I still miss having someone pump my gas and clean my windshield.
How much would you pay me?
Kidding, of course. Look: back when gas was 34 cents a gallon (and yes, I remember those days), service station owners still made enough of a profit to be able to afford to pay a low-skill/no-skill kid a couple of bucks an hour so that he could operate the pumps, clean the glass, check the oil, and refill your fluids, if need be.
The kid might also have a chance to observe the (higher-paid/higher-skilled) shop mechanics playing their trade. He could stick around after hours and learn how to rotate and balance tires, do a wheel alignment, perform an oil change, do a brake or transmission job, replace the plugs, learn the difference between GM and Mopar, do tune-ups...
And then, maybe he'd get certified and the owner would hire him on as a mechanic. Or else, he'd just make some dough, learn some responsibility and continue his education elsewhere.
But today, everything has changed. Margins are tight. Minimum wage laws greatly preclude the possibility of hiring unskilled labor. And the business has evolved and differentiated: gas stations are less full-service enterprises, and more refueling pits attached to a convenience store. Cars (like everything else) are computerized and far more complex mechanically. 30 years ago, I could swap out a carburetor and replace the condenser, points and plugs by myself. Those parts don't even exist anymore (except for the spark plugs, which I can still gap and replace, but I digress...)
Low-skilled mechanical labor has been replaced with highly-skilled electronic and mechanical technicians who train rigorously, and must receive industry work certifications before they can be hired. And they are paid accordingly. "Entry-level" in the auto service business today isn't cleaning the dead bugs off a windshield - it's scheduling service visits, tracking accounts payable, researching warranties, and calling vendors for parts deliveries. Different world.