Be Excellent To Each Other

We were told that if the lorry was filling the station up and someone used their phone we'd have a mini explosion I used to pee myself every time the guy came to deliver the petrol, I was 16

Pretty sure you have to be 18 to work in a forecourt.
[edit]Nope, just the one I worked at.

Pretty sure you don't love as I was employed there. I was a general dogsbody

Well, yes, obviously a company would never BREAK the RULES.

A convenience store I used to work in had night shifts.
Only over-18s were allowed to work night shifts.
Quite a few under-18s worked night shifts.

I used to work in the shop bit most of the time, help out on the forecourt when needed, it was my first proper job after school-I used to hate clicking the things to accept the pump though, now it's all funky and computerised

Throwing sand on the oil...ahhh...the memories

And thank god it is, cos it's my job to fix them when they don't work!

Malc

Is there a garage called Robinsons in Kimbolton on your books? I used to work there.

we have Budgens Bedford which is on 82 Kimbolton Road, but they don't do fuel so I doubt it's them.

Malc

No, that's in Bedford, but I know the one.

I used to hate helping out filling the cars and cans, I don't drive myself and have never quite got the hang of filling up-one guy used to go mad at me if I was a penny over

EDIT: Ah, I have just been informed that women can't fill cars properly anyway...

I'm sure that I'll get called on this without any citation; but not using your phone on the forecourt isn't to do with the combustion of the fuel. It's to do with the interference from the mobile with the 'kit' that deals with the distribution of the fuel (and hence calculating your bill).

Or something.

Malc will probably tell you (then eat you).

I find that pretty hard to believe, I expect a device that measures how much fuel has passed through a single point in a hose is probably quite simple and wouldn't be affected by such things.

We've also got the ESSO in Spaldwick.

Malc

I'm not as big on the pumps, but as far as I know it is to do with the risk (however small) of blowing yourself up.

Malc

Told you



Agreed. Most of the pumps that I use seem to have an analogue type display with the click over digits so are unlikely to be affected; but it may be to do with interfering with those that have a digital display?

But the signals from the flow meter travel through wires to a computer in the pump (the 'kit' mentioned). All of which can be affected by RF interference. Unlikely these days, and probably not the reason for the law, but certainly not impossible.

However if you were using your phone while filling the car, and dropped it, and something sparked, that could very well cause a fire. It's probably a low risk, but if you were allowed to do it, I bet you'd see several petrol station fires a year as a result.

Ooh! That closed for a while and then opened again.

This must be thrilling for you other people

There was a small fire about a year after I left, some pillock had actually lit a fag up-amazing really how fucking idiotic some people are

It can always be move to Blibs I suppose

Lighting one is properly stupid, but a lit cigarette won't ignite petrol. You can put them out in a bucket of the stuff without fear.

Yeah I know-he apparently flicked the match on the floor after-hmmmm....petrol may be spilled on the floor? This may cause fire? Nope that didn't register with him I don't think

Where do you live, 1975?

They've only been ours since December by the looks of things, is that when they closed?

Malc

Nah, they closed years ago.

I told you this, but you've mangled it slightly. What I have heard in the past is that petrol stations sometimes use a wireless system to hook the pumps into the tills in the shop and that they are concerned that the mobile phone signal will interfere with that.

It's still nonsense though. If your GSM phone does a RAC burst[1] while you are filling up its literally pissing out as much radiation as it can, and it does that in your pocket. Even if they do use wireless comms in this manner it'd be in the 2.4Ghz ISM band, well away from mobile phone frequencies.

[1] Google tells me this is not the right term. It's when the phone needs to recalibrate power levels with the base station, so it goes into full on transmit mode. It causes the distinctive "duhh-duhh-duhh" noise over speakers when the phone isn't in use, and also causes excessive power drain in low signal areas as the phone keeps performing the operation to try and lock on to the signal).

It's not the liquid petrol on the floor you want to worry about, but the vapour, that's what ignites, but yes, still dangerous.

Malc

We (as a company) looked into supporting/providing that, but decided not to, and it seems we were right not to, most of the people that did offer it, have had so many hassles with it. We just have our serial cables going to our DOMS or Sitecontroller and all is well in the world.

Malc

Yes, but the scenario is a lit cigarette dropped onto concrete with a few drops of spilled petrol on it. This will catch fire, try it if you don't believe me.

We spent a hour at a bbq one year trying to light petrol spills with a cigarette, and we couldn't. It didn't seem to matter about the size of the spill. It fucked up the grass near the patio, mind.

Really? Oh. Maybe it depends on the cigarette type? I've seen it done anyway.. Further experimentation needed

MyFinger once lit a barbeque with chain lube. Almost took his eyebrows off.

Sure it wasn't a lighter?

We did it with brake cleaner one year. It set fire to a nearby tree.

Then we did fireball of death with a football, hang on, I'll find the picture.

It was definitely not the lighter than almost removed the eyebrows!

\
Hoyi-yu-kan!

I once shot a can of deodorant with an air rifle. We'd previously placed the can of deodorant in a carefully made circle of fire.

The resulting fireball took off my friend's eyebrows from 6 feet away.

.

My father-in-law always loudly scoffs when seeing the depiction of diesel as a dangerous flammable explosive. He words are usually "what a load of bollocks"

On the same theme: it annoys me when you get an announcement on planes saying "Please turn off your phones before we take off, even if your phone has a 'Flight Mode', because it may interfere..."

Really? Fuck off.

If a jumbo can be taken down by a mobile telephone then it shouldn't be in the air.

And if it can be taken down by something that no longer emits any sort of signal [Citation may be needed], then it definitely shouldn't be in the air.

Once again these are along the lines of: "There is almost 0 chance of you leaving your phone on causing the plane to crash, but it's not 0, so lets not take any risks huh?"

Malc

All very well, perhaps, but when mobile companies have specifically designed a mode for use on planes, whereby all connectivity is turned off, for the airlines to then turn around and say "You can't use it, even with that mode, la la la la la" is a bit pathetic and unfounded.

that's what the inflight magazines are for. Or...

"£5 for headphones sir. No you can't use your own because our connectors are deliberatley different"

I've not encoutered that. Ba, American and United both fit with my headphones. I assume this is easyjet's doing.

Indeed. It's one of the myffs as to why the Sherman tank was called a Ronson* - unlike many other tanks, it used petrol instead of diesel, the former being flammable, the latter not. The real reason for its combustibility was the lack of wet storage for the ammo, but there we are.

*A type of lighter of the time with the motto "lights first time!", much as the Shermans did when shot at.

If I remember correctly, the main reason they don't let you use your phone on aircraft is that it messes with the mobile networks if your phone can see more than one network cell at once.

you are right you have to be 18 to serve petrol.... working in the shop Ie not on the till. you can be younger

Whatever you do, although I doubt you will as theyre not very girly, do not get a Nokia 6500 slide, Ive had to return mine to the shop twice for being awful and its not even 12m old yet! I could do with returning it again but its due for renewal in December so not gonna bother.

Its a great phone except it doesnt do what a phone is supposed to very well and thats make and receive calls...the sound quality and general connection is pants pie.

Last Nokia for me for a while...its put me right off!

ps. Sorry FLIS I dont mean to sound ungrateful for your loving xmas pressy, not your fault it turned out pants x

If you think that is going to get you off the hook, I can only conclude that you've never actually met any women and the FLIS I've heard over Live is just you putting on a falsetto.