I Look Like a Criminal, But Still..

When I worked in convenience stores, drive-offs were an occasional worry. I worked graveyards more often than not, and for some reason people are more inclined to run away in the dark when they're alone than to fill up and sneak away at 5:00 p.m. when your'e struggling to make change for paying customers.

I worked for QuikTrip when between jobs most recently. This was ten years ago. They were the Nordstrom's of Gas-n-Sips. Requiring someone to prepay was a firing offense, the idea being that a pissed off customer who would have paid outweighs a scoundrel who might run off with a tank of gas.

For that matter, during training, we were taught that while we were to refuse checks from someone with a bad check that hadn't been redeemed, the company made money off bad checks. We charged a $25 service charge on bounced checks, and the vast majority made them good, paid the 'service' charge and went on to be loyal customers.

Now QT, the last place I'd expect, has gone all prepay. You can pay at the pump with a Userer's Card. Or you can prepay.

QT is still ahead of the curve. Give them a valid driver's license and they'll give you a card that releases the pump on the old pay-after basis.

This is how far ahead of the curve they are:
Payday, this past Friday, we took my paycheck to the Credit Union, and then went to the Connoco across from it to fill up the minivan. My truck has broken the $50 in relatively moderate petroleum markets if I run both tanks down, but that hardly ever happens since I have a 2-1/2 mile commute. The minivan holds a total of less than one of my F-150's tanks. It's got one cute little 14-point-something gallon tank.

So I gave the attendant a $50 bill. He checked it with a marker before releasing the pump. I think you could pass off a one-sided, black toner photocopy of a $50 if you could make the marker change color the way it's supposed to. Somehow, it's assumed that a $50 is counterfeit, which almost makes me blow Diet Dew out of my nose because I'm in the graphic arts, have access to truly high end equipement (a $45,000 scanner; a $400,000 digital press, etc.), and I'd have a time making a $50 I would believe as a party gag.

While Frau Lobster filled the 'van' with overpriced dinosaurs, I rounded up beverages for my family, and returned to the register for an education in stupidity:

The van had taken the whole $50. In fact, he'd preset it to shut off at $50, even though at most, Frau Lobster might have robbed him of $1.13 if the pump had run until the van was full and she'd bolted (leaving me in the store with no way to get home with my armload of soft drinks).

The attendant was even a little indignant that she'd used the whole thing, as if I was the one that put the price at $2.70 a gallon.

I don't blame him. I was working at a Texaco when Saddam rolled into Kuwait and gas went from 79¢ to $2,10 in one day. Even then, we had signs up proclaiming we'd reject any bill larger than a double sawbuck. It was a lie, but most people bought little enough in gas that a $50 would run us out of the amount of change we were allowed in the drawer. Yeah, we could have easily broken C-Notes all day, but we'd have been an even more tempting target for armed robbery.

So if the average customer is spending $15 and you are forbidden from keeping more than $35 in change in the drawer, $50 bills are problem.

And I have, as prior posts indicate, cultivated a head of hair that might make some narrow-minded individuals assume I have huge criminal streak. Nevermnd that, if I wanted to steal, I would do everything in my power to NOT have distinguising features. Long hair, that woudld be out, as would a shaved head (the two extremes I tend to). A suit would be too much, but jeans would be too casual. The Grand Voyager minivan is about the only thing I have that screams 'average.' And it's a '98, so it may be screaming 'poverty' in an age of so-called zero-percent financing and fake 'employee' pricing.

It's an interesting shift in assumptions. Window #1 gets your money before window #2 gives you the wrong food, but in an upscale restaurant, no one asks you to pay before you eat. Gas stations, even QuikTrip requires me to prove I have means to pay and likely intentions before I can pump gas. But what if I went to a steakhouse and ordered a $32 Ribeye, a lobster tail, caeser salad, baked potato and grilled asparagus, had a bottle of cab sauv with it, maybe a Creme Brulee for desert. The bill comes, maybe what? $250 if I'm not eating alone, maybe $130 if I'm flying solo (and flying I'd be, the whole bottle of wine to myself). For sure, it would be easier to walk out on an overpriced dinner than to drive off with a tank of gas.

Makes me want to find the guys who covered their license plate during the first Gulf War and let them know: pay for your gas, steal your meals.