You Know What? I QUIT! My First Job

The prompt for this week’s Reedsy contest is to write for one hour-straight. I can do that, but in a different way. It asks you to set a timer for one hour. Instead I am going to do it the Hudson Hawk way. If you have never seen that movie Hudson played by Bruce Willis and his partner Tommy Five-Tone have to do something involving time. About five minutes. Since they don’t have a watch they sing the song Would You Like to Swing on a Star.

I am doing the same thing. My Friend Lars just started his radio show. It is on every Wednesday afternoon for one hour. When he finishes playing his music I will QUIT writing. Sure, I could set a timer. As a matter of fact I could look at the corner of the computer screen, but this is more fun. Plus I get to listen to rock and roll.

Now, here a story about a job I just QUIT. It was at a gas station I worked at. Off and on for eight years. From 16 years old until I was 23. Through high school and college. This gas station was across the street from the side street I lived on. I delivered the morning newspaper to it. One morning the manager asked me if I wanted a job. It would only be one or two nights a week. Of course one of those nights was Saturday night because nobody wanted to work Saturday night. This is back in the late 70’s early 80’s. Gas was at .70 cents a gallon back then. It was a full service station back then. I pumped gas, washed windows, put air in tires, and did oil changes. After four years of that the station closed down to go self service. This was the owner's brainstorm. Which also caused lots of problems.

The suburb of Upstate New York where this station was located put all these conditions in. because they didn’t want the owner to go self service. Because they didn’t want other stations to follow suit. But he was so stubborn. He was bound and determined to do it. Which he did with his station in the city and was making a profit. He also wanted to show up his father who he inherited his stations from. Also remember this was before the show Dallas came on. So Daddy was known as senior. His son was known as J.R. When the show Dallas did come on about a son by the name of J.R. who owned an oil company. The local J.R. ego got bigger. The difference was that the fictional J.R. got shot. They should have shot the local (real) J.R. too.

The first problem was that suburb officials said that the station needed to service ten cars at once. Hoping to discourage him. Instead local (real) J.R. knock down the building to rebuild it. Then ten gas pumps were put in. The second thing the subart officials did was tell local (real) J.R. that he needed automatic fire extinguishers in all the pumps. These went off the first weekend. The station was closed. None of the pumps worked, and local (real) J.R. lost money the first week he was open. Because the company that put extinguishers in said they could not come to reset them and refill them until Monday. Oh they came, but not until late Monday afternoon. Which meant local (real) J.R. lost more money.

Finally the suburb officials said we need leak detectors in all the pumps. Which was the main reason I quit. I will get to that in a minute. Because the other four years I worked there when it went self service it had lots of problems. The first thing was that it got robbed twice, Once was when someone broke into the station in the middle of the night. They took all the cigarettes and candy. Broke open the safe and took all the money. Finally smashed the computers. Which meant local (real) J.R. lost another three days of profit while everything got fixed.

The second time was when the station came up $600.00 short on a guys final night. He claimed he was leaving because he got a better job. Anyway, the police were called and everyone that worked that day got interviewed. Including the guy who QUIT. They never found out who stole the money. I ran into the guy who QUIT a month later in a bar. With his girlfriend. Who was wearing a $600.00 engagement ring.

Oh local (real) J.R. had other problems too. The fire extinguishers went off two more times in the four years I was there. Another time the fire department closed the station down, twice. This station sold Kerosene and Diesel fuel. For people that wanted to use Kerosene for their space heaters to keep warm. A special gas can was needed that was blue, not red like for regular gas. Well, the way the station was laid out you could not see the cans that people put the Kerosene in. So two people put Kerosene in their cars thinking it was regular gas. Their cars blew up. The fire department came. After figuring out what happened the fire department closed the station down to investigate. One time that took a week. Which meant local (real) J.R. lost a week’s worth of profits.

The next issue was when a regular Diesel gas trucker came in. This guy had been buying gas at the station since before I worked there. He reported to me that the Diesel gas had water in it. I had him come into the station. I called the office and had him talk to the local (real) J.R. I handed him the phone while I was put on hold. It didn’t take long for me to hear this guy arguing with local (real) J.R. After the phone call, the guy told me he was going to start doing business with someone else. I called my manager to tell him what happened, but of course he took the local (real) J.R. side of things. A week later my manager called me to tell me that the station was going to be closed down for a week to ten days. The Department of Weights and Measures came in to check the tanks. They discovered water in the tanks. This meant that all the tanks had to be flushed out and cleaned. One tank was so bad it had to be replaced. The guys from Weights and Measures said they received an anonymous tip. Gee I wonder who that was.

In the four years I worked there when it went self service I quit twice. Giving a notice of course. Once because I was working too much overtime at my factory job. The second time was because I was in college and my final semester was going to be a bitch. I had saved up enough money to get by. Both times I quit I told my manager if an emergency happens I would help him out. He ran over to my house enough times asking me to help out. Because he had employees who just QUIT without notice. Others were because employees got fired for stealing money.

My boss heard that the factory I was working in was closing down and I was going back to college. So he asked me if I wanted to come back part-time. Which I did. Until my final semester. This time I didn’t go back and help out during emergencies. No matter how many times my old boss came back and asked. Until I graduated. Then my old boss asked me to come back. I told him I would until I found a full time job. This was also when I had it out with local (real) J.R.

Finding a full time job was taking me longer that I thought. Which meant I was working at the gas station longer than I wanted to. Finally, I had a good lead on something and getting hired looked promising. Until I knew for sure I kept the job at the self service station. I opened it up every Saturday morning because most of my coworkers were too hung over to do it. This included the local (real) J.R. He came in on Saturday morning all hung over to pick up the money from the night before. He asked me if there were any problems? I told him that the leak detectors needed to be replaced. When the leak detectors went off it caused the gas to pump slow. The customers were complaining. I told him that I talked to the Department of Weights and Measures about it. They said that they had to be changed every three years. The self service station had been open four years and they were never changed.

Local (real) J.R. who was also drunk yelled at me. He said if I didn’t like it there then QUIT. He then quickly jumped in his car and left. Well guess what? I said You Know What? I QUIT. I closed the station down and went home.

Local (real) and drunk J.R. got to the office and yelled at my manager about what I said. He must have told him everything because the office was getting complaints that the station was closed. My manager ran down there and found it closed. He ran over to my house to see me. I told him what happened. That local (real) J.R. said if I didn’t like it then QUIT. Which I did, and this time I was not coming back. He tried telling me that he didn’t mean what he said because he was hung over. I told my manager no. I was not coming back. Which meant he had to go and reopen the station and work my shift.

The following week two things happened. The station’s pumps were running so slow they stopped pumping gas. The Department of Weights and Measures were called. They came and closed down local (real) J.R. self service gas station for three weeks. They also had gotten too many complaints about the pumps running slow. Three weeks was how long it took to put new leak detectors in. The other thing that happened was I got hired for my first full time radio disc jockey job.

I worked over 35 years in radio and television. At many different stations. Most of the times when I left I gave a two week notice. There were a few times I just said You Know What? I QUIT.

I might write about this next time. Because my friend Lars is saying goodbye on the radio. Which means my hour is up. Oh, and I will also write about what happened to local (rea) J.R. It was nothing like what happened to the fictional J.R. Ewing. Let’s just say it is funny and interesting.

Overnite Joe Stockslader

Rochester, NY

Cell & Text 585-489-4940