Dirty, crazy, and unrelenting: What it’s really like working at a service station

“Unremittingly surreal mad dark circus” are the five words ex-service station worker (or console operator) of six years, David Goodwin, used to describe the reality of working in service stations when quizzed by carsales.

“There are things, people and situations that I know I will never see again as long as I live; things that only happen in servos after midnight,” he reveals.

While service stations – also known Down Under as ‘servos’ – may be a place that every driver frequents, most of us don’t think twice about what it’s like working within one.

That is unless of course you are like David and have lived (or are living) this reality, or have read his memoir, Servo: Tales from the Graveyard Shift, which details his experiences working in some of Western Melbourne’s servos.

David shared with carsales some of his most terrifying, entertaining, and mind-boggling stories; ones that will leave you with a new sense of respect, empathy, and pity for those behind the service station safety partition.

“Console operators live the mind-numbing entirety of their working lives inside an insanely bright cage strung with anti-jump protection wire, many of them stalking its scant space like restless leopards in a zoo,” David explained.

At night-time though, this zoo becomes even more dangerous with sleep deprivation and long, quiet stretches of nothingness creating the perfect environment to go a little bit crazy, or for the crazy to find you.

 “The ubiquity of and the need for the servo means they deal with every possible slice of humanity one can fathom. This includes snarling Neanderthals intent on the destruction of anything good and pure.”

Some of the strangest and scariest encounters David recalls include a giant shoplifting bee (who he describes as a “drunken lunatic in a bee suit” who stole a squeezable tube of honey and then flung it at passing cars); a Goliath-sized man who attempted to pay for porn magazines, smokes and roast chicken rolls with meth and stolen jewellery and having an array of random projectiles flung his way (engine oil, coins and even steak n’ cheese meat pies.)

“There was also a dreadlocked dude in a wheelchair who scoffed four Bubble ‘O Bills in five minutes, before covertly fashioning a ghetto ninja star from the ice cream sticks held together by the chewing gum from Bill’s famous bubble gum nose, which he then flung at me before rolling out of the store, cackling with glee,” David says.

Many of these unique encounters David believes are due to the service station’s ability to seemingly change people.

“It’s an intensely loud, colourful and stimulating environment,” he says.

Sometimes this can increase the inherent, or drug-fuelled craziness of people, other times it can bring out the opposite.

“There’s something about the night that softened people and lowered their inhibitions, leading to deep conversations of all types. I’ve held conferences on gender relations, consoled the dumped, and had three-hour conversations on existentialism.”

Although experiencing some quite perplexing and eye-opening one-off situations and conversations, David also says there was a very consistent reality that accompanies servos.

One repulsive and gross.

“While spew was a common occurrence pretty much everywhere, things 1, 2 and 3 all resided within the four forsaken walls of the outside toilet. That squalid six-foot cube was an unholy melange of shit, blood and wanton destruction as the toilet was often ripped from its hinges by those deep in the raging storm of methamphetamine psychosis,” he says.

Although there were positives for David, like friendships that he made with some customers and co-workers, the job itself, offers little, if anything to be desired - information that he urges all of us to take into consideration next time we fill up.

“I can assure you that none [console operators] of them want to be there, so above all: be kind, human, I implore you. And remember your damn pump number.”

David's book, Servo: Tales from the Graveyard Shift is available now.