At the district or manager level, what was the incentive like? Were you guys tied to fuel break-even metrics, or was it based on fuel gallons sold? How did they incentivize your compensation package?

Managers were paid a monthly salary and had a commission. Their commission was based on 50 cents for every thousand gallons of fuel sold. Additionally, they earned 6% of their profit margin. This was calculated by taking all merchandise margins and subtracting certain expenses. They didn't charge for maintenance or commission, as commission is an expense. The remaining margin was what they earned 6% from. Managers made a monthly commission based on their fuel sales and merchandise profit margin.

Yes, and to your point, the last couple of years have been a very tight labor market. With inflation and jobs readily available, there was quite a lot of turnover not only in convenience stores but in many other industries. How would you describe the talent pipeline within Murphy USA? You mentioned there was a focus on promoting from within. Can you talk about that for a moment?

At the store level, I always felt that promoting from within was beneficial. You start with cashiers, promote them to shift leads, then to assistants, and finally to managers. This way, you have someone who already knows the business instead of bringing in an outsider. I would say about 95% of my managers and assistant managers were promoted from within. I can't say it's like that everywhere, but they do encourage promoting from within. At the office level, from the district manager (DM) up, maybe 20% to 30% were promoted from within. We went through a phase where they brought in a lot of people from Dollar General. When you bring in people, they tend to bring their own people, and it trickles down.