Hey, I never thought I’d be saying this, but why can’t we pump our own gas in New Jersey?
Every other state I’ve been to you’re allowed to pump your own gas. I lived in Maryland for two years and pumped my own gas. My family had a weekend home in upstate New York for ten years and we pumped our own gas. For the past five years my parents live in Pennsylvania. When we visit them, we pump our own gas.
Everywhere except New Jersey.
Why am I venting?
I’m sick and tired of wasting ten minutes filling the tank when I can be in and out in three.
I’m sick and tired of dealing with surly, underpaid attendants at understaffed chain gas stations.
I’m sick and tired of said attendants looking at me like I’ve just handed them a cuneiform tablet etched on a dog turd every time I hand them my debit card.
I’m sick and tired of attendants hanging back by the fuel door, refusing to come up to my window to ask me what I want.
This morning it’s pouring out, and I’m rustling a five-year-old and a one-year-old out to do errands. First thing I need to do is gas up the car. There’s a station about a half-mile down the highway that’s just a block away, it’s situated along our errands and at least has a roof over the pumps so we all won’t get soaked. I’ve had problems there in the past, but I keep thinking that things will have changed.
I get there and there’s one dude working sixteen pumps. Shuffling along from car to car, in no particular hurry, y’know, it’s Saturday morning. He’s got an iPod on; that’s a bad sign. I make eye contact with him as he nears, then he suddenly remembers he forgot to check the pump on a car four rows back. He’s gone for five minutes (I watch the clock on the dashboard), and I turn the ignition on and get back on the highway.
There’s another station right next door, but it’s a little inconvenient because the exit takes you to a side street instead of back on the highway. I’ll deal with the extra driving. I pull up to a vacant pump, and some dude in a snorkel approaches and camps out by my fuel door. He’s talking on an ear-phone in some other language, so I don’t know if he’s talking to me or not. Great. I pretend to shuffle through my wallet until he finally comes up to the window and holds out a hand. “Fill it with regular, please,” I say, and give him the debit card.
I’m out of there in under five minutes, though.
Look, I understand these guys are paid next to nothing, have no benefits and what-not, have to deal with busy self-important jerks in their cars (really, I try not to be one), and have to work in all kinds of inclement weather. I understand the job basically sucks. But it doesn’t have to be forever. My brother pumped gas for a summer or two while in college. Then he moved on. And you don’t have to approach it with a crappy attitude. I know, I know. I myself have often failed to live up to this basic standard of human interrelating many, many times. S flows downhill, S standing for Stress or Something Else That Begins With S. So it’s a power trip for these guys to make me stick my head out the window and shout how much gas I want.
Oh dear. I need a break … Or the opportunity to simply pump my own gas.
Every other state I’ve been to you’re allowed to pump your own gas. I lived in Maryland for two years and pumped my own gas. My family had a weekend home in upstate New York for ten years and we pumped our own gas. For the past five years my parents live in Pennsylvania. When we visit them, we pump our own gas.
Everywhere except New Jersey.
Why am I venting?
I’m sick and tired of wasting ten minutes filling the tank when I can be in and out in three.
I’m sick and tired of dealing with surly, underpaid attendants at understaffed chain gas stations.
I’m sick and tired of said attendants looking at me like I’ve just handed them a cuneiform tablet etched on a dog turd every time I hand them my debit card.
I’m sick and tired of attendants hanging back by the fuel door, refusing to come up to my window to ask me what I want.
This morning it’s pouring out, and I’m rustling a five-year-old and a one-year-old out to do errands. First thing I need to do is gas up the car. There’s a station about a half-mile down the highway that’s just a block away, it’s situated along our errands and at least has a roof over the pumps so we all won’t get soaked. I’ve had problems there in the past, but I keep thinking that things will have changed.
I get there and there’s one dude working sixteen pumps. Shuffling along from car to car, in no particular hurry, y’know, it’s Saturday morning. He’s got an iPod on; that’s a bad sign. I make eye contact with him as he nears, then he suddenly remembers he forgot to check the pump on a car four rows back. He’s gone for five minutes (I watch the clock on the dashboard), and I turn the ignition on and get back on the highway.
There’s another station right next door, but it’s a little inconvenient because the exit takes you to a side street instead of back on the highway. I’ll deal with the extra driving. I pull up to a vacant pump, and some dude in a snorkel approaches and camps out by my fuel door. He’s talking on an ear-phone in some other language, so I don’t know if he’s talking to me or not. Great. I pretend to shuffle through my wallet until he finally comes up to the window and holds out a hand. “Fill it with regular, please,” I say, and give him the debit card.
I’m out of there in under five minutes, though.
Look, I understand these guys are paid next to nothing, have no benefits and what-not, have to deal with busy self-important jerks in their cars (really, I try not to be one), and have to work in all kinds of inclement weather. I understand the job basically sucks. But it doesn’t have to be forever. My brother pumped gas for a summer or two while in college. Then he moved on. And you don’t have to approach it with a crappy attitude. I know, I know. I myself have often failed to live up to this basic standard of human interrelating many, many times. S flows downhill, S standing for Stress or Something Else That Begins With S. So it’s a power trip for these guys to make me stick my head out the window and shout how much gas I want.
Oh dear. I need a break … Or the opportunity to simply pump my own gas.
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