As The Station Turns 10/14

 When I got to work everything was normal and peaceful. Oh wait, the tank alarm was going off again, and even though you hit the reset it would go off about five minutes later. They keep the door to the office open because the ice machine is in there and the room isn't vented so it overheats and shuts down. I closed the door, screw the ice machine. After an hour I went and hit the "YES, I KNOW, CENSOR IS NOT WORKING, SHUT THE HECK UUUUUUPPPPP!" button and it quit. I guess it needed to cry itself tired. Later in the day a driver made a delivery and I figured "crap, the alarm is going to go off again" but he did something to fix the censor and I didn't have to hear from the thing for the rest of the night. 

The Little Debbies guy showed up, he hadn't been there for a while so the rack was mostly empty. There were several bags of outdated mini donuts and yes, I gladly accepted them. They had pumpkin spice and even though they are past their sell by date they are pretty good. And the guy filled the rack up with the Christmas stuff. Stop rushing holidays!

Someone kept trying to run their card at the pump and it wasn't working. When they finally came inside I pointed out that the card had expired, they had to use a different card. I laugh at people who say if the pump tells them to see the cashier they just leave, sometimes you may need to know something important.

A guy pulled in to the pump, on the wrong side. He pulled out turned around and came in on the other side of the pump, still on the wrong side. I was by the window so I got to watch him get out, look for his tank and be totally confused by what could have happened. He pulled in on the right side the third time. 

A local guy came in to fill up his front end loader, one of his workers was driving it and he was following in his truck. They got their fuel and receipt and the guy went to the restroom. When he came out the worker had driven back to the shop and he panicked because he didn't know where his truck was. I guess he forgot that he wasn't tanking it up and thought, for a second, that someone had stole it while it was parked at the pump. He then remembered that he was parked on the side of the building. I didn't laugh at him, while he was in the building.

Business slowed down so I figured I would do the ice in the soda machines however it started raining and a bunch of people showed up to park under the canopy to avoid the hail, which lasted about three seconds. I had to wait to see if any of them would come in for something other than using the restrooms. What I don't understand is the Haunted Station is still closed and nobody went over there. 

Skippy showed up, chatted on his phone, took some photos of stuff around the station, and left. I still don't mind.

A woman came in, she wanted to know what the wifi password was. I told her I don't know it, and I don't. I suggested she go to McDonalds because they usually offer free access.

The rain ended, everyone left and I figured I would try the ice again. That's when the guy pulling the trailer came on to the lot. They pulled in the wrong way, then took forever to turn around. And of course their card wouldn't work at the pump so I had to wait for them to come in, and they were followed by a swarm. An hour later I got to do the ice.

Some guy came in because his card wouldn't work at the pump. He ran it at the register and asked if he could bypass the PIN, nope. He punched in some number and....they worked. He was very happy about that. If he was using a stolen card it must belong to someone he knew. So if you have a questionable friend you might want to check and see if you have your card.

A mechanic came in and was asking about the station across the street. I told him they were having tank problems and he told me he had to help out three cars that stalled out because the last time they filled up they got excess water in their tank. I told him the Haunted Station had been closed for three weeks so it wasn't them, but at the same time I mentioned that I've been hearing stuff about the new station in town. He said he won't go there at all, a lot of locals have been complaining about the gas and credit cards getting double charged. 

I started to do the trash but a pooper came in. Then Skippy came back. Then I got a crowd. When the place cleared out I went to finish but Skippy took my half filled bag and tossed it. Oh well, whatever trash was left was the graveyard shift's problem now.

A guy prepaid, he got his gas but then was sitting out there. A big RV pulled in and blocked my view so I couldn't tell, was he on his phone? Did he pull out with the nozzle in his tank and yank off the hose? Did he hang up the nozzle wrong? I could't stand it so I had to go out the back door and look, he was on his phone.

When you sell tobacco products you have to put their birth date into the register. For some reason it was acting up tonight and kept ringing it up without the calendar coming up. I still checked ID's.

The floor was tracked up after the rain so I decided to do a quick mop but as soon as the floor was nice and wet a family showed up and when they left it looked worse than before I stared. I had to mop a second time.

The woman who wanted the wifi password came back, this time she wanted to make a call, long distance of course. I wasn't going to let her use my phone and I told her the station phone had a block on it, local calls only. Then she told me she had lost her phone and needed to borrow a flashlight. The only one in the station had a dead battery, and again I wasn't going to give her mine and have it disappear. She then wanted to know if there was a cab service. I told her no so she wanted to look through the phone book. I told her she wasn't going to find one in there plus it was several years old, she didn't believe me. I told her there was a number of truck drivers around the lot and she could borrow a flashlight from them but she wasn't going to do that. I was tired of her by then and I started to get the idea that she wasn't fully balanced. The Crazy Lady came in and I figured the woman was going to be her problem. The woman asked for a cup of water and I told her to go ahead, the Crazy Lady was making snide comments under her breath since I didn't charge the woman for it. When I was leaving the woman asked if I was heading down the highway and I told her no, I wasn't going to have her get in my car and then refuse to get out. And I went the long way home because I didn't want her to see which way I was heading. Hopefully she isn't there tomorrow. Perhaps Bigfoot will take pity on her and let her use his phone. And I know what you're thinking but trust me, I've dealt with enough off balance people that I know to not let them handle your phone.

And I'm knocking this out quickly because I have to go to work early tomorrow.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

As The Station Turns 8/16

I started the day in the usual way, I wanted to do my opening paperwork but some guy wanted a pack of smokes but he didn't know which one, he finally went with the cheapest brand. Then he had to get his card to work on his phone. Meanwhile a line was forming behind him. Seriously people, you can turn on your card before you get to the counter. I counted in Bigfoot's drawer and he was $7 off. A crowd of people were coming in so I opened it at the proper amount and figured I could recount it after the shift change rush ended. Except everyone decided to pay cash and altered the amount in the drawer. I could try to do the math but when I finally took a second look I discovered he had forgotten to add in the rolled coins, dimes and nickels, which came to a total of...$7. Ha, I was right and he was wrong, and I'll never tell him. A storm was blowing in, literally. I was trying to keep an eye on the trash cans to make sure they or their lids didn't blow away, while waiting on ...
Read more

As The Station Turns, An Overview

 As this blog gains followers, up to 12 on my last post, I realized that if anyone wanders into this thing they won't know what is going on, so I figured I should do a quick overview, an explanation of location and characters. So, here it is. Halfway between here and there is a street, about two miles long. On this street is a series of restaurants, fast food places, motels, a few scattered gift shops and of course, gas stations. Overall more people visit this two mile strip that live within a hundred miles. And on this strip there are three gas stations, all owned by the same company, plus another one in he downtown area, they are all owned by the same company and ironically enough within two blocks of each other, one is directly across the street from the other one. I've said that you could set up cameras in this place and make a reality show about it, and these are the calm years, it use to be a lot worse. And this is where I work. Anyhow, let's start with the stations. ...
Read more

As The Station Turns 6/4-5

 When I got to work the Manager was in a good mood, thank goodness, but she still can't find the missing box of M&M's and is worried she threw them out with the trash. That's a possibility.  The Highway Department was across the street filling in the pot holes in their right of way. This is all prep work for the bridge reconstruction. The flatbed trailer that has been parked over there forever was gone too. (It was back on Friday so I don't know what's going on with it) When I walked in to the building there was a woman and her two kids at the soda machine and I had to wait while they went through the whole process of filling up one cup of soda, while the two kids shoved each other around. I hate people A customer came in and was basic rude, which put me in a mood. The next guy had come in and left his card while he filled up. When he came I handed his card back but he just stood there, not taking it. I wasn't in the mood for it so I dropped it on the counte...
Read more