{"id":5453,"date":"2013-08-09T01:00:51","date_gmt":"2013-08-09T05:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allandouglas.com\/blog\/?p=5453"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:40","slug":"night-shift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/night-shift\/","title":{"rendered":"Night Shift"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Credit: http:\/\/www.champlinsinclair.com\/<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I like working nights, especially here at the service station.\u00a0 At least in the summer.\u00a0 In summer the nights are cool and calm, the work is steady but slow.\u00a0 On day shift the attendants have to help the mechanic with light-duty stuff like plugging tires and changing oil; things they can do between customers on the drive.<\/p>\n

At night we rarely have those things to do.\u00a0 We clean, mostly.\u00a0 We wait with anticipation for the ding-ding of the driveway bell, calling us to action.\u00a0 Then we put on a cheery smile and trot out to the car on the drive, \u201cGood evening, how may I help you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes they\u2019re pleasant back, most often they just grunt, \u201cFill it with regular.\u201d Or if they\u2019re especially callous, just \u201cRegular.\u201d And leave the amount as implied.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s OK.\u00a0 Serving the customer with a smile, checking the oil, water, \u00a0tires, cleaning the windshield while the gas pumps in, and being pleasant even when they\u2019re not is why we\u2019re here.\u00a0 Except for the occasional gas-war, everyone\u2019s prices are pretty close to the same; it\u2019s the service we give that keeps people coming back.\u00a0 At least that\u2019s what management tells us.<\/p>\n

I finish up and walk to the driver\u2019s window, coin changer jingling on my hip. \u201cYou\u2019re all filled up, that will be eight seventy three please.\u201d While he digs his wallet out of his back pocket I report, \u201cYour water is fine, oil is down about a half-quart, not enough to worry about yet.\u00a0 Tires are good now.\u00a0 The right front was two pounds low so I aired it up, you should keep an eye on it.\u00a0 If it goes down again bring it in and we\u2019ll fix it for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, OK, thanks.\u201d He says absently as he hands me a ten dollar bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of a ten.\u201d\u00a0 We always verify what they handed to us.\u00a0 I keep the bill dangling between fingers while I peel a buck off my change roll.\u00a0 Never put their bill away until the transaction is complete.\u00a0 I click out a quarter and two pennies, \u201cA dollar twenty seven is your change, sir.\u00a0 Thank you for coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n

He stuffs the change in his shirt pocket, \u201cYeah, good night.\u201d starts his engine and pulls the steering column mounted shifter down into \u2018drive\u2019.<\/p>\n

My change roll has enough larger bills to get by, so I take his ten in and poke it down the drop safe in the floor.\u00a0 We have to be careful not to carry too much cash on us: tempting thieves is dangerous, especially at night when we have just a skeleton crew of two or three guys.<\/p>\n

Jim and Al are listening to a program on the radio.\u00a0 They re-stacked the oil can display and filled the spark plug trays so I wander back outside, grab a push broom and start to sweep the bits of debris off the drive.\u00a0 I glance up and marvel at the way the canopy lights light up the pump area bright as day, but the sky above is black as coal and speckled with diamonds.<\/p>\n

Cars slide past on the street.\u00a0 Occasionally I see one I recognize and wave, they wave back.\u00a0 Once in a while \u2013 a couple times a week maybe \u2013 someone I exchanged waves with will wheel around at the corner, circle back and pull in.\u00a0 They know I can\u2019t \u2018jaw\u2019 with them if I\u2019ve got customers, but we can talk for a minute if I\u2019m cleaning up.\u00a0 They know how it is: an honest day\u2019s work for an honest day\u2019s pay.<\/p>\n

The only time I have a hard time with anyone is when one of the rich-kids from school pulls in to treat me like some low-life slave.\u00a0 They know I have to take it \u2013 and smile \u2013 or they can rat me out to my boss and I could get fired.\u00a0 Just because they get all their dough handed to them by daddy without ever having to lift a finger to earn anything, they think they\u2019re better than us.\u00a0 I think they\u2019ve got it backwards.\u00a0 We\u2019re the ones who will know how to get along in life when we are out of school.<\/p>\n

A cool breeze tickles my cheek, bringing me back to the here and now.\u00a0 I check my watch; 9:55, time to flip off most of the lights and take the pump meter readings.\u00a0 It will take me a few minutes to log in the pump readings, and calculate sales.\u00a0 We drop all the rest of our change money down the safe.\u00a0 The Manager will count it in the morning and check it against the sales figure.\u00a0 It will match fine: it always does.\u00a0 The Night Shift is honest and accurate.<\/p>\n

I lock the door and bid the others a good night.\u00a0 Jim\u2019s hot rod T-Bird shatters the still night with its \u201cblatt-blatt-blatt\u201d exhaust noise. Then with a roar and a squeal of tires he swings it out onto the street and races off.\u00a0 He\u2019d best hope officer Malloy isn\u2019t waiting for him down there.\u00a0 He does that sometimes!<\/p>\n

I suck in a deep breath of crisp air, take one last look around to be sure I didn\u2019t leave anything out and slide into my car.\u00a0 I need to get home.\u00a0 I have school in the morning.<\/p>\n

I like working nights.\u00a0 And I like working here.\u00a0 Maybe I\u2019m just a pump jockey, but I like it, and I like getting my paycheck at the end of each week.\u00a0 It feels good earning my own money.\u00a0 And I like being helpful, even if most people don\u2019t seem to notice.\u00a0 Once in a while, one does.\u00a0 And that just makes my whole night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like working nights, especially here at the service station.  At least in the summer.  In summer the nights are cool and calm, the work is steady but slow.  On day shift the attendants have to help the mechanic with light-duty stuff like plugging tires and changing oil; things they can do between customers on … Continue reading “Night Shift”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-5453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative","tag-adventures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21535,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5453\/revisions\/21535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}