For my inaugural post, I'll tell you the tale of the weirdest work experience I've ever had.
So, I had been working at this particular Kircle C for only 2 weeks. It was my second-ever gas station job and I hardly knew what I was doing.
On this particular day, the store was busy.
I watched as my coworkers ran the registers, trying to learn as much as I could while not getting overwhelmed, when they decided it was my turn to run the register.
I'm left there alone and just had to figure it out.
I got through a couple transactions and was starting to gain confidence, when a disheveled looking woman came up to the register, holding a number of things. A gallon of milk, a smoothie, a coffee, a donut, a muffin, and a couple other things. I start to scan the items and notice that she'd drank the entire smoothie, taken a sip out of the gallon of milk, and taken a bite of the donut.
When I tell her the total, she hands me some crumpled bills, and it's not enough. I tell her she needs more money, but she won't listen. She keeps saying "it's enough, it's enough", and I look to my manager for help.
She comes over and I step away and they start talking -
(Manager): Your total is $32, you need $12 to pay.
(Woman): No I don't. I just take it. I'll take it.
(M): No. You can't "just take it". You have to pay for it.
(W): No, it's fine, I just take it. In my country we just take it.
(M): Well this is AMERICA. And here you have to PAY FOR THINGS. And since you already drank things and took a bite out of the donut, we have to throw it away! So get out, and don't come back!
The woman kept grumbling and starting leaving, but taking her sweet time doing it. Eventually she was gone.
My manager turned to me and promised it wasn't always like this, and begged me not to quit. I laughed it off and told her I wouldn't quit as I started cleaning up the items the woman left there. We had to dump the milk and toss the smoothie and the donut, but we were able to put the other items back. However, when I went to pour out the coffee, I discovered something...interesting.
There wasn't coffee in there. It was full of beans, full sugar packets, and an ungodly amount of creamer.
We had to dump out all of the bean containers on the coffee machines because she'd stuck her hands in them.
Once it was all over, my manager came over to me -
(M): I can't believe we had to waste so much product because of her. That sucks
(Me): Yea, but at least she didn't destroy anything, right? *nervous chuckle*
(M): You don't even know the worst part.
(Me): What's the worst part??
(M): You know how she had a blanket wrapped around her waist?
(M): At one point, she dropped it. And, uh...she wasn't wearing anything underneath.
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The situation was definitely tense, especially since my coworkers were running the other register and there were still a lot of customers around. And the "this is AMERICA" bit definitely irked me (republican-coded asf); but in the end it's become my all-time favorite work story *ever*.
Gotta love working at a gas station.