpee for several hours, foot traffic slowed down enough that only two people were required to be in the store to clean and serve… So I moved outside in the blistering heat in my thick cotton/polyester blend standard issue winter petro Canada shirt (I get hand me downs cuz I’m only here for the summer)

I wanted to die…

I’m a sweaty person; I will not lie… Walking down stairs to obtain a drink leaves me leaking from the temples and the back… So imagine having to scrub a years worth of grime off of a gas station, in the sun, in the heat, wearing a shirt that would make a Mongol yaks-man in the dead of winter break out into heat rashes…

Needless to say, I was regretting how skimpy I may have been on the deodorant…

Not that it matters… after a few minutes I got used to it, and it was others whom had to suffer… Ah ha ha!

It is while I am s.o.s-ing the rust from one of the pumps that I meet the second dimwit of the day…

I had both nozzles out of their holsters (as the holsters is where I am scrubbing)…

I turn around for a few seconds to grab some paper towel (it was about 5 steps) and I come back to find a car blocking the pump I was cleaning…

The husband had one of the nozzles, which he had picked up of the ground, while the wife was trying to find the latch to release the gas tank to their car…

Now picture this:

You drive into a gas station. All the pumps are unoccupied.

Which one do you go to?

A: the one nearest to the entrance?
B: a pump that is complementary to the side of your car the gas tank happens to be on.
C: The pump there both nozzles are on the ground, slathered in blue soapy goo, partially blocked by a large bucket filled with similarly coloured water, next to a gas station attendant wearing gloves with blue soapy goo covering most of the finger tips, carrying a bottle of spray an s.o.s. Pad and some paper towel…

If you picked ‘C’, I hate you…

No seriously… Even if you only picked ‘C’ as a joke, I hate you!

ESPECIALLY if you give a dirty look as I gather my things from behind your car and move on to a different pump while you finish your transaction…

I gave him a dirty look right back… the entire time I was cleaning the other pump I gave him a dirty look…

But not just a dirty, I gave him the dirty look…

Imagine stereotypical afro-American movie in which a wife finds out that her husband is cheating on her, and she runs into the girl at a club, but the girl doesn’t even know the guy has a wife… And the wife just glares at her across the dance floor…

That’s the glare I gave…

My forehead hurt after words…

It’s Over!

Revenge of the Slurpee Machine

Ah ha ha!

Today I was brought to tears... And I'm not joking... And you don't need to worry... It was the good type of crying... The kind you get when revenge has itself a party in the most comical method possible!

Let me paint you a picture. The day was the 18th of July, 2005… It was warm, but not too war; Humid, but not too humid; Breezy but not too breezy… In other words it was a perfect day (if I hadn’t have been working I, myself, would have braved the outdoors in an attempt to get to the beach… yes, me willingly go outside… Conveniently, I was working)

Anyways, several hundred customers come through our store, as per the warm day, many buying ice and slush and ice cream and other cool items, obviously to compliment (and contrast) the beautiful cloudless day outside…

Of course many people acknowledged that they were sorry for me stuck inside all day…

Meh…

Anyways, we were selling a LOT! Of slurpees… I need to emphasize that, because its important to the story

Of course, when we sell a lot of slurpees, the machine tends to get quite runny… The machine falling behind demand in its ability to freeze the slurpee goo causes this…

Now a problem with this, is most often people continue to pour slurpee from un-frozen machines, and the unfrozen goo is unable to hold as much CO2… Inevitably, when enough un-frozen slush is poured, a build up of unused CO2 occurs in the machine. When the slush has enough time to freeze, it becomes super saturated in CO2, which, to say the least, encourages the slurpee to leave the machine when it is poured…

This is where it becomes important to read signs, for after a few customers had the cups knocked out of their hands from the exuberant semi solid, we put up a sign that said “out of order” in order to dissuade people from using the machine until it had sorted out its on problems (a rehab for slurpees, if you may)…

Now as implied, if you leave the machine it its own devices, its supposed to sort itself out its own problems… And given time, they almost always do (unless they run out of goo, CO2, or purified water… those you have to fix for it)…

But at the idea of being ignored, this slurpee machine decided to make one final desperate cry for attention…

Let me reiterate the necessity for reading signs! READ THEM! They are not for our benefit!

Anyways, a gentleman, completely disregarding the sign, decides “MmmmMmmm Coke slurpee”

He begins to ‘pour’

This is where the roffle moment happens…

The slurpee explodes (not kidding it made a boom sound) from the nozzle.

Not a word of a lie, the guy was COVERED from just below his neck to just above his knee…

There was also a spray across the corner of the store (some of the slush not obstructed by the man was able to make it a good 10 feet away from the machine)…

There was SO much slurpee everywhere…

I was laughing so hard, I tried to gain composure and offer an apology to the man, but I couldn’t… He totally deserved it…

At least I can be sure that he will always follow posted signs from now on…

I was actually made so happy by this happening that I didn’t mind the 25 minutes it took to clean up all the goo everywhere… including the huge amounts of goo that dripped off of him while he was cleaning up in the bathroom

So Close to Quitting

So I have decided that I hate teenagers...

What is up with Cloverdale, all the kids hink theyre so ghetto, it's sad.

Our store was vandalized yesterday... Tags all over the outside walls...

But I just don't get it. What makes suburban scum like the twits I have to serve think that they have somehow earned cool points by scribbling their names in a semi legible scribble on the side of an establishment... It looked rediculous (as a supporter of urbinity I have learned an appreciation for graffitti performed in an artistic way... this was neither artistic nor was it insired)...

So lame...

And the worst part is you can almost gurantee that this was performed by some little punk ass kid whos parents think they're a little angel...

Oh how I'd love to send one kid (just one) home with a black eye, so that they can try explaining it to their parents (of course I'd have to figure out some way to get it on video so that my outburst would be justified)...

Oh, and another beef... Caught a drunk kid trying to steal red bull last night... As I'm sure you know, trying to reason with drunk people is pointless, and since he's in all the time, i just left it at "I will ban you all from the store next time"...

His friend tried to get in a fighting match with me about how I would not be able to ban him if he didnt do anything...

I hate drunk people... Because you cant reason with them (I decided to put that twice)...

I was tempted to tell them that I can ban people from a private establishment for whatever reason I see fit... (although the public might not like it if I started banning based on gender or race... perhaps I shold start banning caucasian males under the age of 20...)

'Nother Normal Night

I'm sure you can guess from the title, that there isnt much to say, but humour me and keep readin please...

My night started off rather simply...

A few drunk teenagers trying to buy smokes... retarded adults smoking cigarettes in front of the pumps... A slurpee mess or two... Lonely old ladies whom I ask of their day adn get their life story, complete with tear jerkers such as '... and he hasn't called since I got out of the hospital" or "... and thats when my 5th dog died"...

*yawn* yup pretty boring night...

Oh... and some lamerz came in dressed up in costume from the Harry Potter book party... actually one lamerz... and one lamerz with a sword/wand too...

But I digress...

Then it all happened...

I was washing dishes (enough to be said)
with pop songs and showtunes dancing 'round in my head

When out in the entrance there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my sink to see 'twas the matter

On the front tile, standing alone was one
Crackhead grinning for the things he had done

The magnetic locks on the door he bypassed
by wretching and pulling and working his ass (off)

Bewildered I stood there until I could shout
"You Asshole! You fuckhead! You're not welcome! Get Out!"

He approached the till, I started to yell
A line he had crossed, I knew he could tell


I'm finding it hard to rhyme now (its time for bed me thinks) So I'll just finish the story...

When he arrived the door was locked, so he wretched on it to open it, I freaked right out (I actually screamed at him)... I totally thought that tonight was my night to get robbed... He looked like a fucking cracker that you would normally see on those "this is why you never do heroin" movies that the VPD puts out every year... Or one of those real tv movies where the guy jumps across the counter with a needle filled with god only knows what liquid screaming how if everything doesnt go their way someone isgoing to get infected with aids...

He tried to give me excuses like "I didnt know the door was locked" (but with the amount of noise the doors made in opening, I can't imagine he couldnt have known) and then he tried to tell me that he would come back after I [me] had "calmed down"...

I told him that if he came back I would call the cops on sight...

When he left, I locked the doors using the manual lock, and then I went to the washroom to clean the mess I had left in my pants...

good night

Sloppy Children

Yesterday was hot, and I was working the afternoon. I love working on hot afternoons,a s you all know simply for the fact that it means that the slurpee machine is going to be in full swing.

No kidding, the store was backed up about 15 people for about 45 minutes (even though there were two of us running the tills) but eventually the rush subsided, and I was left to survey the damage...

Of our slurpee cups, 6 of the 8 dispensors had been completely drained (I wondered why we were selling so many XL slurpees towards the end of it).

Of our straws, we were out of the colourful novelty size straws and were down to about 20 regular straws.

Of our slurpee, two flavours were completly depleted, and 2 more were on their way...

Of our florr, as im sure you can imagine, it was a colourful mosaic of slurpee goo about 4 1/4" thick, spread from the slurpee area to the magazines to the ice to the washrooms...

I am well aware that my time to clean is limited (slurpee runs always come in waves) so I frantically start stocking and mopping...

I get the floor clean and the straws out before there is a group of people waiting for their turn at the machine...

I am elbowing people in the backs of their heads in order to get the cups out, and I manage to get into the back storage in order to get the slurpee machines all up and running before all hell breaks loose...

The cycle repeats itself, with the back up at the till and what not, as soons as its died down enough I go in to survey the damage... Much the same... I clean stock and fix...

The floor is left to dry, and I return to the till... Not 30 seconds go by, and a man comes up to the counter (walking past the other customers politely waiting in line)

"there was a slurpee spill" [Translation: "I spilled a crapload of slurpee all over the place"]

I continue serving customers

"Excuse me, there was a slurpee spill" [Translation: "Perhaps I'll hide my obnoxiousness by being polite, so that you will listen to me when I tell you that I spilled a crapload of slurpee all over the place"]

I nod at him, and continue serving customers...

"Excuse me, can you clean up the slurpee now, please? [Translation: "Fuck face, I'm too important to take ownership over the things I do, but that doesnt stop me from having a low desire to trudge through my own mess thus stickifying the bottom of my oh so important shoe... And look I'll even use please to try to cover up that i obviosly think I'm a million times better than you by pretending to appeal to your own politeness")

I look the customer I was midway serving, and tell her that I need to deal with another customer... She turns slightly and gives him the scan-up-and-down glare, and nods at em like "Yeah, get rid of the prick"...

I clean up the mess, and return to the till...

Now some of you are probibly thinking I acted a little harsh... I mean, I didnt even see who made the ginormous 1.3L orange slurpee mess... But I have proof that I didnt...

You see, when he came up to the counter he was holding a soiled XL slurpee cup...

Coffee

Today we are going to learn a little but about something I know and love…

And no, today’s post is not about me (although I’m sure you all would eat it up) but as the title implies, I’m going to give you a little bit of a lesson on coffee…

Now, since there is so much I could teach you (and that would be without delving into the topic of fair trade in a world economy) I will narrow it down a little and limit my discussion to regions where coffee is grown…

Arabian Coffee:
Conveniently named after the place it comes from:


Columbian Coffee:
Conveniently named after the place it comes from


Sumatran Coffee:
Conveniently named after the place it comes from


Java Coffee
Conveniently named after the place it comes from


Okay, so this isn;t really a discussion, but it will prove my point...

I had a lady come in and ask us if we have any 'real coffee'

I pointed towards our java coffee (as after 6pm thast all we make)...

She demands to know where the 'real' coffee is...

I try to explain to her that Java is a coffee producing region and the namesake for the coffee with which we are serving...

She shakes her head and in a huff, she parades off to the coffee stand...

She pours 3/4 of a xtra large coffee and then screams at me "this is disgusting; I dont want this shit!" (she hadn't sampled any of it yet)

She storms out of the store, and tries her best to slam the door (doesnt work so well with automatic closing mechanisms)...

So I just wanted everyone to know that Java coffee is called such for a reason...

Pair of Dice, Lost

Ah ha ha, my name is so witty... But it has nothing to do with this post...

So I am back from my mission trip (as Zach would say, I am done converting the heathens for now)…

It was all good times, and although I’d love to inundate you with all my stories, I wont… Go to Chronicles of an Informal White Dress (in the ‘other blogs’ section of this page) in order to read up on my antics… Cuz really, you’re all hear to find out how I narrowly avoided yelling at customers…

I wont keep you from todays hilarity any longer, on with the show!

An older man entered the store today, coming from the direction of a pump which had just finished pumping 60 or so dollars…

Of course when he got to the couter I double checked that he was the owner (its always best to check, you never know what you might accidentally swipe on a credit card)…

When he accepted that it was indeed his purchase, I asked if he had petro points… (remember this, its important later in the story)

The answer I received was a blank stare. Now, a blank stare usually means ‘no! wtf are you talking about?” Anyone in the service industry will tell you so (in the same way that ‘couple’ is ‘two’ and ‘few’ is ‘three’… but don’t get me started on that rant… COUPLE IS NOT A NUMERICAL ANSWER!)

After staring for a bit he opens his mouth to speak…

I hang off every word… I am more enthralled than I have ever been in the entirety of my life…

“dumaurier king size”

I turn to grab a pack, scan, announce total, swipe his debit card, complete transaction, and he makes for the door…

As he is about to leave, he turns around and says “I have petro points”

By this time the transaction is complete, and due to the nature of debit cards, it is not able to be redone…

This is where things start to get interesting…

He wants the discount you get with petro points (3.5 cents a litre)… I inform him that I am unable to give a discount once a transaction is completed (which is true for all but a few circumstances) as there isn’t a way for me to redo the transaction and that the discount can only be applied to the initial transaction…

I then inform him that I can give him his petro points by leaving a form which my boss takes to add points manually…

He proceeds to do the thing that has, thus far, pissed my off more than anything any other customer has ever done…

In a very condescending tone and with a big ‘I’m angry but I’m smiling’ smile he says “well that isn’t very fair to me, is it?”

I inform him of the plight of the debit card, and reiterate that the best I can do is give him the petro points…

He goes on to tell me that he’s had this happen before and that it was solved really easily, and that I was just too stupid to do it… Spoken through his teeth with a big old grin on his face

I was so close to jumping across the counter and throttling him…

My co-worker intervened and asked me (quietly) to go somewhere else for a few seconds while he dealt with him… I obliged…

When I came back the situation had been resolved… Mainly by my cowroker just giving the guy the $1.50 the guy would have saved directly from the till…

I was so pissed off… I told my employee about how I had asked the guy for his petro points and that he had ignored me… Grr!

I swear, Im getting too old for this… My poor heart…

Canada D'eh!

So today is Canada Day revisited...

This year, I have been allowed to have the graveyard off (unlike last year, which was painfully painful)...

Anyways, as the only person still working at the gas station who has every worked the graveyard on Canada Day (I think the last person to do a Canada Day gave notice the morning after (yes, its that bad)) I thought I should be kind and give the girl (yes girl) whom was taking the shift a bit of warning as to how to effectively get through the night without murdering someone (my advice consisted of 1) arrive early and 2) dont expect anything to get done...)

Well, I did work today, I worked the afternoon shift... Which was actually very pleasant due to a break in a natural gas line some blocks away which ended up having most of the streets in the area blockaded (but that didnt stop people from smoking at my gas station... Natural Gas and Gasoline does not prevent people from smoking... dear god!)

Okay, anyways, she arrived almost late (thereby not getting any of the prep work done before we were ready to leave...

So I was like FFS (I learned that today, it's like WTF except trendy), But if she wasnt willing to take advice I wasn't about to be helpful... SO I finished doing my job, signed out, and then marched down to the fireworks with my friends...

The crowd was (according to police officers) somewhere in the range of 80-100k...

Within walking distance of our gas station...

If someone who has done the shift before says "get here early" you should listen to them...

And if your entire town is a parking lot because of an event, it only adds to the case this helpful employee is trying to make...

Well, the fireworks ended, and rather than making the trek all the way back up to the top of the hill, we waited around and caught a ride with another friend when the traffic died down (but it took a LONG time)

Since my other friends had parked in the petro can parking lot, we ended up going back there, and I went inside to score us some free slurpees...

She was almost in tears...

In the 90 minutes I was gone she had run 320 transactions... So about 4 transactions a minute... But then you need to consider the fact that it takes upwards of 30 seconds to complete a debit or credit transaction, you know why she was almost crying... She would have had people lined up around the store ...

Since I was still in my uniform, I offered her a chance to run out for a cigarette break while I served customers, and our friend cleaned some of the WD-40 from his car (Ah! Fumes)

We took our free slurpees and I offered the "I told you so, bitch!" face... I think she'll listen to me next time...

Just so everyone is in 'the Know', I am leaving for a mission trip this week and will not be returning until the 10th...

Therefore there will not be any stories until then...

Feel free to post comments about how much you miss me, or even stories of your own...

*Smoochies*