mailto: blog -at- heyrick -dot- eu

How not to fill up

I pulled into the supermarket petrol station to fill up as I was down to two bars. In front of me, a man giving "estate agent" vibes, talking on his mobile phone which was stuffed between his shoulder and his ear.

Back and forth, I guess to get his credit card or something. He ended the call, and set about sorting out his refilling (which fuel, enter PIN, do you want a ticket...).

Once that was done, he picked up the nozzle and hung it up again to pull his phone out of his pocket. He picked up the nozzle again and stuck it into his car, while using his thumb to write some sort of message on his phone.

Nothing happened, as you might well expect. Imagine the look of surprise when a little "no sale" receipt pops out of the machine.

A dashcam shot of some bloke failing at filling his car
Nope, that's not how you do it.

The reason I'm writing this blog article is because he tried again. Here's a picture a few moments later as he was entering his choices for the second time. Note where the nozzle is.

A dashcam shot of some bloke really failing at filling his car
Nope, that's really not how you do it.

As I'm sure you can imagine, not a drop came out of the nozzle. He hung it back up, took it again, put it into the car, and did a doubletake as it spat out a "no sale" receipt.

Being a good citizen, he comes over to me to say that the petrol distributor doesn't work.
"Oh, it's okay", I reply, "I'm here for diesel."

It had been a hard day at work, and that made my day.

 

 

Your comments:

Please note that while I check this page every so often, I am not able to control what users write; therefore I disclaim all liability for unpleasant and/or infringing and/or defamatory material. Undesired content will be removed as soon as it is noticed. By leaving a comment, you agree not to post material that is illegal or in bad taste, and you should be aware that the time and your IP address are both recorded, should it be necessary to find out who you are. Oh, and don't bother trying to inline HTML. I'm not that stupid! ☺ ADDING COMMENTS DOES NOT WORK IF READING TRANSLATED VERSIONS.
 
You can now follow comment additions with the comment RSS feed. This is distinct from the b.log RSS feed, so you can subscribe to one or both as you wish.

David Pilling, 12th April 2024, 13:09
Maybe one of those new electric car users, sent out with someone else's car. Or someone not used to filling their own car. 
 
Here, pick up nozzle, wait for person in kiosk to clear the settings, and then hold the handle to make fuel come out. The really clever thing is how the fuel will cut off before you get your feet wet. (see Steve Mould on YouTube). 
 
If you do something wrong, then the voice of GOD will intervene. They watch from the kiosk and there are loud speakers. 
 
I've seen video of USA truck drivers filling up, and they go away for a long time and leave fuel flowing unattended. 
 
Maybe he is a truck driver. 
 
I would have told him what to do.
Rick, 12th April 2024, 13:57
The idea of him being an electric car driver fails at the first hurdle. He's too old to have grown up only driving electrics. 
Maybe if he'd been paying less attention to his phone... 
 
(and the reason I didn't help is that it says CLEARLY not to screw around with a phone at the filling station. Somebody with that sort of attitude isn't going to want to be instructed by a foreigner...
jgh, 12th April 2024, 23:54
I think Europe-wide regulations ban lock-fill pump handles exactly to avoid the truck-driver problem. Yeah, it's annoying holding the trigger in for a WHOLE 300 SECONDS! but it's safer.

Add a comment (v0.11) [help?] . . . try the comment feed!
Your name
Your email (optional)
Validation Are you real? Please type 91268 backwards.
Your comment
French flagSpanish flagJapanese flag
Calendar
«   April 2024   
MonTueWedThuFriSatSun
12356
89111213
15171819
2224252627
2930     

(Felicity? Marte? Find out!)

Last 5 entries

List all b.log entries

Return to the site index

Geekery

Search

Search Rick's b.log!

PS: Don't try to be clever.
It's a simple substring match.

Etc...

Last read at 01:56 on 2024/04/30.

QR code


Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional
Valid CSS
Valid RSS 2.0

 

© 2024 Rick Murray
This web page is licenced for your personal, private, non-commercial use only. No automated processing by advertising systems is permitted.
RIPA notice: No consent is given for interception of page transmission.

 

Have you noticed the watermarks on pictures?
Next entry - 2024/04/14
Return to top of page