second shift

After one day on second shift, I can say that people are a lot friendlier at night. It is a rare nighttime customer who comes in with a bad attitude.

During the afternoon, most people are busy or heading home from work. A significant portion (though not a majority, by any means) are cranky and hurried.

I was the backup cashier, taking some of the load off of the primary cashier. At night I work alone except for the cook - who doesn't come in until my shift is half over.

One woman drove off yesterday without paying for $65 worth of gas. She took advantage of how busy we were. The primary cashier is probably going to have to pay for that thief's fuel, though it would be OK with me if we had to split the cost because we both had a hand in the situation.

Normally we require customers to pay up front for their gas; the thief came in and complained that her pump wasn't working. My co-worker went out to see what the problem was, and then came back in and told me to turn the pump on. Next thing we know, the woman was driving away. The cops were called. Neither of us managed to get the woman's license plate number and it didn't come through on the surveillance video.

Less than a half hour later an older man prepaid for $10 worth of gas. Then he came back in and complained that the pump had never been turned on. We could see by looking out the window that the pump had worked and it registered a $10.00 value. The customer was insistent; we called the manager out from her office. She went outside with the customer and within a minute he drove away. Obviously she made it known that we could prove that he had in fact gotten his gas and he wasn't going to get any more without paying for it.

I don't have to go back until the weekend. Things should be a lot less hectic on Saturday and Sunday. But I'm looking forward to eventually getting back to the overnight shift.