The Golden Age in the Golden State, circa 1958.
Actual service, for 25¢/gallon.
If somebody did this now, even at current prices, they'd be sued for inducing heart attacks in customers, and they couldn't find nine people in 50 states with this kind of work ethic under the age of 40.
It was really like this in America once, kids, every single day.
I saw it with my own eyes.
Weep for what you've lost.
If you prefer, a lighter take from 1963's comedy classic It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World:
15 comments:
I lived it. Worked at a Gulf station for awhile in the '60's. The whole full-service at the pump thing; work shirts with name provided by the station. On Sunday's, I had the whole station, 12 hours, open to close. Quiet mostly; used the time to do oil change/lube on the fleet of Kraft food salesman cars we had a deal with. Made an extra $1 per. 12 hours, solo, 16 years old. During one of the seemingly regular "gas wars" in SoCal, the 3 grades of Gulf gas were 9, 10, & 11 cents a gallon. No shit. Filled up my Honda for a quarter.
I was a child in that time and place. Later in high school, I worked at a "Service Station". I never thought of it as a "work ethic"; it was what you did if you wanted money to spend on gas, beer and girls
Boat Guy
That extra $1 per car you made in the 60's , say it was 1964 or so was over $10 now.
Also the standard of living of a gas station clerk was higher in that period
Assuming east coast it was possible to find an apartment for $100 a month.
Say you made $1.50 an hour (this is about 20% above minimum for an experienced worker) your weekly might have been with overtime and extra work, around $100
So you had maybe after taxes 4x an apartment in some areas.
We have better toys and diversions but we are worse off on the basics, housing and taxes especially and only holding the line, barely on the rest by massive amounts of imports. Food is even getting expensive
For a comparison an apartment is now $1000 or more in many cheap areas
The same standard of living would now require $4000 a month (4x an apartment which was considered enough well into the 80')
Assuming same hours and including higher taxes on workers , the wage would be $20 current , roughly 3x minimum wage and higher than $15 unions and such are pushing . It would be $2 1964 money
The cause of this is include , mass immigration after 1965, LBJ and after creating horrendous inflation via money printing, automation lowering wages and mass entry of women into the workforce
This vast decline in wages is not however reversible and given basically nothing can push them up short of a massive population reduction probably via deportation an internalized economy, remonetization and drastic regulation.
as such, younger people, at least any who can still do math in the lower echelons are well aware of how screwed they are and as such have little incentive to work hard
If you want a protestant work ethic, first it helps to have a protestant population and it has to benefit people to have such a thing. For too many people it doesn't and QED , you won't get one.
You also won't get a workable moral system much longer either but that is a separate discussion.
They still do gasoline stand service like this in Japan. It's sickening how far we've fallen so quickly. A sage once said "From melting pot to chamber pot in one generation."
I'm sure it was quite different than the mandatory pumping you get in New Jersey. At the gas pump that is.
Couldn't hep but notice the faggot prancing around the filling station in the first vid at the Californistan station . Melting pot to chamber pot indeed Brother JT ! . The cops are right on time as usual in the second vid .
Worked at the carwash in the 50's . Two cents per car . I detailed the whole fookin' interior for two cents . Ended up with $4 to fill up the tank of the Cushman on Monday and take my baby out for a ride . With $3.75 left in my pocket I was taking that girl on a ride to be remembered. Hollywood nights in the hills of the Buckeye with a 13 year old Irish girl ! 56 years later I think I'll pop that shit again tonight . I've lived long and well . Ready to go out in glory !
It was 1958.
There were no prancing faggots. It wasn't allowed, nor even condoned.
That was called customer service. Everybody did it.
But it's been so long since anyone has seen it firsthand, you'd be forgiven for not recognizing it close up all at once.
And if you don't get the timing of the cops' arrival in the second vid, it only shows you've never seen the movie in question.
I'm blessed to have known THAT America; WHITE America. That said, I leave with a comment by a South Carolinian segregationist made in 1965.
"We cannot afford equal status to the negro. For as surely as water seeks its own level, in the span of several generations, we will see our culture dragged down to the level of theirs"
Self service was common in my youth full service more expensive and mostly unknown and I'm middle aged. It was however a White country.
Now I've never been an adult where there were "peace officers" only "law enforcement" more than a few highly corrupt and they are a tribe apart so to me the Andy Griffith model is less real than say Battlestar Galactica
Now the post war era was not typical of the US , we had level of comity, mostly fake that is unnatural to us and an unrepeatable level of prosperity and demand for labor . It all failed and it's not going to come back. So long as the tech base holds we'll never have high fertility again . The natural level seems to be 1.6-1.8 everywhere and in time baring being overrun by less developed cultures, decline is inevitable
We could be with a lot of ugly deeds much Whiter, or White enough but that too is another story and I suspect once the USA goes tits up like the USSR or more violently some of the areas will be rather more monoethnic. If the nationwide bloodletting gets us livelier or hungry for land and loot, well conquest is always in the offing
I came to the US when I skedaddled out of one of the "istan"s; the transformation to Americistan was quite insidious. I much rather prefer the country I came to, rather than the country it has become.
When I worked part time in a Gulf station in the late 60's near Philly, self-service didn't exist. IIRC, customers couldn't reset the pumps after the prior customer was serviced. The locking nozzle trigger was in use by then, so you could be pumping gas while doing other services. Not uncommon for one attendant to have pumps running on multiple cars, with various dollar amounts ordered. One had to know how much time it took to dump so many dollars into a tank, so you could run to the nozzle to stop it in time. My personal limit was 4 cars at once, as doing more tended to lead to problems.
I didn't open at that first station, but did close on the weekends. At age 16. Hmm, reminds me, a few years later, I knew a 16 year old girl who did the daily books for the busiest McD's in the world. Petty cash was $20k, to pay for some of the daily deliveries, and keep change in the cash registers. I don't think teens are allowed to work that young anymore, let alone be able to handle any responsibility.
Oh, and my '57 Chevy ragtop wasn't pink, it was white. And like the song "Little Deuce Coupe", it could get rubber in all 4 gears.
I remember pumping gas as a kid for about .35/gal in 1970s Alexandria, VA. IT was a fun job working with some great guys. Only one I've seen in recent memory is in Nashville and I pulled up to the "full service" pump by mistake. Took the sign for someone's fall into a memory hole.
Will, in theory minors can work at least as of 10 years ago. However even where allowed its rare in California at least
I knew a 17 year old girl who had a job and was grateful for it. She said as far as she knew she was the only minor working in the entire mall as all others were replaced. She kept her job because of a top tier work ethic.
These days younger workers are often in school (past 22 sometimes!) as it's often mandatory to have further education to survive basically and as such often have inflexible hours. Minors also come with a lot of regulatory overhead and among the sharper, harder working ones have parents that nope jobs preferring study and other extra curricular activities to get them into college.
As far as it was in may day, AFAIC a summer job at say 14 to save for a car is not a thing in most state. No jobs in many states or cheaper immigrant labor and frankly not as lot of takers anyway . Many younger people don't want cars and don't party at all and under 21's can't legally drink so beer money is also not a thing
Other than some money for cosmetics, save for school or video games, no much need to work for any but the poor and working class.
My husband used to work as a gas station attendant in high school. He looked very handsome in his uniform (and I'm not the only girl who thought so.) We still have gas stations like this in my neck of the woods too. No spiffy uniforms, and you have to go into the shop to pay, but we get full service with a smile, an oil check, cleaning of windshields, and young lads who hold the doors open for "women of a certain age" like me. I do live way in the back of beyond, so perhaps "modernity" hasn't reached us yet. (Please God let it stay that way.)
We had no tolerance for ANY bug splats ono the windshields of cars piloted by those in miniskirts. Sure dropped the average of multi tasking down to 2 cars at a time.
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