I Don't Need To Know About Your System

You may remember a couple months ago I mentioned that when you are in a store and the person behind the register asks how your day is, the polite response is just to say 'fine' and get along with your business, because that person doesn't actually care how your day is going. Don't bog them down with inane details about your life - they just want to work their shift and go home. Well, today reminded me that this exchange actually goes both ways -customers just want the polite response as well. I'll explain further:

The other day I was trying to get gas at a local station using a gift card that I got a month ago. I swiped the card and got an error message. I swiped it again and it said that I had no money on the gift card. I went home, checked the balance on the card and it turns out that there was, in fact, money on the card and it was available to be used. Since I had only thrown $5 worth of gas in the other day because that was all I had on me at the time, I still needed to fill up my truck and went back this afternoon. I tried swiping the card and was greeted with the same message, so I approached the booth to ask the attendant what I may be doing wrong. We then had the following exchange:

Me: Excuse me, I have this card...
Women in booth: (heavy sigh) Uh... yeah, the system is down. [Editor's note: her tone was very heavy with annoyance, like I should have already known the system was down. I don't remember getting a memo this morning.]
Me: Oh, well, should I come back this afternoon? Will the system be back up then?
Women in booth: Don't know. This system is always going down. You know, I told them that when they had a meeting last week. You would think they would want a computer system that works well, but apparently they don't. Then again, we have to pay a fee whenever there is a credit card transaction, so they really want customers paying cash. The other day....

It was at this point I stopped paying attention. Partly because I had gotten the piece of information I needed, but mostly because the inner working of this gas station mean very little in my day-to-day life. That's because, as it turns out, I don't actually work there and therefore don't care about their computers. She could have been telling me the meaning of life for all I knew, but by this time it was just going in one ear and immediately out the other. Instead I just stood there, thinking about where the next gas station was and waiting for sound to stop coming from the booth so I could nod, say 'Thank you' and leave. Oh, and my truck still needs gas.