Current Events > I hate having a lazy d-bag for a boss. <rant>

(+) Yeah! (+)

So I post a lot about my job working a gas station night shift, and the vast majority of the time it's an amusing anecdote or mostly lighthearted rants about my encounters with stupid customers. And all things considered, it's a pretty decent gig. The job is very easy. The pay isn't great, but it covers the bills and gives me enough extra to be comfortable. It's basically stress free. I never have to take any work home with me, so when I go home I can just switch it off and it doesn't bring problems into other aspects of my life. And I get to spend half my shift playing video games or watching YouTube and Netflix. The only real problem is the owner. He's incredibly lazy, kind of rude, and basically allergic to confrontation.

So I went in to work last night to find that we'd gotten a brand new coffee machine. Seems like a pretty nice one, too. I asked the guy working the shift before mine how to work the thing, and he said he didn't know. Apparently nobody other than the owner knew someone was coming to install this thing until he showed up. The installer showed the owner how to operate it, and the owner hadn't bothered to show anyone else. It seemed simple enough to me, though, so I just shrugged and said I'd figure it out.

Of course we don't make coffee in the middle of the night, so morning comes around and I go to brew fresh pots only for the machine to give me an error and refuse to do anything. There's a "smart handle" on the funnels that gets recognized by a sensor on the machine to indicate that the funnel is in before it will turn on and brew. The sensors are not working. This is around 4 am. I look around the store for a solid 10 minutes to see if there was an instruction manual anywhere with no luck. So what else can I do? I call the boss. He doesn't answer, so I call the manager. She doesn't answer either, so I start using our smaller standby brewer (which can only brew 1 pot at a time, takes about 10 minutes apiece, and we have 15 pots to do every morning...) to at least get something going. After about 10 minutes the boss finally calls back and I tell him what's going on and ask where he put the instruction manual. He tells me he didn't keep it, says I'll just have to make due with the smaller one and he'll call the installer later and hangs up.

Well, frankly, I'm not spending 2.5 hours babysitting a tiny coffee machine. And I'm also not a dick, so I don't want to leave it still broken for the day shift to handle when they're going to be as clueless as I am. At least I have time to screw with it. They won't. So I spent the next 20 minutes digging around online and eventually manage to find a .pdf version of the instruction manual for a similar-but-not-quite-identical machine. Read through the troubleshooting section, learned how to program the machine (using literal hidden buttons not even marked on the machine to get into the debug settings), went through the ~12 steps of menus to find what I was looking for, and toggled the "Detect Funnel" feature to OFF. Worked like a charm, and the machine was up and running before the morning rush came in, and everybody got their fresh coffee.

I'll be honest, I was feeling pretty good about myself for figuring it out. And I decided to text the boss as I was leaving work to let him know I'd managed to take care of it. Here's the "thank you" I got:

Me: *explains what I did*
Him: Awesome. I wish you did that before you woke me up though.
Me (a bit ticked off): Lesson learned, I guess. You'll know to keep all the paperwork for new equipment, and I'll know when something goes wrong to just fix it myself.
Him: Yea. Unless it's an emergency, just leave me a note. Since I'm getting old I can't fall back asleep once I'm up.

Literally didn't even get a "thank you." It's worth noting that this guy is only in his 50's, and is in what you'd consider pretty good shape for a guy half his age. -_-
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Just posting to let you know i read the story, but have nothing of value to say
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FWIW, the manager also called me back when she woke up and saw my message around 6am. I told her what I'd done to fix it and she was very appreciative. And she said she was glad it was me because she didn't think anyone else there would've figured it out (or even tried to).

I like the manager. She's pretty cool. But you can tell she's put up with the owner's bullshit for long enough that it's starting to weigh on her. :-/
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green dragon posted...

Just posting to let you know i read the story, but have nothing of value to say

No worries, it's mostly just to vent. Like I said, the job is pretty solid overall. Just seems like every time there's a problem, it's because the boss couldn't be bothered to do something very basic. Like keep an instruction manual for a brand new piece of commercial equipment. >_>
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Stopped reading after the first paragraph. If your job is super easy and youre stress free outside of work then I dont want to read your rant. You work at a gas station.
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What happens to expired items in your gas station, do you get to eat any?
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masticatingman posted...

Stopped reading after the first paragraph. If your job is super easy and youre stress free outside of work then I dont want to read your rant. You work at a gas station.

I did read it but I feel the same way.
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Complaining about a gas station rofl

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Honestly these guys are probably like the dudes in office space if they have to refill toner and start screaming about how it isn't their fucking job.

Pay em no mind.
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twitterfriends posted...

What happens to expired items in your gas station, do you get to eat any?

Mostly they either get returned to the distributor for refunds or we just toss them. We don't have many things expiring before we sell them, though.
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Thanks
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