Farewell, Employment! (Part 3)

mobil sign on grey brick wall
Originally uploaded by limonada.

Ah, my days at the Mobil station!

I got this job when I was 18 years old, because I figured that all you had to do to be a gas station attendant was sit there. I was mostly right. What I didn't know was that my job duties would also include explaining many times daily that I personally had nothing to do with rising gas prices, I had no control over the fact that we were out of Marlboro Lights, and I really had no idea why the crazy guy who works the midnight shift closed the store for two hours last night.

And the midnight guy really was super deranged. He was this weird goth dude who was in some sort of emo/heavy metal band (I really have no idea, I listened to one song ever maybe, and had to stop. It was painful.) Because we were so often out of cigarettes, customers would get really confrontational sometimes, and this guy would just pull out a baseball bat from under the counter and threaten them. It was funny for some reasons (Camp Dearbornites coming in from down the street needed to be threatened) but most of the time it was just really frightening.

I worked most of my shifts at Mobil with this cute 16 year old girl named Collette. She and I were both young and attractive, so naturally, all the creepy older guys from town would come "to grab some coffee" and then stand around and try to talk to us for a half hour or more. Disgusting. On the other hand, I had all of my friends come visit me at work for free coffee and slurpees, and they would stay and chat with me for hours. I got in trouble quite a few times for that after my bosses watched the security tapes.

Luckily, when I was working at Mobil, gas was only $1.50 a gallon. Even then, people were pissed. And they would get pissed at me like I had some sort of control over the situation. I can only imagine the hell that todays attendants go through. Don't yell at these people! Don't even discuss it. They know it's expensive. They work there and see it all day long. They don't need to hear it from you, now grab your Krispy Kreme and get out!