Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion What was your first Petro job?

I was inspired by Bob Richards gas pump memory story to do my first poll. What was your FIRST petro job?

There is a category at the end for "no petro job but..." It's so you can vote without that job to see the results.

'No petro job but' includes: petro station memorabilia brings back good memories/harkens back to a simpler time/I want to add petro to my car collection/I think the stuff is cool/etc. Bob's story would fit in this last category.

If you feel like it, share your first job (or no job) story. If you have a best petro job, that wasn't your first, please share that as well.

Nicole
p.s. thanks to a couple of oldgassers for helping me add some categories.

Your first Petro job single choice
	job at a gas station
	owned/famlily owned station
	delivered petro
	oil rig
	refinery
	distribution and bulk sales
	worked in auto service garage, body shop, or dealership
	no job but...
Votes accepted starting: Tue Jan 17 2012 04:30 PM You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

I'll go first.

I worked in one of the first pump your own kiosk type gas stations near UMD. It was an Exxon.

I thought it would be a little claustrophobic but I found it quite comfy with windows all around and a bathroom in the back. Folks would bring cash and I would program the pump for that amount, or they would use a gas credit card. I remember I had to draw a chart on a scrap of paper with the gas pump numbers to put the cards on (they would sign the receipt the old fashioned way after they pumped) until they finished pumping, just to keep track of which pump had which credit card. So many used the cards I couldn't keep track any other way.

One day a big van came in and I took their card but didn't realize it wasn't an Exxon card until they had finished pumping their gas. I told them I couldn't charge their gas on the card and they said they "left their card at home."

I should have kept it but they said they would come back and bring the card, and I really wanted to believe them (hey, I was 17 - 18). But they didn't and a big chunk of my part-time paycheck went to pay for their gas. I left shortly after.

Anyone else? I was looking forward to this one!

My first industry job was with Ashland Oil as an internal auditor at the corporate headquarters.........no catagory listed above that fits that job. Travelled around the country/world to various businesses in retail, refining, exploration, production, chemicals, etc.

Richard

Although I have been Delivering Petrol for over 28 years I first started working the oil rigs in Texas in 1980. Did that for 2 1/2 years till the bottom fell out of the crude price and a lot of oil rigs were shut down. Got a job driving a Kill Truck in West Texas for a year, then moved back home to Indiana for better pay hauling gas and other light products.
Chuck

Nicole, I did work at that Tidewater station... I pumped gas and worked there for 4 years, 3 of that after the change over..... Our friend owned it for over 30 years, unfortunately the gas shortages of the mid 70s sealed the station's fate.... When I came back from the service, the garage was gone and the office complex and his home above it were empty.

For those not old enough to know, back in the 60s, child labor laws for the most part weren't enacted or not enforced like they are now... Most my friends worked in the berry and bean fields, a few worked in their family businesses.... The most popular kid, he worked in his family's bakery, man was he popular.... LOL

I was a jump jockey and very popular once we started driving... LOL

I was 17 and just moved to Edmond, Oklahoma in the early 70's. Fortunately I was a lefty pitcher in demand with a cool car and was befriended by an extended family member of the Fentress's. They were and still are I believe an independent oil company in Oklahoma. The main office at the time was in OKC with a couple 50's style pumps that I got to run to earn cruising money for me and my newfound friend. I remember meeting the Mr. Fentress in charge and him introducing me to the fellows in the office proudly annoucing one of the older fellows doing accounting saying he had written several of the scripts that were episodes on Gunsmoke. Never will forget the friendliness of all the Oklahoma oil people I met while I lived there...

I started in July of 1950 at 12 yrs. old at a wrecking yard a fellow started just down the road from where I lived pulling tires and batteries from old cars. I watched the place and sold parts while he worked in a truck stop on the other end of town. Three years later he sold the wrecking yard (which is still in business only in a different location) and leased a Standard station further down the road. He promptly started another wrecking yard behind the station. I went with him and rode my bicycle back and forth to work. I worked week nights after school and weekends pulling parts and pumping gas. We were the last station going south out of Cheyenne toward Denver. The owner of the building sold it to the VFW after about two years which it still is. I stopped there a couple of years ago and informed the bartender he was working in a old filling station and I'm not sure he believed me. I was looking for some old pictures of the place to see if I could find out what kind of pumps were out in front so I could restore one and put a red crown on top to have for memories. So far I haven't been able to find any pictures. The original pop machine that we used to hook up to the spark plug tester to shock anybody that would set on it still exists. The owner of that is getting up in age but he used to hang out there and later owned to Frontier stations here in town. He might have some pictures or the family of the old machanic that I used to work with. The historic society doesn't have any I checked. Anyway I worked for the guy six years. Just a old man talking but anyway it was the thirty years in the refinery that got me off on this trip. Mitch

It was 1978 we reopened an old boarded up gas station in our town I was 16, in the back room was a National A62 with Flying A ad glass and so a collector is born. We ran the station for 11 years. It was the time when price wars
were going on I remember riding up a down the strip checking prices and then making ours 1 penny cheaper and how it would cause a line.Who would have thought 99.9 cents was cheap and still be able to make money. Man those were the days....

Hummmmmmm, pumping Esso gasoline , 1966, Richmond Virginia . Ed Shaver

I was 16 years old and knew everything when in 1970 I landed my first real job was as an attendant at Bill's Phillips 66 service station on St. Mary's road at the Lindsey Creek Bypass(now I 185)in Columbus, GA. My test was to greet and take care of the next customer. The owner, station manager and other attendant were watching from inside. A lady pulled up and I politely said "Yes mam, fill her up ?" She responded : "yes...please". I replied "yes mam " and proceeded to look for the gas cap. I went around the car three times while they were all laughing inside until the other attendant pointed to the tag and said :"behind the tag." They all got a good laugh, but I got the job anyway...$1.00/hr. X 40 hr/wk. I was the richest kid that I knew.LOL Dave

Until I read this,I had completely forgotten about my one and only petro related job.I was an auditor for KCL based in Los Angeles and audited the books of Atlantic Richfield,Chevron and one other,I think it was Shell.

I'm with Richard in that I'm not sure where it fits,but I do know there wouldn't be any gas and oil industry without oil wells.I guess I was in the production end of it.

After I graduated Ranken Trade School in auto maintenance, I got a job at a school bus fleet operator in 1967. It was in an old car dealership building where they also sold used Mercedes. I mostly swapped bus engine short blocks and automatic transmissions. Once and a while I filled in for the guy filling gas tanks and parking buses. Yes, they were all gasoline back then, no diesels.

It was hard work and pretty repetitive. The Mercedes bodyman would come over with a cup of coffee and watch me sometimes. He said he was waiting for primer to dry. Got me thinking. So I went back to Ranken and took collision repair. After 6 months at a small body shop, I worked continuously at 2 car dealership body shops for over 41 years, Cadillac & Buick - GMC. I loved working on cars and trucks, bringing them back from a collision to nice. Retired in 2010.

Helped out at the neighborhood Flying A station when I was 14. I was 16 when I got my first real station job at a Texaco station. There was a Mobil station and a Richfield station located at opposite corners from us, and they constantly undercut each others prices. Regular was 28.9 to 32.9 cents a gallon. (Now you know how old I am.)

I hope you all dont mind a gas station memory first. I grew up in North Spokane but when I was 14 I had a chance to work on a pig farm in Iowa for the summer. During the weekends we would run around and cause trouble in town, drinking beer when we could get it. I bought my first pack of cigaretts at the station out by the highway at Wheatland Iowa. The kids would hang out at the station during the day. There was a lot of "first's" for me that summer. That was around 1975.
The first station I worked at was a Beeline station when I was around 17. I worked on Saturdays changing tires and pumping gas. Reading these memories got me to thinking the first pump I ever bought was a short Tokheim when I was around 30 years old. The same type of pump I used at the Beeline. I never put the two together till now.