As The Station Turns 5/22 The Downtown Edition

 Due to the local High School graduation and the whole company being short staffed I got stuck covering a shift at the Down Town station. What a pain in the butt. Their register is different than the ones up by the highway so I had to stumble my way though that, I'm sure I made several important mistakes but I don't care. Their card reader isn't working because they need to update the entire system so all credit purchases have to be made on a separate scanner and then rung out on the register as a cash payment, meaning your paperwork is always off. The day was a mess, but it was only one day so I don't care.

A woman prepaid, started pumping, shut off, tried to restart it and of course it didn't work. So I had to figure out how to ring out a refund and reset the pump. The whole thing was a lot of fun. And at the exact same time another woman prepaid $40 and drove off. Thankfully I noticed before someone else pulled in to the pump but I had to figure out how to do a void on register I had never worked on before. About a half hour later the woman came back and got her gas.

Since the Down Town station is where the locals go I pretty much recognized everyone who came in so I was trying to place a face of one woman when her father walked in. Oh yeah! It was the Tom's chips guy. Everybody loved Tom's chips so naturally a bigger company bought them out and got rid of them. He was old enough to retire so he didn't care too much. btw, his daughter is still hot. 

I'm not trying to be mean but the overall station needs a good scrub down. When business dropped off halfway through the day I pulled the filter off the back of the slushie machine and went to hose it out, metal filter by the way, and chunks of dust were coming out. I have to wonder if it had ever been cleaned. The tops of all the coolers have a layer on them and the floor needed a serious mop. The place is actually cleaner after I left.

I found a rubber ducky in the parking lot, gotta wonder who is missing it. I guess I'll put it on my dashboard in the Jeep tradition. 

I had to run some guy's card on the alternate card reader and he proceeded to tell me the reason the company doesn't update the system is because the new ones have to adjust the fuel flow based on the outdoor temperature, after all you get more fuel on cold days than warm days. The internet is making the world stupider. btw, the reason they haven't updated is because they've been doing a major overhaul at another location and when they are done there they are going to hit the stations here.

Skippy came in towards the end of the night and he was shocked to see me there. For the guy who is suppose to be in charge he sure doesn't know what is going on. He kept telling me "9 o'clock". I think he wanted me to close up at that time but the problem was I don't have a key to the building so I had to wait for the Manager to show up and she wasn't coming until 9:45

A woman came in, mumbling, cursing on her phone and looking all over. She bend over and her crack pipe fell out of her pocket. I know she knows I saw it, she scooped it up and ran out the door. I then got the broom and gave the area a good sweep to make sure there weren't any bits of crack coated glass laying around. 

And then the Manager's son showed up to lock the door. He was about a half hour early so I told him to go ahead and lock the door and started closing. When I was done I was a $1000 off, all credit charges, I hope. I guess I'll hear about it but my answer will be, "well nobody told me so I didn't know". Again, I don't care and I hope I never have to go back. 

I will say one thing about working Down Town, no angry tourists telling me about the price in Amarillo or how the pumps don't work and so forth.