Pilot/Flying J

 Just a short blog entry about  the truck stops - which are owned by the same company - listed in the title of this post.

First off, I have never liked either one, even before they combined together.  Pilots are trashy and cheapskates.  Flying J's have Dennys a lot of times but that's the only redeeming factor.  

Our company recently forged some sort of contract with them for purchasing all of our fuel from them exclusively.  I despised the idea of being forced to either of them. 

IN my route, there is only one of each, Flying J on exit 7 off of I-30, which has a very bad reputation for a variety of things and Lufkin off of 59 for the Pilot. 

I don't care how much fuel you buy, you aren't getting a free coffee from them. You can use your points to get it, yes, but the extra free coffee on top of that if you buy enough gallons of fuel the previous month? Nope.  Truckers from the golden age of trucking don't call these places truck stops. The era of free meals, drinks and perk  are over for the most part. 

Anyway, I go into the Pilot in Lufkin.  It's easier than going into the Flying J on 30 - that place is always busy and you can expect to wait for a while to even get to the pumps.  

I've been getting water refills since I was forced to go back in there.  Free, of course, most of these travel centers give free tap water regardless of fuel purchase. 

Imagine my surprise when I took an over-priced salad - $7.99 for this little thing - and a refill cup of water to the checkout and the dude charges me $2.08 for the water.  When I saw the total of over $10 I was like, what? He told me the price of each and I just said no.   We went back and forth, I told him I've been getting free water here.  Nope, he says, they are wrong and should have been charging for it.

At this point, I asked for a manager and told the guy behind me he could go ahead of me.  He just shook his head and stood there, apparently interested in seeing what was going to happen next.  If they were going to charge me for water, I would have just left my cup there and the salad, they can keep it, I'll forego the water.  

It took a minute, but the manager finally comes out.  She smiles at me and asks me how she can help me?  Yes, this guy is trying to charge me $2.08 for this cup of water. I brought this cup in with me, it only has ice and water in it.  The man interjects, yes, it's a fountain drink. The manager gives him a pretty interesting look and then back to me: did you tell him there is only ice water in here? YES, SEVERAL TIMES.  

She looks back at him: You KNOW this, we don't charge for water?!  He objects and she corrects him again!  What an @$$!  He finally threw his hands up in there, declared "WHATEVER!" and took the drink charge off of there. No apology, no I'm sorry sir, just pure attitude. Just another reason to despise this horrible chain of travel centers.