Posts

As The Station Turns 8/11

 Hell Week Redux Day 4 I was almost late to work. I thought of something and had to post it on Threads, looked up and was supposed to be on my way. I still showed up on timeish. There was a mob of people but they cleared out quickly. I still had to deal with lingerers while doing my opening paperwork but it wasn’t as bad as usual. The price of fuel went up 20 cents a gallon yesterday and dropped 10 cents a gallon today. It’s going to be a fun fall. I had a couple of things to do but I had to wait for a guy who was sampling the slushies. He finally picked one and a crowd showed up, as if planned. And just like yesterday every time I went outside people would show up, mostly just to check their phones and leave. Do you get more bars by a fuel pump? The Late Guy came by to get a photo of a register screen. And he was an hour late getting off work from the Haunted Station. Gotta wonder what is going on with the Random Woman, I’m sure her days are numbered. Btw, the Late Guy wasn’t talk...

As The Station Turns 8/10

 Hell Week Redux: Day Three I thought Mrs. Late Guy had cursed me again when she told me that she had a slow day. Sure enough, for the first hour I was swamped. After that it was super slow, you'd think it was mid February. Tell me again about how great the economy is doing. Speaking of which Sturgis is going on and I realized that there were very few bikers through this week. Normally we'd be overrun by outlaw gangs, weekend enthusiasts and loners. This year, perhaps one or two small groups and stragglers. I don't think this is going to be a good fall. I was trying to do my first of the shift stuff but two women kept running in and out of the restroom. I wasn't going to ask what was going on in there, and hopefully I didn't have to clean up a mess. When one left and the other was still in the restroom I figured I could run and do something but she came out and practically sprinted to the register. When they finally left here came the swarm. I left the low toilet pa...

As The Station Turns 8/9

 Hell Week Redux: Day 2 Today started off pretty good. I went to get the tank readings and looked up, there was a dollar bill stuck on top of one of the fuse boxes. Why was it there? I don't know. Who put it there? I don't know. Where did it end up? In my pocket. Mrs. Last Guy told me that it had been a slow and boring morning. This is a quick way to curse another shift. Sure enough I was overrun with customers for hours. I had to dump the outside trash twice. It's worse than mopping the floor. Today was "Small Children" Day. Everybody who came in had toddlers who were at the age of walking and exploring. I wouldn't mind but it means that they all take at least 20 minutes to find their stuff, have a discussion about not buying the stuffed animals and finally picking something out. At least there wasn't the "pick something out, you can't have that, hurry up" conversation. Yesterday I intentionally loaded an almost empty roll of paper towels in...

As The Station Turns 8/8

 Hell Week Redux, Day One The Part Time Woman works Saturday mornings at the Truck Stop. When I walked in she was taking a small bag of trash out to the dumpster, and was still in her drawer, as was Mrs. Late Guy. They know when I'm coming in and could close one so I can count in and go to work. But noooooo, they were still in both drawers. So I was stuck hanging around waiting for one of them to close their drawer. Finally Part Time Woman closed her drawer, and once again she was off in her count so I had to open my drawer for an odd amount. Oh well, I guess the Random Woman is going to be gone for the next two weekends and Part Time Woman will be covering across the street. So I got that good news. I'm going to have to cover Wednesday morning but the only good part was that they weren't putting in an order so I wouldn't have to unload that. Except it turns out that last week the supply company didn't send any of the tobacco so they had to put in an order. And ther...

As The Station Turns 8/6 - 7

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When I arrived at work someone towing a trailer parked across the entrance to the diesel pumps. I drove straight at them before turning and having to go around. Then someone tried to pull into the pumps and blared their horn at the person. Seriously, directly in front of the pumps is not a parking space.  The Manager was in a hurry today, she had several things to get done and then she is on vacation. She hustled through everything at the Truck Stop and then ran down to the West Side Station and then clocked out. She's on vacation and come Saturday I'll be on Hell Week. After the third person in a row I wondered how long I could go before I yelled in someone's face "If It's A Debit Card You Have To Enter A PIN!!!!!" Honestly, if you want to use your debit know your PIN. The third person pulled out his card and jammed it in and out of the reader several times, which caused the card reader to jam up and I had to open the second register for .01¢ to run his card ...

As The Station Turns 8/5

 It was a quiet day at work. Not for the usual reasons of a seasonal slow down but instead it was because of bad drivers. First there was a semi rollover on the highway to Texas, they had to close the west bound lanes so it was bottlenecked to one lane in both directions. Then someone towing a trailer came down the mountain pass too fast, they didn't have breaks on their trailer so it started pushing them, they tried to slow down which caused them to jackknife and rolled both the car and the trailer shutting down the south bound lanes (If you're gonna tow a trailer through the mountains and are not use to it, go to a mechanic and see about tow breaks or at least slow down). To top it all off someone rolled their truck on the side road that runs east towards Oklahoma. So it was slow, then busy, then slow again, and a lot of angry impatient people. The Random Woman was across the street this morning, gotta wonder why the Dyslexic Woman wasn't working. Maybe the Boss wanted he...

As The Station Turns 8/3 - 4

  When I got to work it was a typical Monday, busy as heck. Bigfoot had left me a mostly acceptable drawer but I was going to have to get coins out of the safe later. The Manager was pissed because she cleaned out the slushie machines and there were bugs in one of them. Someone had to have left the top off. I told her I don't touch the thing and how someone had filled up one of the coffee machines with the wrong stuff, she wasn't happy about that either. I though they kept the mix locked up but I guess it's in the back somewhere, this is the first I learned about that. She was happy to get out of there today. Today two of the regulars showed up. First it was the Stuffed Dog guy who was buying milk and then the Butt Picker who was buying a pack of smokes, the rains have filled up al the outside ash cans with water so the butts out there are floating.  Last week I found a pair of sunglasses laying outside so I put them on the picnic table to see if someone would take them. Fo...