Part 1

I wake up at 3:30 am to start my day as a glorified cashier at a gas station. My work hours are from 5am - 1pm. Contrary to popular belief, a cashier at a gas station does more than scan items and listen for the beep. At my store, being on front register or side register pretty much determines what your "back-up work" for the day is. For conversation sake, today I am on side register. I get there in the morning and start counting a drawer to make sure that the idiot cashier that had the drawer previously knows how to count and left just the $75.00 in the drawer that is supposed to be there. Then I go to the back and call in the fuel inventories (the amount of fuel volume in the tanks which determines fuel deliveries for the store). Then I start stocking cups and lids because the third shift person (you know who you are) never ever does their work. After that I start checking coffee pots... all 5 of them to make sure the filters are set and ready to go (which they never are because once again... third shift never does their job). After making numerous trips to the stock room to get the supplies and stocking everything I need to start my shift it is then time to clock in (yes I just worked 15 minutes free... Don't get up third shift person...I got you covered).

After clocking in it is then time to go back to make pizzas...yes that's right I said Pizza (we have a Chester chicken in our store that management makes us refer to as "the Deli"). I run to the "deli" and check the settings on the pizza oven because often, our illiterate third shift person turns the pizza oven temp to any temp they desire which results in under-done or over-done pizza. I grab out the frozen pizzas and get 2 pizzas going in the oven... a breakfast and a pepperoni for starters. Then I run back up front and check the coffee which needs to be reset again because 20 customers have already been in the store while I was making pizza. After resetting filters and starting coffee AGAIN I man my register like a good little cashier. Then I run back to get the pizzas take em out slice em and box em and run back to the front with them to put them in the pizza warmer (this process repeats itself until 6am when the manager gets there and takes over the pizza responsibiltiy). At this point the other cashier has waited on several customers and has a line. I take care of a few customers and then run back to the coffee bar to reset the coffee filters AGAIN and clean up all the messes the pig customers left on the counter. There is usually enough coffee, sugar, and creamers spilt on the counter to make two 24 ounce cups on coffee with. I swear they get more sugar znd creamer on the counter than they do in their damn cups!. The sad thing is is that there is a pile of napkins right there on the coffee bar and everyone refuses to use them. It is exactly the same scenario with the fountain soda area. There are always spills of soda and ice all over the floor and counter...lids and straws on the floor. People will spill their drink all over the place and never say a word or clean it up...they just leave it their so their personal maid (ME) can clean it up because thats what I get paid to do. As moring dies down after we see everyone off to work its times to start back-up. My back-up for this conversation is bathrooms, inside trash and the beer cooler. Around 8am I start draining the coffee pots because we go down to just 2 pots after 8, one house blend and one decaf. I go to the back to grab my cleaning supplies and trash bags.

With bucket, 3 bottles of different cleaners (the pink spray for the glass and metal fixtures, the yellow for the sinks, and the green for the toilets) , a toilet brush, a scrubbie pad (to get the urine off the walls in the mens room) a roll of toilet paper, 2 packs of paper towels and 4 trashbags, I head off to clean the restrooms. The ladies room is usually an easy task with the exception of the occasional disgustingly stinky sanitary napkin trash bin. From there its off to the mens rooms...YUCK! Its at this point in the day that i was needing a reminder as to why I hate my job anyway. Wishing i had a body condom to slip into I slowly open the door hoping and praying that I don't puke from the rancid smells that come from that bathroom. If I can get past the initial smell it will take approx. 15 minutes to get that bathroom cleaned. I start by spraying down the toilet and urinal with the green spray called hang-time. While the spray is eating through the crusted feces and urine all over them I head to the sink. I clean the mirror, sink, air hand dryer, and condom machine. Then i brace myself... the hard part is yet to come. I go back in the stall to clean the feces off the wall, the floor, the toilet seat and even the door. The other day someone had drawn the number 8 on the wall in CRAP... yes feces! After scrubbing the stall I go to the urinal of course saving the best for last. There is layers upon layers of urine all over the walls. It becomes flaky and crystalized and requires a scrubby pad in order to get it off. One day the bathroom was so dirty that my manager insisted I spend some "Quality time" in there and give it a thorough cleaning. I took a jug of bleach and this scrub broom that we use for stripping the floors. I took the lid off the bleach and just started pouring down the walls...yes straight bleach... It was so disgusting... it actually started foaming... I have never seen bleach foam like that in all my life til that day... there was so much piss all over the walls that it was like pouring peroxide on a dirty wound. At any rate... after scrubbing the urinal and the walls, filling the napkins (which barely ever need filling because YOU dirty bastards never wash your friggin hands) and removing the trash I head to my next job or taking out the inside trash which by the way there are 11 trash cans inside the store.

At this point we are usually around 9am and I thank god that there are only 4 more hours left of my shift. I return to my register so the other cashier can then start their back-up work. Other than having to do the cooler which don't get done til around noon and running back and forth to clean coffee and soda messes and stock cups, I pretty much man my register for a few hours and deal with all the Happy Customers which is definately Part 2 or Part 3 of this story. I have left out a lot of filler that I really need to touch base on though for all you people who think cashier's just stand around and beep all day... the vendors and the groceries. Did you people think that the shelves just clean and stock themselves? Well I am here to tell you that we do that too as well. On Tuesday which is a grocery day, I have to put up over 200 cartons of cigarettes, tons of canned chewing tobacco and all those candy bars, chips, snack crackers and what-nots that you all like so much. A cashier at a gas station/convenience store is truely under-paid and over-worked for their salary (most cashier's just making a bit over the federal minimum for their state).