Ways to Show Employees in a Convenience Store That You Are an Idiot

I wrote this partly out of frustration, and partly because I felt that compiling a short list of some of the more odd and sometimes less intelligent things people do convenience stores might be... entertaining as well as cathartic.
Yes, all of these are things which actually occurred at my workplace. (Keep in mind that I have worked at more than one convenience store.) This is not a copy/paste from the internet. Some of these occur daily, some even hourly. It's given me a new outlook on society as a whole. Without further ado, here is my unnumbered  list of ways to show employees in a convenience store that you are an idiot:

Tell us what the gas price is right now. Please make sure we know, because really, we have no idea until you tell us. We are totally clueless, despite the big, tall signs outside and the 27 customers before you who also told us the price of our gas.

While you're at it, blame (insert politician here) because of course, we all agree with your political viewpoint, and therefore must hate that person as much as you do.
Lose extra points of if you manage to start a loud political argument between a group of regulars in our store. Double that if you insist on trying to drag us into it.

Tell us what the gas price is at other stores belonging to our chain. We have total control over how the gas price is set at our location, and we promise that we'll go right out and change our location's price just as soon as you tell us what it should be.

Also, please, please tell us your own personal whacked-out conspiracy theory as to why the gas is not the same price on our corner as it is at that other station which is 5 miles up the road. We are desperate to hear it, because we have been told that corporate uses the dart board method to make that decision.

Complain to the manager of a 24-hour store that you don't think employees should be mopping the floor, stocking the shelves, cleaning this or that piece of equipment or area, that the frozen beverage machine shouldn't defrost, the truck shouldn't fill the gas tank, etc.  while the store is open and suggest that instead, these tasks should be done during closed hours.

Wait for the foam on your cappuccino to "go down" so you can add more to your cup, while stating out loud that you need to do this so that you can get your "money's worth."
(Not only will this lose you I.Q. points in the eyes of the store's workers, it will also demonstrate to us that you've never had a cappuccino at a "real" coffee shop... and no, I don't mean Starbucks, I mean a real coffee shop!)

At a display of merchandise all bearing the same expiration date or time, reach to get the one in the back because you think it's more fresh than the others.
At a display of hot food, reach to the back (past the label that says "caution, HOT!") to get the "more fresh" item, then complain because you burned yourself while doing so.

Grab an item from behind the "still cooking, not ready" sign on the store's roller grill, then complain because the item is not hot.
Grab a pot of coffee from behind a sign (which you have to move to get to the coffee) that says, "not ready, still brewing" and then complain when the still-running brewer spews hot liquid on your hand. Lose extra points if you yell at the coffee girl for cleaning up your mess as if, by claiming it isn't there, you can un-embarrass yourself. Double that if you threaten to sue for the hot liquid on your hand, or if you complain until you get something free.

Step over a wet floor sign and full mop bucket, move the "cleaning in progress" sign to get to the doorknob, then act completely surprised when you see someone cleaning the restroom. Lose extra points if you then complain to the manager that "signs should be posted when someone is cleaning the restroom." Double that if, in a 24 hour store, you suggest that this should be done "after close."

Park in the handicap spot which is parallel to the front of our store, when you are not handicapped and don't have anything on your car that says you are. Better yet, try to be clever. Park beside the handicap spot, in the path of traffic driving around our pumps, or behind the handicap spot, in an area which is not marked as a spot. Either way, you get to block the handicap spot but you aren't actually in it. If you want to be really clever, park beside or behind the spot, but with one or two tires inside the border of it, so that you are simultaneously blocking it, taking it up, and still able to consider yourself to not actually be parked in the handicap spot. Real geniuses will argue this point with whichever police officer happens by and starts writing a ticket, because there's no way they've heard that one before.

Walk into the store through a door bearing a label that says, "We I.D." Go through the store past employees whose uniforms also bear the words, "We I.D." Open a cooler door bearing another label that says, "We I.D." Carry your beer purchase to the counter, which also bears a label that says, "We I.D." and then throw a fit when the cashier asks for your I.D. Extra points off if you make a scene.

Park in the empty but unmarked space front of the dumpster, blocking access to it, instead of using one of the marked parking spaces beside that area. Get really mad when the operator of the dump truck asks you to move your car so he can do his job. Threaten to call his boss.

Drive-off (Pump & Jump, in some states) and seriously think you won't get caught. Act offended when you are caught. Lose extra points if you complain to customer service about getting caught pumping your gas and driving off without paying!

Empty a years worth of trash from your car into the trash can at the pump, then complain that it is full and you can't throw out your used coffee cup. Don't bat an eyelash the whole time, because of course we didn't see you stuffing that can.

Call at 3am and ask if we have pop in the bottle. I swear to you, we've never heard that one before, and we'd really like to know the punchline. Better still, call when you're drunk, and totally mangle the joke. It's much funnier that way.

When asked to present your I.D. for an alcohol purchase, insist vehemently that the cashier absolutely must not scan it "into the computer" (swipe it through the credit card slot in the register) because you know that information goes directly to the police station so that they can come and bust you for DUI.

Come into the store when you're really, really stoned. I promise those mustard-covered chili dogs you stuffed in your jeans pockets will taste great later when you re-discover them during another munchies fit. The chili and mustard running down your leg really accentuate the trim on your jacket. Also, there are never any police officers in here buying coffee and making sure we are safe, so you won't get caught, either.

Come in during the day's biggest rush when the store is packed with other customers and every pump is occupied. Ask to pre-pay and give a wrong pump number because you didn't look, then get mad at the cashier because you were wrong. Insist that she should have known which pump you were on without having to ask you, and complain to the manager. Use racial slurs and other foul language, so we'll be sure to take your complaint more seriously.

Pre-pay a pump without putting your car there first, then get mad because the car that was there got your gas.

Buy 20 scratch off lottery tickets, and insist on scratching them all off at the register so you don't have to wait in line to cash them in. Get really mad at us when we wait on the long line of other customers which built up behind you as you were agonizing over which 20 scratch off lottery tickets to get, because you were here first and they should just wait.

Bring in a brand or size of merchandise we do not carry at our store, but that is similar to things we do carry, and try to return it. Insist that you bought it at our store. Get loud during the discussion, because the problem isn't that we don't believe you, it's that we didn't hear what you said. Also, if you yell loud enough, the volume of your voice will magically change our store's planograms, and we will suddenly develop a space for that specific item in our inventory just so you can get your money back from the wrong store.

Try to buy parts of our displays as if they were merchandise. Be offended that we won't sell them to you. Insist that we are saving them for ourselves, because we really need plastic milk crates and giant cardboard candy displays all over our small apartments.

Be offended that we don't carry every minute little thing you can buy at the grocery store a block away. Use body language, grunts, groans, and long-suffering sighs to let us know just how inconvenient it is for you to drive one more block to purchase that relatively obscure (for a convenience store) item because if you look put out enough, we just  might pull one out of our derrieres.

Leave strange objects in obscure parts of the store. Everyone knows that we all crave the unique experience of fetching your used thong from inside the beer cave, and all of the used condoms we find behind the dumpster are going to make a pretty dress. Your little black book of phone numbers was a very interesting read. (We wonder if Krissy the D-cup - stars and exclamation points - ever called you back.) We are convinced you probably never wore those dentures, anyway, and we were out of hemorrhoid cream until you came in. It really helps with the pain from pulling out those obscure objects you didn't want to buy at the grocery. Thanks!

The stupid! It's everywhere!

I grew up in a small town. My parents still live there. For purposes of this post, I'm going to call it Small Townville for anonymity.

My son regularly visits my parents' house, and stays weekends with them. When we arrived one Friday to for his visit, we found a note stating that we had to go to the library, where Mom was attending a meeting.
Mom used to be on the city council, and in fact spent four years as president. She's been retired from city politics for years, and she's partially disabled, so I wondered what could be going on that would cause her to want to get involved again.

Well... it seemed that the thriving and sophisticated community of Small Townville, Ohio, has nothing bigger over which to have a political controversy than... (drum roll please)... the regulation and control of CATS.

Council was considering a proposal to require that all cats be either kept indoors, or kept on a leash. (Obviously, no one on city council has ever tried to keep an outdoor cat indoors, or leash train an adult cat.) The ordinance would require owners to license their cats, and allow for the capture of loose cats by private citizens. Captured cats would be turned over to an authority - the humane society, if I understand correctly - and the owner would be required to pay a $50.00 fee to get the cat back.

Are they serious? They want to take the first line of rodent population control off of the streets of a town surrounded on all sides by farmland? What do they think is going to happen to the field mouse population on the edges of, and somewhat creeping into, their town?

Whose idea, I asked, was this?

Apparently a local resident's regular visitor from out of town suggested it. It was stated that other municipalities have passed similar ordinances, and this guy thinks Small Townville should follow suit.

Now, I've seen what happens in Small Townville, Ohio when the number of outdoor cats is reduced in just one neighborhood.

Ten years ago, when I was still living at my parents' house, there was a fire at a warehouse in my their neighborhood. The warehouse (which was for the storage of lumber) burnt to the ground, and all of its little inhabitants - mice, chipmunks, rats, squirrels, raccoons, opossums, deer, and (so we were told) a coyote - had to find somewhere else to live.
Local residents ended up with a plethora of little critters in our garages and backyards. Trash cans became a war zone, with the battle between the critters and the human residents waging daily. It took major effort to keep one's garbage from ending up all over one's back yard. Worse, a fair number of folks had to deal with rodent infestations in their outbuildings.

In our part of the neighborhood, there were a lot of outdoor cats, who quickly began the task of getting the pest population under control. My own Tabbyrella began the practice of tithing mouse, rat, and squirrel parts to the family, which is how I learned of the upsurge in local animal population. It became really inexpensive to keep her fed... all I had to do was let her out in the evenings.
Our neighbor, a crazy-cat-lady-in-training (her house was clean) had seventeen cats, ten of which were living in the neighborhood as strays before she "adopted" them - paid for them to have their shots and everything. She also saw a big upsurge in the hunting habits of her cats. Her catfood supply lasted a lot longer than it normally would have.
Soon, our two homes and the homes around us began to have a great reduction in our trash problems. This was great! All we had to do was keep our cats healthy, and eventually balance would be restored to the neighborhood.

One neighbor, noticing the increased wandering activity of the cats, decided that they must be responsible for the tearing up of her trash. No amount of discussion could convince her differently. She called police, ranted and raved, and even physically attacked cats which dared visit her property. My cat came home with a broken tail, bent at an angle as if someone had stepped on it. We were never sure it was her, but Tabby wouldn't go into her yard after that.

Finally, in her infinite wisdom, the cat-hating neighbor poisoned her garbage and left poisoned "treats" sitting around her back yard. Squirrels, mice, and rats feasted, then got sick. The sick animals were easy to catch and kill, so those were quickly picked off and eaten by our neighborhood mousing champions. Seven cats and a little kitten died of rat poisoning. My own cat got sick, but the vet managed to save her by injecting a huge amount of fluid in between her skin and muscle tissue. Cats have loose skin, so that didn't hurt, but it was a weird and very uncomfortable experience for her.
After *someone* reported to the sanitation department that the woman had rat-poisoned her trash, the trash collectors rightfully refused to come pick it up until she got rid of the poison and replaced her cans. However, it was too late for the cats.

After the deaths, the rodent population began to increase again. In a funny twist of karmic fate, the cat-hating neighbor ended up with a squirrel infestation inside her house... which *someone* reported to the health department. She was fined and ordered to exterminate. Too bad she didn't have any cats to help her out with that!

It was months before we started to get things back to normal. During the winter, several residents had to have outbuildings cleaned out by an exterminator, including my parents. By spring, the ill-fated kitten's siblings had grown, and the cat population of the neighborhood was back to normal, though Tabby wasn't hunting much except for bugs. The poisoning permanently damaged her digestive system.

With the increase in cats came another slow decline in the pest population, as evidenced by reduced interference with our trash, reduced sightings, and no more infestation issues. Eventually a balance was restored. There were enough critters to be cute, but not enough to be a nuisance. That meant we had to go back to being our cats' main providers of food, but at least no one had to deal with squirrel infestations in their outbuildings.

The lesson was obvious - outdoor cats are a community's first line of defense against overpopulation of little pests. Remove the mousers, and suddenly you have a rodent population control issue on your hands.

Apparently, council members never learned that lesson... they were seriously considering the ordinance. A petition was circulating to bring the issue to a public ballot, and it seems that the local population was all up in arms about the huge cat controversy.

Months later, I learned that the ordinance was defeated on the public ballot by a respectable margin, but not unanimously. Too bad. I would have loved to see the cat haters get skunked.

Failure to anticipate one's baser customers

My company allotted our store a small budget to improve the appearance of our restrooms. That was a nice idea. My boss was really pleased to have the chance to make them more presentable, as they were really plain and boring; white toilet, sink, and ceiling... gray floor tiles, off-white walls, and beige waste bin. We have some advertising on one wall of each room, and the dispensers for toilet paper, hand towels, and hand soap, but other than that, there hasn't ever been anything else.

To make the rooms look prettier, she decided to get a nice picture for each, and for each, a plastic Ficus tree in a wicker "planter" pot.
I have to say, the Ficus in the ladies' room is lovely. It does definitely brighten up the place, and makes it feel more homey and comfortable.

It looks something like this:

  

I wasn't so sure about the one in the men's. I voiced my doubts, and noted a behavioral probability.

Before going on, I should probably explain a bit about our men's room.

One of the fun things about working in a convenience store is that people will do things in your restroom that they would never engage in at home. In this case there is a serious issue regarding the correct way to use the toilet.

By that, I mean putting one's bodily wastes inside the toilet rather than simply near it.

This is not just a problem of men "missing" the hole. It's more like interior decorating.

The room isn't big... it's about four feet square with a ten foot ceiling. The toilet is only about one step from the door. There's no lid or anything, so there's no reason why, once he makes it into the room, a guy shouldn't make it to the toilet.

There's no urinal, either, though there is a re-painted area on the wall where there had been a urinal, which was removed before I started work at that location. It is my understanding (from the word of a former co-worker) that the urinal was removed because guys didn't seem to understand that it was just for urine. I'm not sure what was the problem understanding that. It isn't called a crap'n-all. It's called a urinal. ...but I digress.

The use of the toilet isn't much more sensible than the use of the urinal. At least four days a week, we have to unclog it because some guy with an atrocious diet comes in and drops a giant, wax imitation of a turd. I swear, this guy must consume even more animal fat than I do, and that's saying a lot. He must be on something like a strict diet of hard salami and cheese. I'm serious... the thing looks like it was molded from a brown candle. There is no way this guy ever eats anything but animal fat!

He then proceeds to attempt to flush it despite its huge size and all previous failed attempts, and much to his surprise, it clogs the toilet again. When flushing does not get rid of it the first time, he continues flushing until the bowl fills with water. 

Then, he leaves without telling anyone about the mess he just made, so that the next guy who needs the restroom is faced with it. Usually by that time, the water has gone down, and the guy finds a bowl full of debris surrounding the biggest, shiniest piece of crap he's ever seen (unless he drives an El Camino.)

This is not a plunger-friendly mess. Before I started working there, the manager who hired me (and who is now retired) was having to call a plumber on a regular basis because of this guy.

I figured out a better way to handle the problem. It's not fun, but it works.

Since the problem is made up mostly of waxy fat, all it needs is something to break it down and it will move along. I discovered that pouring really hot water onto the wax turd will cause it to break up into smaller, kind of melty wax turds which can be flushed. Now, I am the store plumber. Whenever we have a restroom clog, I get first crack at it. I've probably saved our store a few thousand dollars in plumbing fees just this summer.

The Big Brown Bomber is not our only problem, however.

As I mentioned before, there is a spot in the men's restroom where there used to be a urinal.
"Used to be" is the operative phrase.

This distinction seems to be lost on some of our late night and early morning customers, who insist on using it anyway. There is a permanent stain on the wall.

Once, when I was working the night shift alone, a guy came in and "missed" so badly that I had to assume alcohol was involved.

At least, I hope alcohol was involved.

I'd hate to think that a sober person would spray the walls of a convenience store restroom to mark it as his territory. Yes, I mean spray... he started by the door and made it more than halfway around the room, hitting about five feet off the floor (just below eye level for me).
I found it after it had run all the way down, leaving pretty golden streaks on our off-white wall. I'd been wanting the time to wash down those walls, but I never said I needed an excuse. 

Mad as I was, though, I couldn't help laughing about it. The mental image I kept getting wouldn't let me stop. All I could think of was some ornery looking guy in a trench coat (why, I don't know... maybe because that's the stereotype for what flashers wear, and this was the same kind of ornery as that) whipping it out and spinning around yelling "Weeeeeeeeeeee!" as he let fly.

It's not strictly a men's room issue, mind you. There's a regular visitor to the ladies' room we like to call "Poocaso."

I'll let that digest for a moment so you can think about why I might call her that.


Usually, we find it on the wall next to the toilet. Most of the time, it's only a bit, and we're not sure if it's done manually, or if she splashed. Recently, though, there have been unmistakeably deliberate finger smears along the wall. There is no way this was a splash... I'm talking a foot long and three inch wide professional paint job. Thinking it was a complaint, I checked the dispenser, but there was plenty of toilet paper.
I think that gal is just disturbed.

Anyway... when my manager came in with those two little Ficus trees to put into the restrooms, I had to say something. I mean, in an area where guys regularly pee on the walls, the floor, anywhere but the toilet... where they can't even always poop in the toilet, why would you want to add a feature that, in nature, works as a substitute toilet?

Her theory was that if the restroom looked better, it might get treated better. I knew not to argue. Once she's decided how she wants the facts to be, my boss will not accept evidence or logic.

In went the Ficus.

It took a week before the first guy used it. She was insufferable the whole time. A number of days count was kept on our dry-erase message board.

As in, "3 days without a Gross Ficus Urinary Incident"

We do have a sense  of humor at our store.

We also have a sense of told ya so. I confess that I took some satisfaction on the eighth day in erasing her seven and replacing it with a big, fat zero. I didn't say anything. I just wrote the number, and took the tree outside.

I have now learned that the foam and other filler in the wicker basket planter in which the new urinal... I mean ficus... sits can withstand the temperature of boiling sanitizer-water, and that if I use enough of it, I can get rid of all traces of yellow stains. It's not so good for the grass growing up through the cracks in the pavement behind the dumpster, though.

I was nice. I didn't actually say, I told you so.
(But everyone else did!)

It's been like this forever

From one of my older blogs:


Either someone at my job’s corporate level is completely naive (and lousy at using
punctuation), or they got a real kick out of sending my store a memo (via email) stating the importance of having the ass mgr do the shift anal by (I can’t remember what time...)

We all decided that there could be no one better qualified to do the shift anal than the ass manager...

Just wondering

How in the heck does anyone make it all the way into adulthood, much less into a store management position, without learning the following things?

1) Do not stack big, awkward, heavy objects on top of smaller, more fragile objects.

2) A tall, skinny, unevenly positioned stack is much more likely to fall over than a short fat neatly made stack.

3) A broken cardboard box isn't strong enough to hold its shape, especially under the strain of 150 pounds of weight.

4) Saying something over and over doesn't make it true.

5) Preventing something from being said doesn't make it not true.

6) A wet floor is still wet and slippery even after you put up a sign.

7) Chocolate melts when it gets hot. Pretzels don't. Therefore, it should be easy to decide which items get placed in the room where the temperature gets up over 90 degrees every day.

8) If there's a label on it that says "CAUTION, HOT!" you really shouldn't put your fingers on it. It might be hot.

9) Heavy stuff stacked in front of a freezer door will get in the way of opening the door and getting into the freezer.

10) Everyone around you can hear your end of your cell phone conversation.

11) Gravity never stops working.

12) If you watch a co-worker touch something, and it electrocutes him, that is evidence that the object will also electrocute you if you touch it.

13) Flammable substances will catch fire when directly exposed to an open flame, even if that is not what you were trying to do.

My theory, my opinion, my blog

I've been working since I was fifteen.

I've had part-time jobs, summer jobs, "temp" jobs, and full-time jobs, and worked as an independent contractor... in the fields of retail, food service, manufacturing, security, health, journalism, and more. Currently I'm in a combination retail/food service position, below the bottom rung, but full-time.

I've noticed over the years that often, corporations which have multiple outlet locations, which I've seen in every one of the above-mentioned fields, all have one issue in common: Policy made at the corporate level, pertaining to the outlet level, often makes absolutely no sense when applied to real-life workplace situations.

I've seen tried-and-true customer service techniques abolished, red tape put into place where it holds up accident prevention, enforced requirements for the completion of paperwork that nobody ever reads but which quality assurance checkers look for (and no, it's not required by law, just the company), good employees lost over stupid management mistakes, and much, much more.

I've developed a theory over the years:
I think all corporations keep a secret room full of chimpanzees on acid. Corporate execs give the chimps paper, and crayons. They take the resulting drawings, put them up on the wall, and pick policy via thrown darts. Then, they institute that policy and enforce it upon those of us at the peon level.

So far, that theory is the only thing I can come up with that comes close to explaining the nonsense I've seen at every corporate-owned place I've worked!

It's frustrating sometimes, dealing with the chimpanzees.

It's also frustrating sometimes, dealing with the consumer.

Both ends of the equation have a habit of starting with a desired outcome, and then ordering it to happen without regard to the existence of a means by which it can be achieved. What's a peon to do?

Well, this one needs to vent. That is the purpose of this blog. Enjoy... or don't. I'm going to write it anyway, because I don't have a corporate chimp to tell me I can't. ^_^