I'll be working the 4th of July, or more strictly speaking, 11 p.m. - 7:00 a.m. Sunday and Monday.
It isn't my thing to do, retail, but I do the books for this large truck stop here on the eastern fringe of the Sandhills of Nebraska, and occasionally because a clerk wanted time off for family and stuff and there was no one else to fill in the gap, I filled it in. This usually happens Christmas Eve-Christmas and the 4th of July.
By the way, I do get paid for this, more than anybody else (and that's not counting the double time one gets for working a holiday).
And no, I don't wear one of those stupid uniforms. I dress in my normal clothes.
However, I've always wondered the practicality of it; it being a holiday, there isn't much traffic and so cash-register receipts are pretty minimal; but I guess the philosophy is that the owners would rather have the reputation of being open 24/7/365 for the long term, at the short-term expense of losing some bucks.
It's a big place, covering several acres. There's ten gasoline pumps and ten diesel pumps. There's free parking for circa 75 big trucks and their trailers. The main building, the retail area, is 200' x 80'. It's the only place for miles and miles around, out in the Sandhills (but on two major U.S. highways).
And there I am, working all alone. And it's dark outside.
It of course has the usual and standard security systems, but that does me no good at all. There's been times when a loud clanging buzzing alarm's gone off, sometimes for half an hour or more, and I only knew of it because a customer told me of it.
About the biggest problem I've ever encountered is when truck drivers bring in credit cards where the charge has to be telephonically-authorized, and ooops, I can't do that. I've then had to summon a county deputy sheriff to drop by and do the telephone business for me. Sometimes it means the driver has to wait 15-20 minutes, but truck drivers get free coffee and soda, so they've always taken it in good humor.
