And why would you like to work at Speedway?
My friend told me tonight her kid got asked that question when she applied at Speedway. We just couldn’t believe it. Nobody wants to work at Speedway.
I began to picture me applying.
You came in to their place of business and fill out the application form. I’m sure in the middle of the store, which would announce to one and all that you are unemployed. Handing it in, I can just see the pity look from the people behind the counter, and the customers buying gas for their big shiny trucks. Yep. Looks unemployed.
Fast forward now to imagining the interview. I always figured when you asked for a job at a gas station, the attendant/owner looked at you and handed you a broom and said “You’ll do.”
But no, they actually interview you. I see a man in a nice office, who has probably one upped me by wearing a tie, asking me why I want to work at Speedway. I have to laugh. No one wants to be alone in a gas station store at 3:00 AM when someone more desperate than you comes in needing a fix. With tattoos on his face, a pierced cheek and a bulge in the pocket of his leather vest.
No one wants to be using the microphone at 7:00 AM instructing someone’s grandmother how to use this particular type of pump. It’s the crack of dawn. The sky isn’t even all the way blue at 7:00 AM. You might give her a heart attack when you say into the microphone that blasts… “PUMP NINE, LIFT THE HANDLE….”
The interviewer would be serious. He would look at me with earnest eyes and appear to be very interested in why I want to work at Speedway. The truth for anyone would be…It’s a gas station for heaven’s sake. I want to work there until I can get a better job. I’m applying because they are hiring. There is no other reason. Does he think people get joy out of making coffee a hundred times a day? Does he think people who apply love to clean toilets, wipe up gas spills and listen to customers complain about the price of gas?
“Ummmm.” I would say in my dreamy imagination. “I’m a just people person. I love to visit with people traveling our nation’s highways. Dressed in their native state costume. I’m a neat freak and keeping house isn’t enough for me, I need floors to mop and re-mop. I love to count…. inventory.” You know, actually, I could really warm up to this… I would continue on, extolling the virtues of lifting boxes as exercise, ringing items on a register being my favorite childhood pastime. I’m sure he would look faintly disbelieving, but I would give him a dazzling smile.
Shaking my head to clear the scenario I said “What else did he ask?” She said, “He wanted to know where she pictured herself in five years?”
I stared at my friend. Interview questions. Idiotic. This is a gas station. In five years she wants to be celebrating her four and a half year anniversary at her cushy office job.
Say good-night dude.
