76

Talking about jobs. I remember my last one. Between April 06 and July 06 i had a brief job at a 76 gas station in Beaverton, OR. At that time it belonged to ConnocoPhilips and owned at least partially by Lukoil of ... Russia. I didn't know until after the orientation. Then, i also found out that Chevron uses additives in gasoline that are almost as good as 76s. And the fact that not all gasoline is created equal. And why we should never buy gasoline from store stations because they accept in their tanks the lowest quality, the one that all major gasoline suppliers refuse.

At the intersection of Cedar Hills and Walker Rd. Also as told at orientation, the busiest 76 and generally the busiest gas station in the NW.

12 pumps. 2 or 3 guys per busy shifts. Convenience store.

Curiously enough that job was between two major dental works. And i was on antidepressants at the time since the last time in the hospital in 75. Mirtazapin. My prescription was 30 milligrams, as agreed with the doctor, to be cheaper for me at copay and officially i was supposed to break them in two. But i was breaking them in 4 and getting only 7.5 milligrams. And i think that was too much as well. Now i think the only benefit of that was the antihistamine action of Mirtazapin. And i was not feeling myself. I was living like in a dream.

Dr. Jeff Call of Gentle Dental did a root canal and a crown. The crown was supposed to be ceramic only but then he switched to metal and ceramic. It still has some galvanic reaction if i touch the exposed metal part of it with a fork it starts hurting really bad.

Dr. Douglas Boyd of Portland did and apicoectomy. The apparent necessity of it was an overfill to a root canal done by dr.Negru of Aloha, OR. On July 27 2006, the same day when Mr. Băsescu, the President of Romania did a visit in Washington DC and the ex-Prime Minister Mr.Tăriceanu fell from his motorcycle. The surgery went wrong and i had to quit the job. I couldn't eat solid food for several month.

Later i found out that in fact the pain to that tooth was due to an insufficiency of vitamin C and probably a periodontitis. No surgery necessary. In fact i would not be fair if i wouldn't tell Dr. Boyd tried to convince me not to do it.

But what happened in between is more interesting. Job was officially part time. But due to the very busy nature of the place and the fact that they couldn't keep nobody to work there for long time because of being so busy and hard to run all day from one pump to another, it became full time and even over time.

The only guy who was working there for a long time before and after me was Charlie. Charlie the communist with the crooked teeth. He said he was communist but had no idea of what that was. He said he was an alcoholic, he would get pissed if he didn't have his beers every day.

After job i started chatting with other Romanians over the internet out of being so homesick and lonely. Started drinking Cuba Libre in top of antidepressants and started a blog which i later abandoned.

I caught a few days with temperatures over 100 degrees. At 46 and out of shape, i thought i was going to die but i didn't.

Each pump had a printer and most of the customers were asking for a receipt. But some times the printers were jamming or running out of paper and we had to run inside to get receipts from the cashiers. And had to stay in line with the other customers, that had priority. And one day, shy at first then more bold i started fixing the printers and refilling them with paper. Soon i became unofficially the guy who did that on my shift. It was like a promotion and it gave me an ascendance over the younger guys.

They were a couple of black guys, can't remember their names now. When i was coming to my shift, around 11 AM, i was almost every time finding them with half of the printers not working and with their tongs out from running inside to get receipts. So i was fixing those first thing.

One day i decided i should try and make them fix those for themselves. So i showed them how to do it when nobody was around so many times until they got probably annoyed and started doing it themselves. But only when i was there.

But when i was coming at my shift, again they were broken.

One day one of them got fired for no big reason.

I never realized why the thing with printers was happening. But lately when i realized the impossibility of me getting a job according to my experience and qualifications, i think i started to understand.

Some categories of people are not allowed around here to do certain "more qualified" types of works which are reserved for insiders.