Friday, February 24, 2012

The Price of Gas

Don't worry, this will not be a rumination on the sociopolitical manipulations and the ecoenvironmental causes behind rising oil prices which lead to sharply rising gas prices. There are numerous places you can go if you would like to participate in (or even merely spectate) that kind of conversation, including, apparently, the cereal aisle in the grocery store where, just a few days ago, I walked past two unassuming women holding cheerfully (albeit artificially) colored children's cereals while heatedly discussing tensions in the Middle East as they relate to gas prices.

Instead, this is a post about two recent stops I made at gas stations in my itty-bitty town. First, on Tuesday night--the scrambled night--I left work early to go pick up Son-Two for an appointment he had in town on Wednesday. I stopped to get gas at the station where I stop most frequently. There's a young man who works there who is a little absentminded at times1, but otherwise friendly. I know his name because this is a small town, but my only interaction with him has been right there at the pumps.

So, on Tuesday night, I pulled up to the pump at a little after ten and as the gas was flowing into my van, he said, "Hey, if I give you three extra dollars in gas, would you run over to McDonald's for me?"

My first response was that barking laughter that is more shock than amusement, but I recovered quickly, gave him points for nerviness, took his order (but not his offer of three extra dollars in gas) and ran across town to grab his Triple Whopper. (Turned out, he wanted Burger King, not McDonald's. Told you he was absentminded sometimes.)

Fast forward to Thursday morning, when I stopped at our town's other location of the same gas station franchise that employs Mr. Burger King. This time, a young lady, also around the same age as my boys, came out to my van. I had never seen her at this station before or even in town, which is a pretty rare thing, especially given her age. The fact that I didn't know at all who she was is important because it makes what happened next all the more baffling.

She walked up to the van and said, "What can I get for you?"

And I said, "Could I get 40, please?"

And she said, "Sure, as long as you're not as nasty as the lady I had a few minutes ago."

I mumbled something sympathetic--I've got decades of retail and customer service experience, so I really am sympathetic to victims of unreasonable customers. Then she launched into a three-minute-barely-a-breath rant about ungrateful customers. She said she couldn't believe how few people tipped her for putting gas in their cars and she couldn't believe how mean people were and how they expected so much from her and acted like she owed them something and people tip waitresses and you would think they would throw her a dollar or two but not in this crappy little town and she tried to be nice to everyone...and...and...

Somewhere in there was the story of the nasty woman, who when our long-suffering heroine asked her, "What can I get for you?" had said, "Fill it up and I better not catch you topping off my tank."

I did not tip her2, but I wished her luck for a better afternoon...and, silently, as I drove away, I wished the rest of her customers a little luck as well.

1. Case in point: a few weeks ago, I pulled up to the pump and there were several other cars waiting as well. He was the only one on duty and came out of the station, where he had been waiting on someone inside. He came straight to my van, opened the fuel door, took off the gas cap, stuck the nozzle in with the "trigger" propped open and walked off to wait on the next car, without even asking me how much gas I wanted. I was watching the numbers go up on the pump and ready to get out if they reached the amount I had planned to get. A friend of the attendant's walked up just then, saw how swamped he was and asked him, "Do you want  me to finish up that van?" The attendant gratefully said, "Yes, please." The friend said, "How much is she getting?" Attendant: "Oh shit! I forgot to ask. Oh shit, oh shit." FYI: saying, "Twenty dollars is fine." is more difficult when giggling uncontrollably.*

2. This tipping gas station attendants thing is something Hubby and I have occasionally discussed. His father tipped every full service attendant, even the ones who only pumped gas and Hubby kind of clings to that as the standard in theory, if not always in practice. I don't know what my father's stance on it was. My stance is this: I would tip an attendant who washed the windows or checked the oil or did something above and beyond, especially if I asked them to do it. (If they do the "extra" without being asked--then there is the whole conversation I start having in my head about whether they're doing it solely in hopes of getting a tip in which case I get all contrary and don't give them a tip because I feel a it's a little manipulative.) For just the basics service, I do not generally tip gas station attendants though I do tip waitstaff even for just the basics, in part because I know that labor law allows employers to pay them (often significantly) less than minimum wage under the assumption that the rest will be made up by tips. As far as I know, no such law applies to gas station attendants. If I am filling the tank and have, say, $60 and it comes to $56-whatever, I will occasionally tell a pleasant attendant (unlike the young lady in today's story) to keep the change. But, usually, no tip.*

*These footnotes are so long it's like getting three posts for the price of one, word-count-wise anyway. Substance-wise it's probably more like none for the price of three.

20 comments:

  1. This whole tipping thing kind of annoys me. If we have a good waiter or waitress we are very appreciative, showing it in a generous tip. If he/she is crappy, we've been known not to tip at all. I wouldnt even think to tip someone who pumps my gas. It would be like someone tipping me to draft a will for them. It's my job.

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    1. Exactly. I'm usually pretty good about tipping decent service in a restaurant. There has been only one time that I have left no tip--and believe me she earned nothing. When I was younger, I was out to dinner with an aunt who, in lieu of a cash tip, left a note on her napkin labeled "Tips: 1. Smile more. 2. Remember your customer's order. 3. Use please and thank you.", etc. because the service was so horrific.

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  2. I think I would have handled things exactly the same way. I feel the same way about tipping gas attendants- we also live in a very small town, with only one gas station, that happens to be full-serve. If they just come out, prop up the nozzle and leave it to fill, then disappear, which they always do, I won't tip. But I always feel a bit awkward, questioning whether or not others do. For me, tipping is for above-and-beyond service, GOOD service.

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    1. Agreed, one-hundred percent. Now if I could just get Hubby on board so he can stop nagging me at every gas station stop. ;)

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  3. Here, it is not customary to tip a gas attendant. And not to get into the whole "gas prices" discussion, but have you seen the price of gas lately? Unfortunately for the attendant (who would never make in a lifetime of pumping gas what Mr. I Own the Gas Company makes in less than one minute) sorry, not your fault, but there is no tip.
    Here the wait staff working in a restaurant get paid a couple of bucks an hour. I mean like $2.00 per. Their main source of income is from tips. In other words, the restaurant owner is not the one paying to provide the customer with service, it's actually the customer paying for service, with tips.
    At least a gas attendant is making minimum wage, waiters and waitresses don't. My kids all waited tables while going through college. My son-in-law is a teacher and he still does it in the summer time because, well because teachers don't make a lot of money. Hmm, tipping teachers?

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    1. I'm with you on the restaurant staff issue--Blogger ate a portion of my second footnote on this post, which I've now restored, that actually addressed that issue. I'm pretty sure the law that allows that to be the case was pushed through by the restaurant owners lobby.

      And teachers? Definitely deserve better pay AND tips! I get worked into quite a lather when I look at the way our pay scales express what's important to our society. Any career/job that is people-oriented is almost always low-paying (subsistence wages, or less even). It's obscene.

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  4. I was at a restaurant once and paid in cash. My bill was $14 and I handed the guy a $20 and asked him to bring me my change. I thought to myself, "That kid better not bring me a $5 and a $1 for change. Surely I don't look stupid enough to tip $5 on a $14 ticket." He got a $1 tip. Apparently I did look stupid, but I am not.

    Normally I tip really well. My mom always said, "Its only a dollar or two to you, but to them it means a whole lot more." So, I'd probably tip a gas station attendant, but not that girl. People who fish for tips irritate me.

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    1. She was definitely a fisher, that one. I am sometimes ridiculously generous with waistaff for reasons listed in the newly restored second footnote above (that Blogger so kindly cut off midsentence when I published last night).

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  5. I pump my own gas here in WA, but when I got to Oregon, it's pumped for me. I've never thought of tipping the pumpers. Now I'm going to have to give it some thought!

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    1. If it weren't for Hubby, with whom I've been having this conversation off and on for twenty-five years, it never would've crossed my mind either.

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  6. I am cracking up about the discussion in the grocery aisle. I love to eavesdrop!
    Your footnotes are glorious. There are only a handful of writers who can use them effectively and, dare I even say it? I would put you right up there with DFW in the footnote dept.

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    1. Hey! I'll take it! (I just realized that Blogger somehow truncated the second (glorious) footnote midsentence and left off a nice chunk of what I meant to say about labor laws and waitstaff and gas station attendants. Ergg.)

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  7. You are too funny! Love the footnotes and you are wrong - it is never "none for the price of three" with you!
    As for tipping, I've never heard of tipping gas station attendants but pretty much all gas stations around here are self serve. Hmmm -- maybe I should tip myself?
    I did waitress my way though college and my first few years of teaching (grad school was uber expensive) - it was actually kind of run for me.

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  8. This was funny to me, because, just this morning, as we were getting gas, my husband said, "Are there any full service stations anywhere?" Because all of our stations say 'self serve', but you'd think it would be a given. Now, I know. It's for when people who still have full service stations visit. =0)
    When I was a nanny in New York (about 100 years ago) I always went to a certain full-service station. And, I always put in about $2 in gas. The attendants must've thought I was crazy.

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  9. I didn't realize full-serve gas stations existed anymore. I haven't been to one in years. However, my take has always been if they go above and beyond OR if it is horribly nasty weather outside, I'll tip them something. Otherwise, I'm not compelled to give anything extra for the basics of their job description.

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  10. Talk about fishing for tips! She wouldn't get one from me either. We don't have any full service places in my town so it's not a problem.... Oh, and I love the long footnotes!

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  11. I don't think you can even find a petrol station in Melbourne where they fill it for you. In a way that's good, I don't have to wrestle with the tipping dilemma!

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  12. What JT said. I know of no service stations along the 101 Corridor with full-serve attendants. Prohibitively expensive. For the record, I am absurdly generous, always wanting to share with the other guy. That, of course, necessitates having something in my wallet, from which to extract a tip. Oops.

    As far as the comments/posts arrangement, in the last few weeks, there have been some posts, which have garnered those kinds of lengthy, thoughtful, analytical comments. To me that is the heart and soul of blogging, and why I like to limit the number of blogs I commit to following. I do not wish to rush through a site.

    Footnotes fall under the same umbrella. If I am at your site, and you took the time to detail a fine point, then I am going to want to read it.

    As to the petulant attendant, I would have given her a tip all right. I would have smiled sweetly, and said, "I do have a tip for you. Whining and tips are on parallel tracks of a "train;" and never the "twain" shall meet.

    (Honestly, I do apologize for that sad attempt at a pun.)

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  13. And I do not know how to edit a comment; otherwise, I would have placed my quotation marks inside the semi-colon, after the word "train." It is one of those ridiculously subtle requirements that has a different rule for periods and commas, than for other punctuation marks. I only mention it, because you reposted a comment because of errors, and I appreciate that attention to detail. Otherwise, as I have noted, I have been deprogrammed to notice errors in spelling and usage, because I am now on Facebook. I wold have a coronary, if those things were important to me. lol

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