The premium or "clean" gas scam

I'm watching Marketplace now, where they debunk the whole "premium gas" claim that gas stations try to push on their customers.

I've long figured that regular gas was just fine for cars and that the "premium" thing was a scam, and I'm glad they're publicizing this.  But there's one segment of the show that I thought was stupid.

They did a hidden camera thing, went to various gas stations, and asked the gas station attendants which gas is best for their car, to see what they recommend.  And of course, a lot of them recommended the premium gas, as did some cashiers inside the station.

What the heck did they expect?  Did they expect the minimum wage workers who are told to promote the expensive gas (and are probably secret-shopped to ensure that they do) not to do their job?  Are the minimum wage workers supposed to somehow be experts on gas and to know any more than any of the rest of us that regular gas is just as good as premium gas, especially when they're being trained by their employer to believe that premium gas gives you better performance?  These folks aren't mechanics, they're just a bunch of people with really shitty jobs.

Way to fight the power - show everyone the way those minimum wage gas attendants (most of whom were men of colour whose first language wasn't English) are out to screw us over!  Basically, this segment was demonizing poor workers of colour as dishonest charlatans, and there wasn't anything explicit in the narration noting that these people are simply low-paid employees telling the customers what they either have been trained to believe is true or are told they have to tell the customers to keep their jobs.

At least they blanked out the faces of the attendants, and did the hardball interview with the corporate hack from the company.