3 ms·

Wait, there are people paid to actually fill the car for you? How does that work economically? The staff cost must be enormous. Here most stations are self serv

by kuon 3y ago

Wait, there are people paid to actually fill the car for you? How does that work economically? The staff cost must be enormous. Here most stations are self service with a machine that accept credit cards. Is it common in many countries?

JohnBooty 3y ago
How does that work economically? The staff cost must be enormous. I'm not defending this but it seems to work pretty well economically. According to quick Googling the average markup on a gallon of gas $0.15 so the break-even point, so the break even point for gas station attendant making $14/hour (minimum wage here in NJ) is 94 gallons of gas or perhaps ~10 fill-ups. However, I'm not sure many gas stations even make money on the gas itself. The popular model seems to be large gas & convenience store hybrids like WaWa, Sheetz, Royal Farms, etc. I think they just sort of break even-ish on the gas and make most or all of their profit selling snacks and drinks. Despite that, NJ gas is still cheaper than neighboring states thanks to low gas tax. So that's another way things work economically... folks don't realize the true cost of full service since they are not paying it directly anyway. As for my personal opinion: I did not grow up in NJ! This system seems bizarre to me. But I'll say two positive things about it. 1. It is very nice for the elderly or disabled. They don't have to pay more or wait extra time relative to everybody else. 2. There's a safety benefit. In other states, if you have to gas up your car in a sketchy area, that is a VERY popular time for people to harass you for money. Robberies happen this way too. Had a guy try some crap with me and my elderly dad just the other week at a gas station in a nearby non-NJ city.
- kuon 3y ago
  Well, if I do the calculation here, gas cost 1.8 per liter, wage for this level of work is about 30/h, average car have let's say 30l of topup, and takes 5 minutes to do, so that's 12 fill per hour or 360l, which is 5% of the cost. You are right, it's not as "bad" as I thought.
  - JohnBooty 3y ago
    Plus: - the attendants do multiple cars at once, up to 4 or so. while one car is filling, they go to another car at another pump. - probably less than 1 minute of "work" per fillup (the rest of the time is just waiting for the tank to fill) During peak busy periods I think the gas station attendants probably do 50 cars per hour each

by kuon 3y ago

JohnBooty 3y ago

How does that work economically? The staff cost must be enormous. I'm not defending this but it seems to work pretty well economically. According to quick Googling the average markup on a gallon of gas $0.15 so the break-even point, so the break even point for gas station attendant making $14/hour (minimum wage here in NJ) is 94 gallons of gas or perhaps ~10 fill-ups. However, I'm not sure many gas stations even make money on the gas itself. The popular model seems to be large gas & convenience store hybrids like WaWa, Sheetz, Royal Farms, etc. I think they just sort of break even-ish on the gas and make most or all of their profit selling snacks and drinks. Despite that, NJ gas is still cheaper than neighboring states thanks to low gas tax. So that's another way things work economically... folks don't realize the true cost of full service since they are not paying it directly anyway. As for my personal opinion: I did not grow up in NJ! This system seems bizarre to me. But I'll say two positive things about it. 1. It is very nice for the elderly or disabled. They don't have to pay more or wait extra time relative to everybody else. 2. There's a safety benefit. In other states, if you have to gas up your car in a sketchy area, that is a VERY popular time for people to harass you for money. Robberies happen this way too. Had a guy try some crap with me and my elderly dad just the other week at a gas station in a nearby non-NJ city.

kuon 3y ago
Well, if I do the calculation here, gas cost 1.8 per liter, wage for this level of work is about 30/h, average car have let's say 30l of topup, and takes 5 minutes to do, so that's 12 fill per hour or 360l, which is 5% of the cost. You are right, it's not as "bad" as I thought.
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  Plus: - the attendants do multiple cars at once, up to 4 or so. while one car is filling, they go to another car at another pump. - probably less than 1 minute of "work" per fillup (the rest of the time is just waiting for the tank to fill) During peak busy periods I think the gas station attendants probably do 50 cars per hour each