You’ll never get ahead like that

A Buc-ees fan I found on my YouTube thread:

The title gave it away. That wasn’t visible on my feed.

So another chick with a hot-take, sitting in her car after being let go by Buc-ees She gives a litany of what’s wrong working at Buc-ees. It’s a long list:

• They’ll write you up if you don’t wear the uniform right
• They’ll write you up if you forget to remove an RFID tag and the customer has to come back
• You have to say “Welcome to Buc-ees” a thousand times a day
• They’ll write you up if you are late, even if you had car trouble

And on and on and on.

A lot of this is being young, stupid, and solipsistic. The other half is culture, for sure. She sure knows a whole lot of the offenses that earn a write-up. Makes me believe she was on a performance enhancement plan of some sort. More on that in a bit.

Halfway through the litanty, old Anton here says “Bet she was stealin'”. Then, the big reveal happens. She goes on break, but before she goes she takes a few bucks in change from the leftover change bowl. Seems like a lot, but ok. My guess is it was a donation bowl of some sort. She deemed this OK because “It ain’t they money anyhow”

Doesn’t matter, it’s not yours either. Taking stuff that doesn’t belong to you is stealing. If you do that minor, petty thing, what else will you do?

So she got fired for taking like $3 from the spare change (probably a donation jar), on Christmas of all days. She must have been a screwup before for them to fire her on Christmas.

In my experience, companies fire you immediately for conflict of interest and stealing. Conflict of interest could be doing something untoward in your highly logoed company truck, like picking up a hooker. I got to have that fun talk with one of my employees once upon a time. The other thing they let you go for is poor performance and/or insolence. That’s usually preceded by write-ups and a plan to get your behavior right. That’s why I’m wondering if this weren’t a pattern here. For instance, she went on a few items about coming late for things outside her control – car won’t start, got in an accident, all sorts of things. No company I’ve worked for, even low on the food chain, would do that as long as you called them and let them know. And those were days before mobile phones. There’s zero excuse now. It’s your job to get to work on time, give 100%, and if you are customer facing, have your appearance squared away and be pleasant.

Look, Buc-ees took the miserable crap-shoot that is a pit-stop for gas, pee, and maybe food, and made it better. They made a truck stop into a destination. You don’t see that kind of thing out of a Pilot or Love’s truck stop around here. They do that by all those little things that protect their brand such as spotlessly clean restrooms, good food, pleasant staff, tons of stuff to look at whilst you wait for the wife and kids to get outta the can.

This is why they make sure the employees are presentable, courteous, and honest.

To that end, they pay well. I forget where I saw it, but I saw an ad to work for them. It raised my eyebrows. You aren’t working for peanuts there. And managers are into the decent six figures. I’m sure their benefits match. If I read it right her boss, the cashier manager, was probably doing $120k. In the middle of nowhere North Carolina, where she is apparently, it’s a good job. She should be grateful. Companies that are run well treat their people well and it shows. It’s easier to do that than deal with poison pills, which this one more than likely was.

The other part is cultural. That’s clearly apparent by her cavalier attitude towards what got her fired. You see, it’s the companies fault somehow. Not hers. We’ve seen many such cases:

• They are owed something, even if it’s more break time, or to accommodate her particular work habits.
• Nothing is ever their fault.

It’s very rare I encounter a black girl, or even woman, that I’d consider a people person. Seems like more and more I run into a sullen being that behaves like she’s doing me a favor by simply doing her job. The younger they are the worse. Hell, it happened to me today at the post office, which is a poor example. The shipping machine was busted (of course), so I had to go to the counter. At the counter was a black woman postal worker serving a black woman customer, having a very friendly chat. My turn comes, I think she said two sentences in monotone, just like I would’ve read on the machine screen. The usual counter person is an older black guy that welcomes everyone that walks in the door and banters with each customer. You know, what workers usually do in a small town. It’s not every day that an old man behind a counter says “Hey young man! What can I do for you today?” to me.

By the way, I’m not some old mean looking man here. I will generally try to strike up a conversation with anyone. The fact that there’s a type where that falls flat consistently isn’t lost on me.

Whatever. I’m used to it. My normal MO here would be to never go back. It’s why I don’t go to Popeyes. It’s why I’ll never darken the doors of Jared jewelers. It’s why when I go to Walmart it’s only when there’s no alternative, and then I use the self serve. It’s why I don’t go to Sprouts any longer (that and their shitty produce). Unfortunately it doesn’t apply to the USPS. Where would I go? drive to the next town?

There’s only one type that’s a Karen that will complain. The rest of us go elsewhere if we have an unpleasant encounter and retail outlets like Buc-ees know this. It’s why workers low on the food chain like this one are managed carefully. For most people, jobs low on the food chain like this are the forge that make you into a better worker. You don’t like it? work your way up. Sadly, there are those that can’t or won’t ever get it. That’s why they have that high bar. It’s to weed out people like her.

Having done one of worst possible things you can do in retail, I have only schadenfreude for this one. Not only did she get fired after only six months, she’s banned from Buc-ees everywhere. That there is a hopeless screwup.