I need Diversity Training....

Living in New Jersey, since last July, has certainly been eye opening. We've been exposed to all sorts of behavior in the customers we've encountered. In fact, today Linda and I had a "spirited" discussion with one of our tenants about why he couldn't come in every month and merely switch the owners name on the contract for his unit so he'd only have to pay the $21.07 move in special. Linda and I both told him that he couldn't do it so don't plan on doing it next month. Linda asked him how he'd feel if someone "ripped him off" by only paying the $21 every month. He responded that it wasn't ripping anyone off. I told him that he certainly was...a company would go out of business never renting a unit for the regular price and only having tenants pay $21.07 every month. Only then, did he seem to have some inkling of understanding (but only slightly). He said he'd keep trying and if he couldn't do it he'd move out....Linda said that's fine. Sadly, he's the norm and not the exception.

Earlier in the day, we had to drop the car off at the garage so I could get the brakes checked, oil changed, etc. On the way back from doing that, we wanted to get Bertha filled up with diesel so we'll be ready to pull out Sunday after work. We drove to the Gulf station just below work and asked them if they carried diesel...he said no. We asked where we could find it and said we'd prefer a station where someone spoke English. Let me explain why we asked...In New Jersey, you aren't allowed to pump your own gas...there are attendants that do that. Bertha is really temperamental about getting the tanks filled. Put it in too fast and it overflows. We know how best to do it but every time we go to a station with middle eastern attendants they INSIST on pumping it although Linda is screaming at them that we must fill it. Well, today was even worse than usual. We had to drive to three gas stations before we could find diesel (first didn't carry it, second was out). The diesel pump, at the third and final station, was at the back of the lot. It had a small nozzle on one side, a high flow nozzle on the other side. Since our caps are on the driver side we parked on the back side of the pump. The small nozzle pump (on the front side) had a really long hose so I proceeded to get that one ready to pump from. The "middle eastern attendant" came running over and waving his hands and saying words that were not understood by me indicated that we had to pull around to the front of the pump although the hose we easily reached our tanks from where we were. Yep, there was a line forming behind us and we needed to get on the correct side of the pump....NOT !!! Linda shared some popular American profanity with this fella and gunned Bertha to pull to the other side of the pump (good thing she's a duelie cause I swear she was up on two wheels). I started filling and sure enough, she was being temperamental again this morning...lots of foaming. This gentleman's fine customer service manners had not put me in the mood to monkey around with all the foaming, etc. plus I didn't want to spend any more of my hard earned dollars to pay his salary so I stopped at 10 gallons. We'll make it as far as we can into PA, on Sunday, where we can pump without someone hovering, etc. I will not miss this problem when we leave New Jersey. What happened to all the high school students who used to get jobs pumping gas after school ? Where are they working ? All we've seen (with the exception of the Gulf station that didn't carry diesel) are middle eastern attendants that work at the gas stations here. Would American businesses collapse of we didn't have all of this foreign labor here filling these positions ? You can't tell me that they are all citizens when they can't even speak English. As is said for alcoholics, we can't change what we don't accept. Well....my name is Linda and I'm in need of diversity training.