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Hope you didn't NEED gas

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  • Hope you didn't NEED gas

    Customer comes in (girl in her early 20s), seems unsure of how purchasing gas works. Said things like "Do I need to pay first?" Pumps have "Prepay" signs allover them, and the directions on the pumps start with "pay".

    I explain that you DO need to pay first, "either in here or out there".

    She seems to want to prepay with me rather than at the pump, and I explain that I can't just say "fill up": I have to put in a dollar amount, but then any part you don't use automatically goes back on your card.
    She settles on $30.

    ... and turns and walks out the door.

    Figuring she has probably decided to pay at the pump, I quickly release the pump. (If I had a prepay rung up but not paid for, it would refuse to let her pay on that same pump.)

    Shortly my register begins beeping loudly, because some genius on the software design team thinks it should do that any time someone skips a step at the pumps and lifts the nozzle out of the cradle without paying first. LOTS of people who pay at the pump do that.
    It goes on for more than a minute.

    Then she walks back inside. (It is still beeping.)
    "Were you going to set that up for me?"
    "You never paid. You walked out without swiping your card."

    "Oh, well can we do that now?"
    "It won't let me do anything with that pump until you hang the nozzle back up."
    "Okay."

    She goes outside, removes the nozzle from her car and hangs it back up.

    ... and gets in the car and drives away.


    I really wish this was the first time I've had this happen, but at least it happens less than once a year.

  • #2
    My guess: She's newly on her own and her parents always filled up the car before.

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    • #3
      Once, when I was in high school, my friend was getting gas. She swiped her card, fueled up, and went to leave. An attendant came running out because she hadn't paid. Apparently it hadn't read her card, but she didn't realize that, and it allowed her to get gas anyway. Even now I always choose to get a printed receipt just to reassure myself that everything went through okay.

      I can follow simple instructions, and even as a 16 year old I managed to always pay for my fuel...
      Replace anger management with stupidity management.

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      • #4
        Quoth Aria View Post
        My guess: She's newly on her own and her parents always filled up the car before.
        Apparently someone else paid.
        I'm trying to see things from your point of view, but I can't get my head that far up my keister!

        Who is John Galt?
        -Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

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        • #5
          Once, when I was really young and still learning to drive/be self sufficient, I prepaid for gas with a $20 bill. I fueled up, drove off, and realized I'd forgotten to go back in and get my change (I had only tanked up with about $14 worth of gas - I had a tiny tank and gas at the time still hovered around $2 a gallon). I was too socially awkward and embarrassed to go back. I bet I threw that poor guy's till off.

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          • #6
            I drove off on more change than that once.

            I was about 20 and on a long car trip with my brother and his wife - in three cars. Due to differences in mileage, when one car was near empty, one would be at half and one would be down about 1/4.
            For simplicity's sake, we'd fill all three and so we put a 20 on each of 3 pumps. But the cars would generally only need about $40 in gas for all three.

            So the third or fourth time we stopped (LONG trip), .... we were at least 60 miles away when I remembered I hadn't gone back for the change.
            And decided not to tell anybody. This is the first time I've told that tale, and it happened 26+ years ago.

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            • #7
              At most stations here if you park with you license plate toward the store front they will allow you to pump your gas before you pay.
              BTW some states don't allow folks to pump their own fuel. NJ in particular and some parts of OR maybe others. Perhaps the girl was from one of those locals.
              Bow down before me for I am ROOT

              Preserving precious bodily fluids sine 1952

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              • #8
                Quoth Tanasi View Post
                BTW some states don't allow folks to pump their own fuel. NJ in particular and some parts of OR maybe others.
                OR recently passed a law allowing self-service. Some people complained bitterly, and the Internet's response was sidesplittingly funny!

                One collection randomly Google'd up--
                https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...b0b0e5a7a8dab5
                “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.
                One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
                The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

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