I stopped for gas on my way home tonight, and was delighted by what I found when I got out of the car:
The TVs over the pumps were broken!
It was SO nice to stand there, enjoying a mild, wet night, listening to gas gurgling into my car and traffic whooshing by. No loudspeakers blaring music or ads. No glaring, gabbling TV screen showing disjointed little sound bites.
It really scares me that gas corporations (yes, you, Sunoco) now think people need to be entertained (and advertised to) for the few minutes it takes to fill up your car. Is it really going to kill a customer to stand still and not do anything but watch the pump run for a couple of minutes? Do they feel bad that they don't want us to talk on our cell phones at the pump, even though there's no proof of anyone blowing themselves up this way, so they give us TV instead? Maybe they're just trying to distract us from rising gas prices? Or is it that important to fill up every spare moment in life with advertising?
The overhead music I don't always mind, because it sometimes plays random 80s songs I love, but these TVs over the pumps are just offensive. The volume is always too loud, and there's always some frenetic Ryan Seacrest clone jumping around and/or yelling. You have to turn away not to look at it, but you're still assaulted by the racket it makes. I try to go to quieter stations without these things, but tonight I spaced on getting gas until this station was the only one left on my way. But I lucked out. The TVs were sitting there with jumbled frozen screens that resembled those old emergency-broadcast test patterns.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a TV hater. I own multiple idiot boxes, and I even have cable. I just don't see any need for customers to be subjected to blaring TVs in public places, except maybe in a sports bar, where watching a game is part of the overall reason for being there. Or if something major is going on (on the 9/11 level, not the O.J. White Bronco Chase level). Otherwise, why do we need more noise, ads and glare in our lives? Do we all truly need to watch Dr. Phil while waiting for an oil change? Turn. It. Off.
Speaking of that whole thing with talking on your cell phone while pumping, did you know that Wawa has cell phone Big Brothers? A couple of years ago, as I was finishing a cell phone conversation while getting gas at one of those vast canopied gas-pump clusters, the music stopped and this guy got on the PA system: "Ma'am at Pump Four? Attention, ma'am at Pump Four? Could you turn off your cell phone please?" Pretty much everyone pumping gas stopped and swiveled to check out which idiot's being busted at Pump Four, including me. Oh. I'm at Pump Four. CLICK.
The TVs over the pumps were broken!
It was SO nice to stand there, enjoying a mild, wet night, listening to gas gurgling into my car and traffic whooshing by. No loudspeakers blaring music or ads. No glaring, gabbling TV screen showing disjointed little sound bites.
It really scares me that gas corporations (yes, you, Sunoco) now think people need to be entertained (and advertised to) for the few minutes it takes to fill up your car. Is it really going to kill a customer to stand still and not do anything but watch the pump run for a couple of minutes? Do they feel bad that they don't want us to talk on our cell phones at the pump, even though there's no proof of anyone blowing themselves up this way, so they give us TV instead? Maybe they're just trying to distract us from rising gas prices? Or is it that important to fill up every spare moment in life with advertising?
The overhead music I don't always mind, because it sometimes plays random 80s songs I love, but these TVs over the pumps are just offensive. The volume is always too loud, and there's always some frenetic Ryan Seacrest clone jumping around and/or yelling. You have to turn away not to look at it, but you're still assaulted by the racket it makes. I try to go to quieter stations without these things, but tonight I spaced on getting gas until this station was the only one left on my way. But I lucked out. The TVs were sitting there with jumbled frozen screens that resembled those old emergency-broadcast test patterns.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a TV hater. I own multiple idiot boxes, and I even have cable. I just don't see any need for customers to be subjected to blaring TVs in public places, except maybe in a sports bar, where watching a game is part of the overall reason for being there. Or if something major is going on (on the 9/11 level, not the O.J. White Bronco Chase level). Otherwise, why do we need more noise, ads and glare in our lives? Do we all truly need to watch Dr. Phil while waiting for an oil change? Turn. It. Off.
Speaking of that whole thing with talking on your cell phone while pumping, did you know that Wawa has cell phone Big Brothers? A couple of years ago, as I was finishing a cell phone conversation while getting gas at one of those vast canopied gas-pump clusters, the music stopped and this guy got on the PA system: "Ma'am at Pump Four? Attention, ma'am at Pump Four? Could you turn off your cell phone please?" Pretty much everyone pumping gas stopped and swiveled to check out which idiot's being busted at Pump Four, including me. Oh. I'm at Pump Four. CLICK.
Posts
1 comment:
Interesting to know.
Post a Comment