Hard Job

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This looks like a really hard job, the woman on the other side of the bulletproof glass said through the intercom.

I pushed the button to speak to her. Well, it’s my first day working alone, so I’m probably making it seem harder than it really is, I told her.

No. I think it’s a hard job, she said.

I was trying to be optimistic, she was right. It was a hard job.

I’d applied for a job at one of the town’s chain supermarkets. It was the store I shopped at, and the workers all seemed fairly cheerful, so I figured it would be a decent place to work. I’d used a cash register before. Once I got the hang of this particular point-of-sale system, how difficult could it be to ring up groceries for a few hours a day? If there were no cashier positions open, maybe I could stock shelves or work behind the customer service desk. In any case, I’d be working indoors, out of the sun and the heat and the wind and the dust. A supermarket job would be ok.

Photo of Gas Station During Evening

When I went through the prescreening phone interview with someone from the corporate human resources department, I was told the only job available at that store was in the fuel center (aka the gas station). Sure, I told the woman. I’ll take that job. I figured it couldn’t be that much harder than working in the main store. Turns out I was wrong.

The first problem with working in the fuel center was that while I was being trained the first week, I had to be there at 5:45 in the morning. Ugh. Because my drive from home to the store took 40 minutes, I had to back out of my driveway no later than a couple minutes after five o’clock. It was still dark when I got out of bed between 4:00 and 4:15 to get dressed, eat breakfast, brush my teeth, and gather everything I’d need for the day. I tried to be quiet, but The Man is a light sleeper, and I always woke him up.

I can’t really blame the early morning start time on the fuel center. I could have worked an early shift in the main store too. Also, my schedule for the second week on the job was all over the place: two nights closing, one day mid shift, another morning shift, one more at midday. At least the rest of my work life wouldn’t require a 4am wake up, but having no set schedule can wreak havoc on a gal’s sleep patterns.  

Learning the point-of-sale system wasn’t so difficult. I had a handheld barcode scanner and a computer touch screen; all sales transactions were made using those two devices. Once I learned how to do a void and a cash drop and how to preauthorize cash and debit/credit card gas sales, I was golden. After four days of training, I pretty much had the system down.

I think the part of the job the customer was observing as hard was how busy it got out there. The first day I worked alone was a Friday, and it seemed like half the town was stopping at the grocery store pumps to fuel up. It also seemed like customers came in waves; the fuel center would be empty, then half or more of the pumps would be in operation. Of course, people have needs, and when there are a lot of people, there are a lot of needs. Everyone with a declined credit or debit card came to me. Everyone who couldn’t get the machine outside to register their reward points came to me. Everyone who couldn’t get their pump to start or who thought their pump had shut off too soon came to me. All of these people were in addition to the people who wanted to pay cash or who didn’t want to use a card at the pump or who wanted to buy a pack of gum, an energy drink, a bag or chips, or a pack of cigarettes.

Oh, the cigarettes! I’ve never been a smoker. I’ve never bought a pack of

Marlboro Cigarette Boxes

cigarettes for myself in my life, and when I’ve bought one for another person, the smoker has been very explicit about what exactly I should get. I had no idea there were so many varieties of cigarettes in the world. We had soft packs and boxes, longs and wides, menthols and organics. In the fuel kiosk, we sold 30 varieties of Marlboros, probably 15 varieties of Camels, eight varieties of American Spirits!

How do people even know what they like to smoke? I asked my coworker with bewilderment and frustration.

He just shrugged. They buy different things until they find what they like, he explained.

When I was on my own and a customer asked for cigarettes, I’d find the brand they’d requested, then point to the different varieties until they’d nod or give me a thumbs-up through the bulletproof glass. American Spirits were the easiest for me to sell, as their varieties came in different colored boxes. Light blue was the best seller of American Spirits, although I also sold a black, a yellow, and a light green. (Other varieties included orange, dark blue and two other shades of green).

I was scared to death to sell tobacco products to someone under the age of 18 or to fail to check the ID of anyone under the age of 27. The training provided by the corporation I now worked for had taught me that doing either of those things could get me and the store into a lot of BIG BAD TROUBLE. During my first day in the kiosk, I asked to see the ID of a man who said, I haven’t been carded in 11 years. He went back to his car and got his driver’s license. Turns out he was only two years younger than I am, so solidly middle age.

Selective Focus Photography of Gasoline Nozzle

Other hard parts of the job the lady who commiserated with my plight hadn’t even seen. Every morning the worker had to do a thorough check of all the pumps to make sure nothing was broken, cracked, dirty, or in any way less than perfect. The worker was also supposed to wipe down each pump every morning and use a special cleaning chemical on any gas or oil spill on the concrete as well as do maintenance cleaning on different parts of the concrete in the fuel center (in front of pumps 1 and 2 on Mondays, pumps 3 and 4 on Tuesdays, etc.) Several days a week, the worker was supposed to use a leaf blower on the ground all around the fuel center, and every morning lids in the ground near the where the tanker trucks pumped in the new fuel had to be lifted and checked for water, leakage, excessive dirt, and other problems. It was a lot to do between helping customers, and the entire experience took place with a background smell of gasoline.

The worst part of the job came at noon when the replacement worker

Assorted Bottle And Cans

arrived. The morning worker had one hour to run a report that said what items needed to be transferred from the store to the fuel center. Once the report was printed, the morning worker went into the supermarket and ran around on a product scavenger hunt, working from a list that made little sense. Items were listed, then in the field that said how many to bring to the kiosk, I’d find a zero. I’d think I’d pulled all the necessary drinks, but then among the snacks I’d find another beverage listed. Some drinks were on aisles 20 in the large cooler, but others were warm on aisle 13. Still others could only be found in small coolers near the self-check lanes. Snacks were scattered around the store in at least three different places. Some items were nowhere to be found.

After all the food and drinks were pulled, it was time to move to the huge, locked tobacco case at the front of the store. Yes, the store sold even more varieties of smokes (and smokeless tobacco) than we did in the kiosk. The tobacco scavenger hunt alone could easily take 30 minutes and leave me blinking back tears.

I quickly learned that if I couldn’t find any given item pretty quick, to mark it NF (Not Filled) on my list and move on. I didn’t have the luxury of the time needed to fill the list.

Filling the list also involved the use of a handheld scanning device and an enormous, difficult to steer blue cart. (Using a regular shopping cart would have been infinitely easier.)

By my third day on the job (Tuesday), I wanted out. I called the manager of a souvenir shop I’d applied at during my initial job search and let her know I was still looking for a position. On Friday after work, I had an interview with the souvenir lady. I had the weekend (and Monday too!) off work from the fuel center. I spent all three days hoping I’d be able to give my notice on Tuesday.

Images courtesy of https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-gas-station-during-evening-2284164/, https://www.pexels.com/photo/smoking-57528/, https://www.pexels.com/photo/selective-focus-photography-of-gasoline-nozzle-1537172/, and https://www.pexels.com/photo/assorted-bottle-and-cans-811108/.

About Blaize Sun

My name is Blaize Sun. Maybe that's the name my family gave me; maybe it's not. In any case, that's the name I'm using here and now. I've been a rubber tramp for nearly a decade.I like to see places I've never seen before, and I like to visit the places I love again and again. For most of my years on the road, my primary residence was my van. For almost half of the time I was a van dweller, I was going it alone. Now I have a little travel trailer parked in a small RV park in a small desert town. I also have a minivan to travel in. When it gets too hot for me in my desert, I get in my minivan and move up in elevation to find cooler temperatures or I house sit in town in a place with air conditioning I was a work camper in a remote National Forest recreation area on a mountain for four seasons. I was a camp host and parking lot attendant for two seasons and wrote a book about my experiences called Confessions of a Work Camper: Tales from the Woods. During the last two seasons as a work camper on that mountain, I was a clerk in a campground store. I'm also a house and pet sitter, and I pick up odd jobs when I can. I'm primarily a writer, but I also create beautiful little collages; hand make hemp jewelry and warm, colorful winter hats; and use my creative and artistic skills to decorate my life and brighten the lives of others. My goal (for my writing and my life) is to be real. I don't like fake, and I don't want to share fake. I want to share my authentic thoughts and feelings. I want to give others space and permission to share their authentic selves. Sometimes I think the best way to support others is to leave them alone and allow them to be. I am more than just a rubber tramp artist. I'm fat. I'm funny. I'm flawed. I try to be kind. I'm often grouchy. I am awed by the stars in the dark desert night. I hope my writing moves people. If my writing makes someone laugh or cry or feel angry or happy or troubled or comforted, I have done my job. If my writing makes someone think and question and try a little harder, I've done my job. If my writing opens a door for someone, changes a life, I have done my job well. I hope you enjoy my blog posts, my word and pictures, the work I've done to express myself in a way others will understand. I hope you appreciate the time and energy I put into each post. I hope you will click the like button each time you like what you have read. I hope you will share posts with the people in your life. I hope you'll leave a comment and share your authentic self with me and this blog's other readers. Thank you for reading.  A writer without readers is very sad indeed.

6 Responses »

  1. This is really beautifully written with great details. I feel a lot of compassion for you. Work is terrible. I can relate to the frustration. I wish I had a bazillion dollars and you and yours could come live in my mansion with me and Ming. Well, you never know. I think I just finished writing Resisting Capitalism for Fun #2. Will send it to you when it’s done!

  2. ps I smoked for eight years, and which brands I chose was mostly based on a superstition-like nostalgia for what brands my friends had smoked, mostly friends who lived far away, and smoking felt like a ritual that kept me close to them–I smoked for that, an excuse to go outside every so often, a way to regulate my time, take a break, treat myself, calm myself, focus, stay awake… So glad I quit! It wasn’t easy. That was a long time ago.

    • Thanks for the insight into how you chose your brands of cigarettes. I’m glad you quit too! I love your lungs and want them to be as strong and healthy as possible.

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