As The Station Turns 5/21

 When I walked in the door it was a mob scene and the Manager was outside trying to dump the trash, so as soon as I clocked in I was waiting on customers, I hadn't even counted in my own drawer. And the price of fuel has changed again.

Today was Wave Day, the place would be swarmed, then empty, then swarmed again. I spent half the day standing at the register and the other half running to check stuff like ice or the restrooms. Come to think of it I might not have bagged up ice, the Graveyard Shift was probably pissed that I left them 5 minutes of work.

Some guy's card wouldn't work at the pump. He bitched that he's been coming here for 44 years, the station has only been here 30 years, and every time he goes to that pump, which has only been there 5 years, it doesn't work. Well here's an idea, go to a different pump, or a different station. I mean if over the course of 44 years things haven't worked it's time to consider a change. I know the truth, he probably came through last week and then today but wanted to complain so I let him. Heck I told him my usual, "the management is threatening to replace all the pumps but as of yet they haven't followed through on it". People like when you say that, it implies bad management and the employee's inability to do anything about it.

One of the dumpsters has a broken lid, every time the trash truck comes it falls down inside and you have to pull it out and put it back in place, which nobody does. Instead they just throw the trash through the hole until it piles up to the top and then the crows can get to it, which means they throw trash everywhere trying to find that one fry someone had tossed. Normally I bitch, go push the trash farther back so I can pull the lid out and cover it up, and then get out the broom and the snow shovel and clean up the mess, however I'm not going to the station today so screw that, I left the trash blowing all over the lot. I'm not one for "let someone else do it" but someone else didn't do their job so....

I had a deaf woman, pretending to not be deaf. I have a cousin like that so I knew right away so I made sure I was facing her when I said anything. Then I had the Russian guy. It was "fun with language" day.

Normally I fill up the ice hopper on the soda machine as close to shift change as possible, the Crazy Lady wants to be pissed off when she comes in and when she can't bitch about "nobody does the ice" it ruins her whole night. Well today is the cusp of a holiday weekend and even though I figure it was going to be a slow weekend I still expected to be busy for the last two hours so I did the ice early. And, I timed my gap perfectly, I ran to the back after the last car rolled off the lot and got the last bucket dumped in just as the next car rolled in. I'm too good at this stuff. 

All day long people I call "pissers" come in, they'll park at a pump even though they aren't getting fuel, come in and pee, look around like they can't find that one item they really need, and then leave. Well, on busy days I put the Wet Floor stanchions in front of the office so people don't try to go in there, which happens all the time. A pisser came in, saw the signs on the office door that say "not a restroom" and the hall was blocked and thought the restroom was out of order and went somewhere else. Score for me.

I got a crowd gap so I ran to do the trash, and a car rolled in which meant that I had to drop what I was doing, wash my hands and wait to see what they were going to do. The guy finally came in, went to the restroom for an extra long time. Wandered around the store finally picking stuff out and came to the register. He paid for the stuff with his card and then said he wanted $20 in gas, in cash, so I rang that out. Then he found another $2 and wanted to know if he could get $22 instead. My trash gap was closing and he was pissing me off, and now he wanted me to void the sale and redo it for a lousy $2? I gave him the dead eye and he figured it out and decided to just go with the $20. Then his girlfriend came in and repeated the restroom/wandering around the store routine and my trash gap was completely closed. 

Best of all the last guy of the rush came in, did the long restroom bit, wandered the store, bought a gallon of water, went out and got gas and then came in to complain because the amount on the pump wasn't the same amount being shown on the card app. I pointed out that the amount he thought was the price of the fuel was actually the amount of gallons he got. Then he went out and cleaned out his entire van and dumped his trash in the only can I managed to dump before the previous guy came in. He left and I finally got the trash done. The average time a customer spends on the lot is 5 minutes, gas and restroom, 10 minuet, if they have kids 15 to 20 minutes. The two customers I had while I was trying to dump the trash, a half hour each, and that was back to back, the first one rolled off the lot as the second one was rolling on. 

UPS has slowly been delivering some stuff Skippy ordered, today was package number 3. And it was covered with dust, the driver must have been on the rural route today, and it left a pile of dust on the counter when he set it down, so I had to wash that off before the next customer came in. Later when Skippy came in he picked it up and I was secretly laughing when he realized he had just gotten dirt all over his hands.

Someone came in and told me that the Haunted Station was closed, this was an hour and a half before they were suppose to close. I had seen the Part Time Woman's husband over there earlier and I have to wonder what the heck she's up to. I hate to say it but I love that the place is becoming a mess and there are major personality clashes with the staff. They are making my time as manager look good.

The Crazy Lady came in first, and early, so I got to go home a few minutes early. Stinky showed up, wandered around the building, finally counted in the drawer and went to work. Just as I dropped my paperwork in the safe he realized he hadn't clocked in so I was stuck waiting for him, since he can't work the stupid facial time clock. It pisses me off that I was ready to go and once again the Graveyard shift was keeping me there. Clock in when you walk through the door dude. BTW, I don't think he clocked in at all the night before.

And then I went home.

On a side note, I've noticed an increase in the number of damaged coins showing up in the register. Normally people would pull them out of their pocket and toss them into a jar and forget about them. People are starting to feel the pinch and diving into the old change jar to make it through the end of the week. This isn't a good economic sign by the way.