No gas at my gas station shop

Had my first Exxon-Mobil audit on Friday. The station is just 3 miles from my house, so I did a drive by on my way home from work. It was too busy to do the pump photos so I figured I'd just go back later in the evening. I headed back to the station after dropping hubby back home after our dinner date and thought "great, no one at the pumps, this is a much better time". Alas, when I pulled up to the pump I noticed that all of the regular gas pumps were bagged and they were completely out. Panic set in. What to do, what to do! Thought about just coming back in the morning, but didn't want to forfeit night time bonus, so I pulled over to an out of the way space, read through my paperwork again, found the answer to what to do if there is no gas, and completed the shop as directed. The moral of this story is not to panic, stay calm, and when in doubt reread your instructions.

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You did good! Panic is normal for a few seconds. Then, logic kicks in.

Laurajeanne,
Great work. As the Brits say, "Brew up and carry on!" You clearly are on the road to success in MS.

Based in MD, near DC
Shopping from the Carolinas to New York
Have video cam; will travel

Poor customer service? Don't get mad; get video.

OP, you handled yourself well. This has happened to me several times. You would think that having no gas would make it a lot easier/quicker to take the pump photos, which is true. But the problem I ran into is that customers were stopping me to ask, "What happened?" or "When will they be getting gas again?" or the panicked "I'm running on empty. Now what do I do?" I always refer to speak to the clerk inside but it does slow down your momentum.

Lucky for the customers at this station, the truck was there filling the tanks during the time I was doing the audit. Not sure how long that takes, but they weren't back up and running when I left. It was after 9pm and I wasn't interested in waiting around. Note to self: buy some of those finger-less gloves for winter gas station audits

LauraJeanne,
If your budget can handle the price, I recommend the gloves with full finger coverate that have special pads on the index fingers to use on touch screen equipment.

Since you appear to be in the path of the East Coast blizzard, keep those fingers (and you equipment), warm!

Based in MD, near DC
Shopping from the Carolinas to New York
Have video cam; will travel

Poor customer service? Don't get mad; get video.

I found some of those gloves at Wal-Mart that weren't expensive at all. They were hot pink! (maybe that's why...lol)

Kim

Good job, OP.
Small complaint for the MSC - Before they changed the guidelines, you could take a few closed location photos and be on your way if the station was out of gas. Now you have to complete the whole audit... same work on site, same report at home, same mileage/gas expended to get there, but no gas equals $5 less in pay (if you count gas as pay, which I do.)

I did a shop for a Chevron station once where I couldn't get gas because the power was out. They added the value of the gas i should have gotten to my shop pay.

I did snag a receipt someone left hanging out of the pump before the power went out that at least proved I was at the station. don't know if that helped or not.

Hopefully your MSC will do the same for you that mine did for me.

Time to build a bigger bridge.

@elcarev68 wrote:

Good job, OP.
Small complaint for the MSC - Before they changed the guidelines, you could take a few closed location photos and be on your way if the station was out of gas. Now you have to complete the whole audit... same work on site, same report at home, same mileage/gas expended to get there, but no gas equals $5 less in pay (if you count gas as pay, which I do.)

I had the same thing happen at a different station that would reimburse for two gallons of fuel in addition to the audit fee. The fueling area was closed, but the audit still had to be completed. This was back when gas was running at around $4/gallon, so I lost around eight dollars in compensation. Adding insult to injury, the station was preparing for an upcoming renovation and was in exceptionally poor condition. So, I had many, many photos to upload, plus several questions were unanswerable because I couldn't pump any fuel. That added still more time to the reporting process, as I had to get help from the MSC in order to complete and submit the survey. The supervisor at the MSC was sympathetic but told me that I would not receive any additional compensation to replace the lost reimbursement.

Frustrating, for sure, but I made up for it the next time that MSC called to ask me to cover an out-of-the-way location for that same client.

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No gas at my gas station shop

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