Did a gas station post a sign saying that customers must show proof of employment to make a gas purchase? No, that's not true: The picture of the sign is satire and was created using an online image generator.
The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) on May 12, 2021. The post featured an image of an ExxonMobil gas station with a sign that read:
MUST SHOW PROOF OF A JOB FOR GAS PURCHASE
WERE HIRING
This is what the post looked like on Facebook on May 12, 2021:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed May 12 22:04:42 2021 UTC)
The picture of the gas station featured in the post is the same picture used in this image generator from Atom Smasher that allows users to make their own gas station sign. The generator's URL is included at the bottom of the generator's image. A screenshot of the image generator is included below:
(Source: Screenshot taken on Wed May 12 21:47:49 2021 UTC)
The image in the Facebook post is cropped above the placement of the generator's URL. Another Facebook post that features the same image displays the generator's URL. A screenshot of the full-length generated picture that appeared in the other Facebook post is included below:
(Source: Screenshot taken on Wed May 12 22:11:19 2021 UTC)
Lead Stories performed reverse image searches on Yandex, Google and TinEye for images similar to the one featured in the generator and found the same image with different signs throughout the results. Atom Smasher features several generators, including a highway sign generator, a graffiti generator and a Las Vegas strip generator.
