I work at a gas station where the policy on tobacco sales is to ID everyone who looks under 40 UNLESS at least one employee has seen him/her before. So even if you’re 35 but don’t show me ID, I won’t sell you squat. That’s the rule. Why? Corporate sends out stings to make sure we’re following the rules. But the kicker is that the stings are in the 25-30 age range, so obviously young but not underage. If we fail a sting, we could lose our jobs. (It’s only happened once in the last five years.) A guy came in and asked for Grizzly Snuff (blech). I asked him for ID and he said he didn’t have it, but told me he was born in 1976, making him 34. Of course, I NEED an ID, otherwise nothing doing. He got pissy with me when I refused the sale, even though I was nice about it. Here’s where it gets interesting…He was parked on Pump 5, where we could clearly see another guy get out of the car and come into the store. If you guessed that he asked for Grizzly Snuff, you should get a medal. I told him no, since third-hand sales are illegal in any case. He whips out his ID and tells me that I HAVE to sell it to him, that he’s “twenty-four fucking years old”, and blah blah blah. I called over Katelyn, my shift leader, to back me up, which she did. Apparently that wasn’t good enough, since he asked for the manager after that. We told him that the manager didn’t work on weekends (it was a Saturday). The guy then asked for our store’s phone number, my manager’s name, AND our names so he could call to complain! We happily gave it to him, since we knew our manager takes care of his staff and would back us up. Come Monday, when Katelyn and I were set to close, our manager pulls us aside for a minute and tells us that the guy really did call. “Basically, he called me to tell me that you’re both doing your jobs. Here are some $10 gift cards for each of you for how you handled that. I’m going home now…” Don’t fuck with my boss.
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