Forecourt den of thieves
It's the summer after my second year at Uni, and I've got a job working in the local garage - selling fuel, not fixing cars. As this was in the late 80s, and in Surrey (generally, an expensive part of the world to live in - but I was staying with the parents), they couldn't get many staff of calibre in to do low-paid monkey work. So the place was run by:

(a) an Essex girl 'manager', who read magazines all day and otherwise did f*ck all;
(b) a storeman who was illiterate. Seriously. They put someone in charge of the stock who couldn't read - when a delivery came in he'd ask the nearest member of staff to sign for it, as he could neither read the stock list nor sign the form
(c) an area manager, who also ran his own chain of convenience stores.
(d) student scum like myself.

The whole place was a license to thieve. Working there I developed a 40 fags and 5 Mars Bars a day habit - and I was the least light-fingered. Memorable occasions:

(i) one night, working late (alone), had closed the garage but stayed inside watching the end of a TV programme. Car pulls up, people get out. "Shit, this place is going to get turned over" I think, hiding beneath the counter. No, it's a member of staff, with his mates, stocking up on free fags and chocolate after the pub.

(ii)Working a Sunday shift with a colleague, who does the old "don't ring up the cash transactions" dodge to buy us both, from the pub next door, a Sunday lunch and a pint which we consume whilst working

(iii) The area manager would always arrive with a car-full of goods the day before a stock take. The day after, the same goods would disappear to whence they had came - his chain of shops, which was basically being stocked with stuff from the garage.

Eventually, I got sacked from the garage for allegedly stealing money, which in honest truth I hadn't; I knew who did do it but couldn't finger them for it.

Only time I've ever stolen stuff in my life. I blame the others. No wonder prison doesn't work - morality, like intelligence, seems to hit the lowest common denominator in groups of people.
( I_Was_Mordred, Mon 14 Jan 2008, 10:38, Reply)