As The Station Turns 10/12

Today requires a quick recap of the "cluster you-know-what" the stations have turned into thanks to bad management. It starts with the Random Woman putting in her two week notice, however she did it just as the state red-tagged the tanks at the Haunted Station and the place had to close so the Boss told her she could quit immediately and go to whatever job she was starting. The problem was that they didn't hire a new full time person to take her place, they would have had plenty of time to train them for the job but the company decided to save on the salary. 

Fast forward a couple of week, the Boss figured the Haunted Station was almost ready to reopen but again he hadn't hire anyone, instead he decided to shuffle around the schedules of everyone else, thus putting us at the razors edge of having people available in case anything happened to anyone. And for some reason I once again got the stupidest of schedules. Originally the Boss wanted me to work Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday at the Truck Stop, Friday at the Haunted Station and then have Monday and Tuesday off. Sounded stupid but at least I'd have two days in a row off. About 24 hours later he changed my schedule again, Wednesday and Thursday at the Truck Stop and then Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Haunted Station and I'd still have Monday and Tuesday off. I didn't mind, heck, I'd only have to deal with the Truck Stop mess two days a week. However the Part Time Woman must have been complaining because the Boss scheduled her to work Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Haunted Station and now I was scheduled to take Monday off, work Tuesday at the Haunted Station, Wednesday and Thursday at the Truck Stop, Friday off, Saturday at the Truck Stop and then Sunday at the Haunted Station. Once again I'd have split days off and split days at the Haunted Station, all because of the Part Time Woman.

And then, the Boss wanted me to take three days off, combined with my normal days off it would be a mini vacation of 5 days, oh well, I'd take it. However that didn't last, I guess the Graveyard Shift Guy started whining about a lack of a vacation so the Boss let him take 5 days off and I got stuck covering the graveyard shift for two nights. I was really pissed and the Boss must have figured it out, he thought the Haunted Station was going to open and he told me that when I got off on Thursday to not come back until Wednesday and then start the (third) new schedule. 

The Boss left town and forgot to tell Mrs. Late Guy that I was going to be off and someone was going to have to cover the Monday. I saw her while I was enjoying my mini vacation and told her I wasn't coming in on Monday so she talked to the Boss and he had the Late Guy work the shift at the Truck Stop. Well, that was covered and I still got my five days.

Then we come to this past week, it turns out that the paperwork for the repairs at the Haunted Station ended up on someone's desk and didn't get forwarded to the proper authorities, there was no inspection and the station is still closed. The problem was that everyone was told to go on the new schedule which meant that I was suppose to work over there on Sunday and Tuesday. I figured the Boss wanted to stick with the old schedule but he didn't say anything and I would take advantage of the situation. I asked the Graveyard Shift Guy when he was coming in and he said as far as he knew he was suppose to work the afternoon shift. Great, he was covering Sunday and the Crazy Lady would be working the afternoon shift on Monday and I was suppose to work at the Haunted Station on Tuesday, which is still closed, it meant I could take three days off.

On Sunday I stayed home, the Graveyard Shift Guy showed up and Mrs. Late Guy panicked. She was suppose to work at the Haunted Station on Monday afternoon but since it's closed she figured she was suppose to work her regular shift on Monday, which meant working with the Crazy Lady for four hours, and they hate each other. She called the Boss to find out what was going on, he told her everyone should work the old schedule, which mean I'm going to work on Monday and being off on Tuesday.  If Mrs. Late Guy hadn't panicked she could have had an extra day off too. And then the boss called me at 8 PM to ask if I wanted to work the graveyard shift on Sunday night, since he asked I said no. If I went in it would mean that I had been up since 7AM on Sunday, would have to stay up until 6 AM on Monday, get a couple of hours of sleep and go to work on Monday afternoon, be exhausted on Tuesday so I couldn't really do anything on my day off and not have another day off until Friday. Oh well, at least I got a day off by taking advantage of the mess and pleading ignorance. I hope the Crazy Lady doesn't show up on Monday afternoon.

When I got to work on Monday the first thing I noticed was that the New Schedule had been taken down. The Manager was talking about more stuff she had gotten out of the Haunted Station so I'm starting to suspect that it's going to remain closed until they do the brand name change over, which isn't scheduled until November. And then we'll see what the new new new schedule looks like. Until then I'm not making any long range plans.

The Manager asked me to come in early on Thursday so I'll be going in four hours early.  I don't mind since I was asked well in advance and it will add 4 hours, of overtime, to my next check. 

Sometime over the past two days they had a fuel delivery. The driver overfilled one of the tanks which always results in the sensor getting stuck on the top of the tank. The problem is that the alarm kept going off and nobody seemed to know how to turn it off. I suggested that Mrs Late Guy call the Late Guy because he's suppose to be the expert on all things pump related. I don't know what he said to do but the alarm went off for the rest of the day. I'm off on Tuesday so let's hope it starts going off again preferably at midnight on Monday.

It's probably a good thing they decided to go back to the old schedule because the slushie guy showed up to replace the broken machine. The new one had been delivered and was out in the storage shed and thankfully Mrs. Late Guy was there to open it. The company only sent the base machine and none of the mixer or the plastic container that holds the slushie so he had to cannibalize the old machine, he told Mrs Late Guy to keep the parts if they showed up. If the Crazy Lady had been working the shift alone she wouldn't have known what to do or had the keys for the storage shed, it would have been a mess.

For some reason the pumps kept rejecting all the cards. I figure that it was because it was a holiday, the banks are closed and a lot of people were traveling. The computer algorithm went into automatic blocking mode so I had to have them prepay, which they all complained about. One guy's bank sent them a fraud alert claiming someone had charged $990. Gotta love AI.

We had a couple of locals, the wind had slammed the back door shut and one guy thought it was locked and had come around to the front door. When he was leaving I told him to push on the door extra hard. Then another guy came in, realized there were two of us watching him, grabbed some napkins and left. Yep, he had planned on shoplifting. Normally when I see him he's with another guy who keeps a close eye on him, today he came alone, and left with nothing.

There is a condom machine in the restroom and the guy showed up to service it. He asked about the station across the street and we told him there was no plan to open it. When he was done servicing the machine he left $37 in quarters for the station. I put them in the drawer and dropped bills in the safe. Normally I'd sell the rolled quarters to the Boss for the safe but he's out of town so I left them for the graveyard shift, and I bet they complained about that.

I looked at the clock and it was 5:47. I waited on customers and took care of a few thing, looked at the clock and it was 5:47. I was stuck in a time bubble. Thankfully I got out of it again because the next time I looked at the clock it was 6:30.

After Mrs. Late Guy left I went to check the trash, they were all empty however so was one of the squeegee buckets. I had left them mostly empty on Saturday and for some reason nobody filled up one of them on Sunday. Well, I left it empty again. 

Some woman was prepay for her gas and wanted to know where she entered her reward code. Wrong place. She still got the gas.

I heard a loud thump outside and needed to go see if someone ran into something important but naturally I got busy right then. When I finally got a chance I went out and did a full check. As best I can tell someone drug a trailer over a curb.

The Storyteller came in. He was telling me about being out somewhere and found a bunch of loose change laying on the sidewalk. His step son picked it up and he told the guy to keep it. Later when he went to pay for something he pulled out his coin bag from his pocket and discovered it was open, upside down and he had a hole in his pocket. The change they had found was his. He didn't go ask for it back.

I was looking out the window when a truck came flying towards one of the pumps. At the same time another guy came flying around the building and headed for the same pump. Thankfully one of them stopped and they didn't have a head on collision.

Skippy came in, checked an old report and then left. I don't mind that at all.

It was nearly the end of the shift. A woman came in with a small child and a diaper and headed to the restroom. She came back, got another kid and another diaper and headed back to the restroom. The Graveyard Shift Guy came in and I figured it was his problem. I wanted to get out as soon as possible so I didn't have to deal with the Crazy Lady, she was going to be in a bad mood thanks to it being Monday and the ever evolving shifts. However the Graveyard Shift Guy was taking extra long counting in his drawer. He use to take extra time to clock in but the new system doesn't let him do that. Sure enough, I was in the middle of counting down my drawer when the Crazy Lady came in, if the Graveyard Shift Guy had counted his drawer in a reasonable way I would have been out the door. However she didn't say anything and I was heading out the door when she was heading to check the restroom, with the two diapers in the trash. Before I left I did tell the Graveyard Shift Guy we're back on the classic schedule until further notice. 

I had to be careful leaving because there was some semi driver trying to park for the night and he was turning too tight and backing up recklessly. I made a wide pass, I was riding by Bad Hawg by the way and a trike versus a truck would have ended badly for me. And I'm ignoring my phone today.