As The Station Turns 9/19

 So I posted on the 18th and then several things happened. I could go back and add it but then half my readers would miss it. Yeah, five people read my post as soon as I put it up. Anyhow I'm doing a lottery experiment where I buy one scratch ticket a week and keep track of how much I spend versus how much I win, right now I'm down about $67. Anyhow with the Haunted Station closed I had to buy one somewhere else and I actually won. I had to go cash in the ticket so I decided to take a walk to the station down the road. Along the way I stopped by the Haunted Station and shut off the big sign with the price on it, that way people will stop going over there, everyone thinks they are selling for a lower than anyone else since it hasn't been updated in two weeks. Along the way I saw Stinky, the foul smelling brother of the Doofus, who got fired for showing up drunk every day. My goodness that guy looks horrible, he's bone thin, hunched over and his clothes were filthy. Well, his clothes were always filthy but he's a lot thinner. If he gets sick this winter he's a dead man.

I was going by the West Side Station and so I dropped by to bug the Weekend Guy again. He said the Late Guy came by so I asked if they had found the missing buckets. But then he told me that their soda machine didn't have any ice in it so what happened to the buckets? Da da daaaa! 

Anyhow I got home and sent the Boss a message that since he didn't need me to work at the Haunted Station I was going to go ahead and make an important appointment for Friday. He called me back to ask me if I wanted to take a paid week off or work, since the Late Guy needs to put in some hours. I decided that I wouldn't have enough time to make plans, plus Mrs. Late Guy has been having foot problems and she could use the week off. So I'm going to work my normal schedule this week.

And now on to today.

When I got to work I was surprised, Mrs. Late Guy was there and so was the Part Time Woman. I thought Mrs. Late Guy was going to have the whole week off and the Boss had told me Part Time Woman had called in sick. It turns out that PTW had only called in sick on Friday, she had healed remarkably fast and the Boss never talked to Mrs. Late Guy. I probably could have taken the week off after all.

They changed the time clock facial recognition software. Before it had to take a front shot and a profile before letting you in, and it sucked. Now it takes a single shot and boom, you're in. I hope it continues to work this easily.

I hate coming in when the Part Time Woman is there. The trash can for the mens room was in the hall, thus trash was all over the restroom floor. The outside trash cans were overflowing, someone had taken all the squeegees and put them in one bucket and she takes forever to close her drawer. When I come in I have to wait until one of them is done counting down their drawer before I can start. Honestly there are two of them and two drawers, they can close one so I can come in and just go to work. But every Saturday when she works it's the same mess.

Did I mention that there was a large chunk of dried mud by the pumps? Again, someone on the morning shift could have gone out and cleaned it but nooooo. So I had a gap between crowds and ran out to scrape it up with the snow shovel and dump it on the side of the lot. It's best to get to it while it's still chunky instead of after it's been run over a dozen times and turned to a pile of loose dirt.

Meanwhile the number 9 pump is completely down. It wasn't accepting credit cards so you had to do all the prepays inside but now it doesn't work at all. We're three pumps down and I'm still expecting the number 4 pump to go out any day.

I did have a laugh, a couple of truck drivers came in and were talking about how nice the Truck Stop is and what a pit the Haunted Station is, to the Part Time Woman. She use to brag about what a great job she did cleaning the place and now she has to hear that she did a crappy job. A ha ha ha ha.

The crowd cleared out so I figured I would run out and do the trash, and here came the swarm. Worse, it was lingerers, one group just sat around by the ice cream freezer, another guy looked at everything in the cooler without actually buying anything. An hour later I finally got to the trash (that should have been dumped by the morning crew by the way, but I know the Part Time Woman goes outside and comes back in and claims they are empty)

A guy came in and told me his wife had broken her foot and he ended up with $60 in quarters. I didn't hear how the two things were related. By the way he left the quarters at an arcade so all the kids could play for free for the day.

The Crazy Lady showed up and took a bag of ice. She could have gone in the back and bagged her own but nope, had to take one out of the freezer. If it was during the week I would have left the hole but since it's her night off I had to fill it up. Sheesh.

When I went out to spread out the squeegees I discovered the buckets were almost dry, again someone on the morning shift could have gone out and filled them up. So I filled up one and got a crowd. The crowd left so I went out and filled up a second one, and a crowd showed up. This continued until I got the last one done, and then nobody showed up.

A woman was asking about the feral cats that hang around the lot. I told her that they are fed. She was going to try to catch one, I told her she could take as many as she wanted. I don't think she took any. Also the humane society shows up every few months, traps them, fixes them and then takes them to nearby ranches where they become barn cats. 

Tonight there was an amazing sunset. Purple mountains, reddish orange clouds. A blueish grey background for contrast. And some guy with his kid who couldn't figure out what they wanted. They finally made up their minds just after the sun had set and everything was kind of the same. Thanks people.

Someone was sitting at the pump for a long time. I had to use the restroom and I got tired of waiting so I made a quick run and when I came back out there were cars on the lot, I had just beat them. And sure enough the car sitting around left once the crowd had shown up. 

A guy came in, his card had been rejected at the pump. I told him I could do a prepay but he decided to be pissy about the whole thing and left. For years after Covid things were pretty nice but rude is back.

Cowboy Bob came in and was kind of staggering, I'm glad his girlfriend was driving. I think he has a drinking problem. Normally I don't describe my customers but Cowboy Bob is going to be the exception, and remember, no judgement. Anyhow he's a Black guy in his mid 20's, big black cowboy hat and I swear it's true, handlebar mustache. And he has a west Texas twang, even though I don't think he's from Texas. I hope he gets a handle on his drinking because he's fun customer.

The Graveyard Shift Guy was late, as usual. There was a customer who was having trouble with the coffee, couldn't find the pot, couldn't find the right cups, couldn't find the lids and so forth. And what a surprise, despite the new time clock Graveyard Shift Guy had trouble clocking in, and it took him a really long time to count in his drawer so he didn't have to deal with the coffee guy. btw, nice guy, we had a chat about the crazy bag law in Colorado and how he was heading to San Antonio. Anyhow the Graveyard Shift Guy got in his drawer and then for some reason ran to check the ice, which was full and the cooler, which was fine. He has an 8 hour shift ahead of him and plenty of time to take care of everything, no need to do it the first 5 minutes. I clocked out with no problem thanks to the new software and went home.