Circle K

I love the Polar Pop, because it’s styrofoam & I can reuse it a couple of times at home, and it’s 85¢! So I visit quite a few different Circle K locations on a semi-​regular basis. But this one is closest to my house, and also my favorite. They never run out of ice! The regular cashiers are friendly, too. And, by far, this is the cleanest Circle K I’ve seen. I also get my gas here sometimes, although in general, I find gas is cheaper in Pinellas County, so I don’t often fill up here.

The Shell gas station portion of this Circle K provided me with a great example of how NOT to design a fuel pump… It’s like they took industry-​accepted concepts of design and usability and said, «F** it.»
It isn’t as bad as one from Marathon, but it’s pretty close.
My biggest annoyance was the fake pin pad immediately next to the card-​reader. Here’s the thing… if you need to have a sticker telling people where to find the keypad… it means your keypad isn’t in the correct place. Creating a «faux-​pad» in its own recessed area in the spot every other sane gas station places their keypads just messes with my head.
Though it’s difficult to tell from the picture I took (yes, I was really was annoyed enough to take picture), the actually keypad is actually quite low, so that it and the secondary card-​swipe I guess make the pump «handicap accessible».
And what’s the ratio of customers in wheelchairs versus those not in wheelchairs? I seriously doubt it’s anywhere near 1:1… So they are inconveniencing the majority of people in the off-​chance that someone in a wheelchair needs to use the pump???
But isn’t that ok? Isn’t it worth it, so everyone can use the pump?
That’s where it gets funny…
So it’s all at wheelchair height, but there’s a big curb along the bottom of the pump… and then there’s the vehicle… so if there was enough space for a wheelchair to get between the two, there’s now not enough length of fuel hose to actually be able to pump gas into the vehicle, as far as I can tell.
At this point, I think it’s safe to say that they are not truly trying to help out people in wheelchairs. Why else would they have an ‘assistance available’ sign up so high that you have to be standing to see it? They — like Big Tobacco — are obviously targeting children. They want pumping gas to appear cool and capture a new market. They are telling kids, «Want to look more mature? Put $ 40 on Pump 3.»
And, honestly, if they want to put stuff down there to make it more accessible to all of the handicapped «little people» pre-​teens filling up their cars, great. I just want a normal-​height card-​swipe and keypad… preferably right next to each other. C’mon, is that really too much to ask?