My Life

Everyone has a limit!

It is my personal opinion that if the United States had a mandatory convenience store reserves as they have military reserves, the United States would be a much friendlier place in which to live.

Everyone would be forced to spend 2 weeks a year dealing with each other in a different setting. They would have to be nice to everyone that comes into the store, no matter what! Well there is one exception, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

They would have to give directions to every address within a hundred mile radius, as well as give directions for every product location in the store.

Then when someone can’t find the fig newtons, or the nutter butter cookies (in a little 3 foot section with a riser at the end that says “COOKIES.”) they would not be able to look at the customer and say, “Now where would I look for cookies? HHHMMM, Perhaps in the section that is labeled cookies? No No, can’t do that! They would have to smile gently and lead them to the cookies.

Apparently not all stores are ran the way I run mine though. This gentleman came in today and asked me if I had an ATM, I smiled and said “I sure do, but the lady right there is already using it, so it’ll be a minute.” Then the gentleman asked me if I sold newspapers. “Yes sir, they’re right over here.”

He smiled the sweetest smile and said, “Everything I need is right in front of me and I still have to ask where things are.” I knew he wasn’t a regular customer, perhaps it was the first time he had ever been there at all. I just smiled and said, “It’s not you sir, it’s odd surroundings for you. You’re just out of sorts a bit, that’s all.”

I could tell right away that that wasn’t the response he was counting on. He said, “Thanks for going easy on me, people are usually rude when you have to ask questions.” Flash backs of the register thing came to mind!

I told him that my employees had better never be rude to him or anyone else that comes into my store. He admitted it was his first time there. My thoughts were confirmed.

We spend everyday cleaning up after people, give directions, help elders work the pumps, give directions, get treated badly, give directions, befriend many, give directions, make a lot of coffee, give directions, all kinds of things. For the most part, it's a blast! I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I really wouldn’t!

Note here: Not all convenience store personnel are stupid either. I sat at a desk for several years crunching numbers, writing million dollar checks to big companies. Then one day as I stopped at my normal stop to get coffee, the manager told me I was more punctual then any of his employees and wanted to know when I was coming to work for him. Laughingly, I said “I don’t know, put me on the schedule.”

The next morning when I arrived for my coffee, he confronted me with the schedule. “Do you want to work weekends only, or can you work some evenings as well?” I just looked at him for a minute. Oh my gosh I thought, he’s serious. “Well Nate, you know I work a full time accounting job, so maybe just weekends. In the mornings if that is possible.”

“You got it. Can you start Saturday morning?”

“Sure, what time?”

“Can you be here at 6:00am?”

“Sure...ok, I’ll be here.”

That was July 1999. By December, I could no longer bare the thought of going back to my desk job. I found that after all those years, I actually hated accounting! I gave my notice and went full time in the convenience store business on January 1, 2000.

April 2000, I promoted to Assistant Manager at a different store. November 2000, I promoted to Manager of my first little 900 square foot store. I moved to a larger store in 2002. And then promoted to the store known as the “Hell store” throughout my company 1 year ago. Others can call it what they like. I call it home!

Anyway, getting back to the story. I take a lot of abuse from people, but not today. There are just limits that one has to set.

I was putting up more of those hearts throughout my store when this gentleman walks in. I said “Good Morning” as I always do. He proceeded to ask me the height of my canopy. I thought he was joking. I said, “Now how should I know that?”

Immediately, I found he was not kidding. “Because you are supposed to have it posted on the side of the canopy!” I looked outside and realized he was in a large Penske moving truck.

“Sir, this is not a truck stop. I don’t even sell diesel. The only trucks that come in here don’t have a need to go under the canopy, they come to the side of the building.”

I listened to him continue to rant while he was grabbing chips and drinks. He threw them on the counter and continued to rant about how we were breaking the law and he was going to do this and he was going to do that. “And I want your owner’s name right now and the phone number.”

I turned away from him and picked up the phone. I called my sister store and informed her that this gentleman in front of me was telling me how I was breaking the law on and on and on... He looked at me like he wanted to hit me. He threw his credit card on the counter and said, “You goin' to ring this up? And I want your owners name and phone number now!”

Still having Kim on the phone, I merely picked up his credit card and handed it back to him. “No sir, I am not. You need to leave the store NOW.” About that time his buddy had come out of the bathroom and brought his soda and chips to the counter. He was oblivious to everything that just happened. The first gentleman was leaving the store screaming at his buddy to come along because I wouldn’t sell them anything.

I looked at the younger fellow and simply stated that I was sorry, but I would not be talked to in that manner nor would I be treated that way!

He followed the elder and climbed into the truck.

Figuring he really had a point to make now, he floored it and almost took out two pumps. But hey, he cleared the canopy!

Jerk!