8/25

 It's 3 AM and I am wide awake, and not by choice. One of my favorite movies is Clerks, the story about a guy working at a New Jersey convenience store who has to go in on his day off. Throughout the entire film he (Dante) keeps saying the same thing as everything goes wrong, "I'm not even suppose to be here today". Anyone who ever worked a register can identify with this movie and the sentiment of that simple statement.

So here I am getting ready to go do a morning shift on my day off. As I reported last week one of the morning crew had to go to the doctor to have stitches removed so I said I would cover for her. There are two reasons for this, first is overtime pay, yes I'm in it for the check and secondly it puts me in good with the manager, who's shift I am covering, and the owner who thinks I'm not just in it for the check. Even though I lose a day off it's a win/win for me.

Of course there is a drawback to letting your employer know you do a good job, they come to expect it. Once you become the "reliable one" they start to expect more and more from you while they let the slacker slide more and more. They figure the lazy crowd is going to be bad no matter what and they began to demand the good workers fill in the gaps. Eventually the good workers become so burdened upon that they quit in frustration and the owners are left with the slackers who now feel they can get away with doing nothing. This is one of the major problems in the modern working world. So if you are a good employee it's important to not do an outstanding job. Talk about a Catch 22 situation.

And do you know what they have on TV at three in the morning? News and infomercials. Thank goodness for the internet. 

~

So it was off to work. When I got there the graveyard crew was totally unprepared. They hadn't done any of their end of shift paperwork. They hadn't got their cash drawers prepared. Nothing. Worse was the regular Shift Manager was off for the night and one of the afternoon people was filling in, and she is sooooo slooow when she counts her drawer, a 5 minute job took her 15.  The manager runs the store totals in the morning so everything has to be closed out, and customers were waiting.

As we, the incoming shift waited Ray, the Guy Coworker just stood there and did nothing. He didn't do his cigarette count, which is required. He didn't help with the drawer count. Heck a breaker switch flipped and he didn't even offer to reset it, he just stood there. Yeah, I look forward to working with him.

Finally they were done and the morning shift got started. Things went pretty much as I expected, the Thursday before the weekend before a holiday is always slow. People will be taking their last vacation of the summer next week so they will have the extra Monday holiday. Some people trade out this Friday for the Monday and will start showing up tonight, they think they are going to beat the traffic but so do a million others.

I did the usual, waited on customers, cleaned, stocked and so on. Since I was just filling in I didn't put forward too much effort but I still worked to pass the time. The only good thing about working all night is the light doesn't change so you don't notice the time changing. During the day you see the creeping shadows and you are well aware of how long an hour really is. At least I get along with the regular morning shift woman so that was a plus.

The morning shift woman just ended a crappy relationship so I got to hear all about it. The guy wasn't only a sleaze but tried to hurt her mentally as things fell apart. She finally learned her lesson and is staying away from the jerk, it only took a couple of years.

Just for fun I actually called Guy Coworker Ray all day and I got the morning shift woman to do the same. When the owner came in to do his paperwork we kept it up and he will probably start calling the guy Ray too. Oh the evil things I do.

After a long day I was looking forward to two o'clock. Why was I not surprised when the afternoon shift was late. I swear if I were the manager I would strongly suggest people invested in a watch. When the first one finally showed up and the shift change was well underway I went ahead and clocked out and headed home, after all I was just filling in and didn't see any reason to stick around. I was home by 2:30 and ready for a nap. And I don't have to go back until Friday Night!

~ 

The idea was to stay up late and sleep all day, that didn't work. By 5 pm on Thursday I could barely stay awake. By 8 I went to bed and slept until  3 Friday morning. After I woke up I laid there for a while doing a little reading and then finally got up. 

Around 5 I decided to go for a walk so I grabbed my camera to take some sunrise photos. It was still too dark and I hadn't brought my tripod so I mostly took photos of closed businesses, lit by their security lights but devoid of human life. Along the way I ran into a friend who was opening up a different gas station so I popped in to chat. By the time I left it was after sunup so I didn't get the photos I wanted, oh well there's always next Thursday, plus I would like to get some more after hours shots.

I did manage to get a bit of a nap in during the afternoon which was good since I didn't want to be up for 27 hours straight. I cleaned up and then it was off to work. 

8/26

I had a plan, I was going to show up right on time, rather than a little early and then the other two people would be logged into the register. I was going to spend the night straightening the walk in cooler and doing general cleaning. You know what they say about the best laid plans.

When I got to work Ray was just hanging out, he hadn't counted the drawer or done any of the pre shift work at all. He said he had to give the woman on the afternoon shift a ride home even though she hadn't asked him for one. And the other woman on the graveyard shift had taken an extra three days off and wasn't showing up at all.

I logged into the second register, which is where I prefer to work. The woman on the second shift called someone else to get a ride since she is sick of Ray's constant flirting and he had no choice but to log into the first register. Since I had been waiting on customers this whole time he had no choice but to do the pre shift work, I love it when lazy people's plans blow up in their face. Of course I wasn't going to be able to spend the night working in the cooler but I also wasn't going to be stuck behind the counter the entire night. I did stock shelves and take care of a lot of the side work while Ray was stuck behind the counter.

About Ray.

It turns out Ray is an annoying but highly entertaining person. He spent the first part of the shift trying to flirt with the woman on the afternoon shift. He spend another part of the night on the phone with his wife telling her that he wasn't fooling around with the woman on the morning shift and had told her to leave him alone since he was a faithfully married man with a family. He spend the last part of the shift flirting with the woman he just claimed he had told to leave him alone. And the woman on the morning shift had spent the entire time telling me how she wasn't interested in getting involved in another disastrous relationship with a married man, and then spent her time flirting with Ray, the married sleaze. There was also another woman with a big shiny engagement and wedding ring that Ray was flirting with in the middle of the night. I fully expect this guy to end up at the end of a jealous husband's gun.

It also turns out Ray is a writer, on top of being a truck driver, certified mechanic, gourmand chef and recent graduate of the police academy. Oh and what wonderful writing, he is so proud of it that he had to read me several of his recent creations. They were a string of "big" words linked with conjunctions and was pretty much total nonsense, if he were living in the 1920's it would be considered Dada poetry but in the modern world it came across as a high school freshman trying to impress his English teacher. Thankfully the torture ended, ever read The Hitchhiker's Guide? All I could think of was Vogon Poetry.  

http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Vogon_Poetry 

Ray managed to spend the majority of the night sitting behind the counter, he complained he wasn't feeling well. I don't care because it means I dont' have to wait on grouchy customers and today there were plenty of them. Even the laziest person eventually gets bored doing nothing, he will either demand a chance to do his fair share or quit, I've worked with plenty of Ray's in the past.

Ray also wants a daylight position. He was hinting around to the woman on the morning shift of how they should fire the hippie, who was late agian, and Ray could take his job. Of course working at the gas station is like being on a Klingon battle ship, you only get promoted when someone quits or gets fired. People move up according to the shift they are on, graveyard moves up to the afternoon and afternoon people move to the morning. There are 6 people between Ray and his coveted shift, plus the morning manager would eat him alive, she can't stand lazy braggarts.

I know it's evil but I have a plan, an evil plan. I am going to, subtly so he thinks it's his idea, convince Ray that if he wants on the morning shift he has to get rid of the hippie. Being the conniving little prick he is Ray will start to bug the morning manager about the hippie and she will get annoyed at his constant whining. One of them will soon be gone and I will either be free of Ray or next in line for the afternoon shift. Bwa ha ha ha ha.

So now I have something to entertain me. Work just might get fun over the next few months. As I have said in the past, they should do a reality show about this place, it's a heck of a soap opera and thankfully I am a background character. 

Found money, $4.29. I love sleepy tourists in a hurry.

8/27

I often wonder what kind of night I am going to have and some times you can tell by the first five minutes. I walked into the building and there was some guy talking in a very loud and angry manner. I didn't want to get in the middle of that but thankfully he was getting in his final shots as he stormed out the door. I never did find out what was going on and I sure wasn't going to ask. 

Then it was time to count the individual packs of cigarettes, but there were no grid sheets left. The clip board was laying there so I grabbed a blank sheet of paper and started copying the brand names down and suddenly the woman on the afternoon shift, from across the room, shouts, "Don't copy our numbers!" Well this pissed me off so in a very snotty tone I told her "I'm not copying your numbers, I am writing down the list." If you want to piss me off accuse me of something, plus this isn't high school, the owners don't care as long as the numbers are correct. Not to mention the woman can't even balance out her drawer at the end of her shift, why would I trust her to do the count correctly. Oh it was going to be a good night.

Thankfully after the afternoon shift left things quieted down. Saturday night on a non holiday weekend is usually pretty quiet. On nights like this I generally do cleaning and straightening so I started off by sweeping around the buildings curbing and the pump islands.  Coworker Ray came outside to tell me how they don't pay him enough to do the job and if they gave him a raise he would consider it. I told him if he didn't do the work he could forget ever getting a raise or being considered for a daylight position. As far as I am concerned you can either sit around and be miserable in a menial job or you can take pride in doing it right, and beyond expectations.

Ray claimed he was going to do some of the side work and so I waited for him to start. The only thing he did was to start telling me how brilliant he is and was on the verge of greatness. When I was in fear of rolling my eyes so hard that they would go back into my skull and I would see my own brain I headed to the walk in cooler. Talk about a mess.

I had planned on spending time in the cooler on Friday but the third person on the shift didn't show up so since it was a slow night I decided it would be a good time to get started. On the one side are the door racks where the stuff is on display and on the other are the storage shelves. People were taking the beverages and just tossing them on the shelves however they landed so it was nearly impossible to know what was there. I took everything off and reorganized lining the various cans and bottles up so you could walk in and instantly know where everything is, if I can do this at least once a week it will make stocking the display racks a lot quicker and placing an order a lot more accurate. After an hour and a half I was done.

After I warmed up, and listened to Ray tell me how when he was 12 the rodeo association tried to recruit him to be a professional bull rider, (hes a professional at some kind of bull), but he broke his ankle so his mother made him quit. He told me this is also how he broke his nose, I guess he forgot he told me he broke his nose when he was almost a professional MMA fighter.

I decided to stock the candy racks. Usually this is a profitable endeavor because people are always dropping change into them but tonight I came up dry. Of course when I was in the middle of doing it Ray decided he would help me, instead of doing one of the other jobs that needed worked on, and he mostly got in the way. Once that job was done I gave Ray an opportunity to do something, anything else but he was busy writing.

Again when I didn't want to hear the greatness of Ray I went in the back and bagged ice. It's hunting season and those guy will buy 6 to 10 bags at a time, the ice machine has been mostly empty all weekend. When I was done I went back up front and Ray had put some cappuccino mix in the machine, even though it was mostly full and didn't really need to be done. It probably took him all of five minutes but at least he did something.

By this time Ray started telling me about how he was on the verge of winning a large settlement in a discrimination case, to keep from laughing at him I went and cleaned the restrooms. Since it had been a slow night they were in good shape so all they needed was a good wipe and sweep and I was done. The other crew members take an hour and a half and I took 20 minutes. A life lesson I learned from Scrooge McDuck, "Work smarter not harder". I then swept the station's floor and got ready to mop.

Ray was complaining that he felt bad that I was doing all the work and I wanted to say "well there's a simple solution to that..." but I kept my mouth shut.  He actually picked up the mop and...well kind of drug it around the floor. It was clean-esque but I would have been embarrassed to put my name on the finished job. 

The night was winding down and soon we would be getting the morning rush. Ray had claimed he was going to dump the trash on the outside cans but he was back to his notebook recording his thoughts. I wasn't going to wait so I went out and started changing out the bags. He came out and complained that he was going to do it and I couldn't take it anymore and snapped, "anytime soon? They aren't going to dump themselves" I'm not Rays boss or his mother and I'm not going to tell him what to do or wait until he gets around to it. The work needs to be done and in a timely fashion. Sure enough as I was in the middle of changing the bags the morning crush started rolling in.

It was time to start getting ready for the end of the shift. It was at this point that Ray discovered he had dropped too much money and didn't have enough to balance out for the next shift, we leave $200 plus change for the next shift. Again I simply rolled my eyes and kept my mouth shut. One of the first rules is always have enough cash in your drawer, and this is the second time he did this. He said he wanted to wait on enough people to build up his cash but oddly he never seemed to be within 10 feet of his register. The clock was ticking and I was waiting on all the customers, while Ray told me how he was the modest brilliant manager of a pizza hut he once worked at, yeah, it shows. 

It was about this time that the woman on the morning shift called and asked Ray if he would stick around until 8, she had been out drinking all night with her new boyfriend and needed a couple more hours of sleep, maybe sleep. Since he was going to be stuck there I went ahead and balanced out my drawer and finished my paperwork. Ray could now take care of the customers and bring his drawer up to the proper cash amount. Surprisingly enough he still seemed to be as far away from his register as possible and I ended up waiting on the customers, it's a good thing I'm an honest man or he might have come up around $50 short. It was also at this time the hippie called in to say he was going to be late so I stuck around for another half hour which is fine by me because I am heading to overtime and every minute is more money in my pocket. I finally went home at 6:30 and I had to wonder if once the hippie logged in if Ray would once again plop down behind the counter and write his musings. Personally once I was out the door I couldn't care less.

Tomorrow is going to be fun. 

In case you are keeping track here are the Ray accomplishments to date.

Restaurant manager, multiple places

Gourmet Chef

Certified Mechanic

Long Haul Truck Driver

Graduate of the Police Academy

Professional Bull Rider

World Traveller

MMA Fighter

Author

I think I am going to start bringing up professions just to see if he did those too. Hey, it's dull late at night.

Found money, 10 cents 

8/28

I'm at work for five minutes and I'm in a bad mood. It started when the afternoon crew were bitching at me for the condition of the station when they came to work. Once again I had to remind them that there were 16 hours between when I leave and when I come back and I am not responsible for anything that happens during that time. Furthermore I am not the manager so I'm not going to do anything about their problems and they aren't the manager so I don't give a rats backside about their complaints.

If this wasn't enough the afternoon shift left, and they didn't toss their garbage in the dumpster, there was a pile of stinking, leaking garbage bags on the lot. This had better be a one time thing or I will be having unpleasant words with the manager which I don't want to have to do. The  manager doesn't want me to have to do it and the afternoon shift really really won't want me to do it.  Basically something bad is coming if the afternoon shift doesn't get their act together.

If the first five minutes of work weren't bad enough I had to deal with Ray, agian. It seems his wife and in laws had a huge fight during the day so he didn't get any sleep. He wanted someone to cover his shift, yeah he's been there two weeks and is already trying to get time off (he's going to last...). So I had to hear all about his family troubles, as did every customer who was trapped into a conversation with him. Here's a basic rule of retail, as learned from Walt Disney, leave your family problems at home. I just pretended I didn't hear him when he whined and complained to complete strangers about his life.

Ray did do some work tonight, he organized the walk in cooler and stocked the shelves. Later I went in, took all the wrong stuff off the shelves and replace them with the proper product and then reorganized the stuff the manager was going to complain about. I just love people who create work for me.

About the middle of the night we got one of the, "I'm out of money and willing to trade something for gas" people. He had a shop vacuum but there is always a risk with electronics. I had a friend who once traded a tank of gas for a brand new, still in the box with the shipping bands on it, TV. When he got home he discovered he had gotten a heck of a deal on a box full of bricks. I passed on the vacuume.

Finally after making Ray stick to a schedule the night wrapped up. Things were cleaned, shelves were stocked, money was counted and I was going home. I know most people hate Monday but I love it, since the manager works the morning shift the hippie shows up on time and I don't have to see Ray again until Friday. Ah, Monday my old friend. 

Oh and before I forget, I had a painting accepted into an L.A. art show! How it happened I don't know because it was horrible, but I say that about them all. Thankfully I don't have to see it again, nobody at the show knows me in real life and nobody in my real life knows it's in the show. Yes, I still have issues with the things I do. :) 

Found money, 12 cents, two silver nickles and a 1941 penny. 

8/29

 Today seemed different some how, pleasant one could say. It started when I walked in and the regular afternoon shift wasn't there, they both had taken the day off so the woman from the morning shift and the graveyard manager were handling the register. Normally the change over takes a good 20 minutes but we had the graveyard up and running in about 5. And Ray had the night off, no stories about his family problems or big tales of his incredible life. Just peace and quiet.

Ray's name did come up, after complaining about having to work all Saturday night and trying to find someone to cover his shift on Sunday night he actually called and asked if anyone on the day shifts wanted him to cover for them. It's obvious to me that he is trying to worm his way into the daylight hours, and it's not working. Also it seems that Ray once worked for Toyota and knows all about the cars. Oh Ray, you are so much fun.

It was a really slow night, people aren't travelling right now because they are all saving up for Labor day, plus the high cost of gas. The Shift Manager decided it was a good night to clean the floor, the entire floor. After I got done straightening the mess Ray made in the walk in cooler on Sunday night I helped her pull out all the shelves. If you've never seen under a display rack...well lets just say you don't want to. She swept and mopped and then I pushed them back. She then scrubbed down the restrooms, and I hung out behind the counter. I wished I had brought a book.

The most interesting part of the night was when the carnival rolled through. I hate to say steriotypical but all the workers looked like what you would expect. The most interesting one had, and I am not making this up, white eyes. There was no color in his iris at all, none, just two big white circles with two black dots in the middle. You will be proud of me, I didn't say, "WAAAAaaaan I help you?" I have seen a lot of interesting people in the dark hours but even that caught me off guard.

Finally the end of the shift rolled around and the manager showed up. I quickly counted down my drawer and she ran the store closing report and opened up for the morning. A half hour later the hippie called to say he was going to be late, surprise there. A strange thing did happen, the manager asked me how thing were going, and it wasn't one of those "even though you are a low wage peon I "value" your opinion" questions. Although I complain a lot here I know to keep my mouth shut at work and told her everything was fine. Thank you internet for letting me vent and keeping me from screwing up my chances of getting a daylight job myself.

The manager told me I could go ahead and take off. She was going to cover things by herself until the hippie finally showed up. It was a plesant walk home although the mornings are getting a bit frosty and soon I am going to have to wear a jacket. Since I laid off the caffeene around midnight I went right to sleep. I think I am getting the hang of the dark world. 

Found money, 66 cents. 

8/30

Tuesday is my Friday so I'm enjoying today. It's hard to concentrait on work knowing in just 8 hours I am off. I muddled through.

Tonight was quiet, there were people trickling through all night but there was never a rush. All this will change on Friday as people make their last of the summer rush but for now it's too quiet. The Shift Manager is off on another cleaning binge, this time she scrubs down the restrooms from top to bottom and I had to spend my time poking around the counter and watching the registers. I should have brought a book.

The night did start off with a few drunks. These people can barely operate the pump and I worry about them driving but thankfully they are with someone else. I have called the cops and tipped them off in the past, I might have even saved someone's life. Remember if you plan to drink and drive don't stop at my station.

The rest of the night involved giving directions. Most people are looking for the route to Texas. I often laugh at the people who I tell to take the road heading east and they don't believe me. Seriously, go to the end of the drive, turn right and that will take you to Texas. One woman was looking for some highway I never heard of, probably got it off her GPS. She acted like we had some sinister reason for giving her the wrong directions. I would happily send them to the nasty little back road with no towns or facilites for hundreds of miles if they liked but instead I just point east.

During the course of the night I did around $400 in cash sales, a very slow night considering the record for one day is $25,000, and that was back when gas was just $1.50 a gallon. Of course debit cards have changed things, most people pay at the pump and use the swipe so having less cash on hand isn't that odd. But when the morning rush hit we did $200 worth of cash business in a half hour, mostly pre packaged sandwiches, chips, energy drinks and tobacco products. What most people don't know is the average gas station makes about a 10% profit off fuel sales and a 50% profit off food and souviners. Gas and a free restroom are just an insentive to lure you inside. 

The night finally ended and since the hippie was off the morning shift all arrived on time. I actually left within 10 minutes of 6 am for a change. Although I like going home on time I also like the idea of overtime.

And now I have two nights off, I will be wide awake in the dark and I need to get busy again. No more excuses over being too tired to work. Did I mention that I have been approved to submit to another art show? I think I will enter my glass skull and the wave. Wish me luck. 

Found money 46 cents. 

Total found money for the mont of August, $6.87 tax free.