# Gas station reduces prices and respects diversity



## heruide (Feb 12, 2008)

It is not very often that one finds a commercial outfit that is doing a great civic duty and certainly I did not expect this to be a gas station. Unfortunately, while I would like to give you the name and location, I can not do that as I know it would create all sorts of traffic problems and require lots of overtime by a small town police department.

However, I thought I would share my experience. I pulled into this gas station and as soon as I looked at the gas pump I notice that the button for the regular gas was on the right while the super gas was on the left. This is opposite than you would see at most gas stations.






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So I stopped for a moment and thought how considerate the station owner was to do this.

Why? Well here are the reasons:

1. Cultural diversity - Middle Eastern languages such as Arabic and Hebrew are written from right to left. So anyone with this background would expect to look at the buttons moving in the opposite direction than we Euro-centric folks do. Obviously, this gas station owner knows this and wanted to make sure his/her Middle Eastern customers felt right at home.

2. Consistency - All the pump stations were set up the same. I would have been offended if there was one token pump station that was set aside for customers with a Middle Eastern background. 

The only disappointment was the big sign advertising the prices. This still had the regular price on the left followed by the higher price on the right. I'm sure if I had pointed this out the station owner would have corrected this ASAP even if it meant lost of sales to the neighboring gas stations.






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3. Special thanks to OPEC - More than likely, the gas at this station is from one of the OPEC's Middle Eastern countries. So the cultural sensitivity is appropriate. As a wantabe tree hugger, I also think it is appropriate to recognised OPEC's effort to keep gas prices high thus reducing our comsumption of this non-renewable resource as well as reducing green house gas emisssions.

4. Real money savings - I believe that the automobile owners that typically use super unleaded and who would normally press the right bottom, would be in for a real treat when they saw how inexpensive it was to fill up their tank. Plus once they realized that their automobile could operate very well on regular gas they would see their monthly gas bills drop significantly.

5. Appreciative engines especally those pulling a camper - My engine runs on regular gas. However, a shade tree mechanic once told me that engines liked to get high octane gas once in awhile. Having pumped high octane gas before I know from the vibes of the engine that it did appreciate this mistake. I'm sure some ad executive will come up with the slogan "High octane makes a happy engine".

Now I know some of you reading this think that I'm way too naive for my own good. Also I know there are others who think I need to have my eyes examined as it is obvious I can't see a scam when I'm looking it straight in the face. 

Please rest assured that I operate on the basis that behind every dark cloud is a silver lining, the glass is half full, one should be given the benifit of the doubt and a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty... I didn't think I could get so many cliques into the same sentence.

Having said this, I'm seriously thinking of creating a web site where other gas stations with the same practice could be identified and flagged for unsuspecting travelers.

Ruide


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