The gaseous erosion of trust.
I pulled into a gas station this morning to spend half my life’s savings on 17 gallons of unleaded. There, taped to the front of the pump, was a little piece of paper announcing that the machine’s credit card reader was broken. “No problem,” thought I. “I’ll push this little button that says “Credit Inside,” fill ‘er up, and go in and pay when I’m done. How naive.
I hear a voice, muffled, through a speaker hidden somewhere on the pump. “Pump 15, the credit card reader isn’t working.” “I see that.” “Would you like to pay cash or credit inside?” “Credit.” “You’ll need to come in and prepay.” “No, I’ll need to go to another gas station.” And that’s exactly what Pump 15 did.
What that person basically said was, “Dear customer who’s been filling up at this gas station for six years, I don’t trust you.” The problem is, I’m not among the .01% of people who think they can get away with pumping gas without paying. But by making me and everyone else follow rules designed for that particular .01% of people, the gas station makes us not only inconvenienced, but presumed guilty of thieverous tendencies. And that’s just too much to be accused of before I’ve had a cup of coffee on a Monday morning. So I found a perfectly pleasant Pump 6 about a mile down the road.
