Cinema Customer Scoop #4: 'Sir.'

Working at Cinemas have likely been detrimental to my health. Not from eating too much popcorn (can't stand more than a handful of the stuff), or from an overdose of caffeinated beverages, but from those people who seems to mindlessly wander in and expect nothing but my indebted servitude. I've likely lost a few blood vessels in my eyes due to the stress given by the amount of needless stupidity expressed by cinema clientele.

For example, I opened on a Saturday a few weeks back, and for some reason some of the front doors was left unlocked from the night before. Mind you, there you have to go though two sets of doors to enter into the lobby, so there is a small area between the sets of doors, forming a makeshift zoo enclosure. A few people entered into the lobby before we actually opened, and I told them to please wait outside as we were not yet open for business. The first group of people understood and promptly waited outside in front of the box office, sadly the subsequent people did not have the mental capacity to understand and follow such orders.

The next people who came found the first unlocked door, but did not take the time to check all of the doors in the second group, instantly coming to the conclusion that they were trapped. Simply going back out of the door they just walked though never even occurred to them, and they didn't bother to warn any of the poor souls coming in that they too would also be stuck. So, in the span of about five minutes a horde of idiots flooded the small space, only to have walk back outside once the doors were unlocked, as the window where you pay is outside of the lobby, not the other way around.

Upon the day of me writing this, a boy found a way of making my brain explode by doing something so stupid that made my brain nearly perform an illegal operation, and have to shut down. At my theater we have a machine that makes a particular frozen beverage, of which we have two flavors. But, due to the extreme cheapness of our general manager, we rarely (if ever) perform any maintenance on the machine (I wouldn't be surprised if he just took it out of the dumpster from another theater.) So, when it isn't producing soupy drinks, it feels the need to cause the beverage to expand inside of its cup. This has led to many people being given drinks which overflow and spill on the counter. No matter how many times you tell people that it will expand, and that they should drink it, they never listen.

But today was no different. Normally you can catch the expanding drinks before the flow out the top, and dump out the excess in the sink, but some get away. Normally people who get away with an expanding drink notice, and dump the excess in the trash, or down it in one gulp, yet not today. A young lad of Tom Sawyer age had his grandmother buy him a cherry frozen-drink, then went on his merry way. My friend Jerrod and I become occupied with filling out a crossword puzzle when I heard the word "sir" being said in the lobby. I looked up to see the little gremlin standing towards me, holding up his now overflowing drink in the air like the Olympic torch.

He just stood there stupidly holding up his drink, and saying "sir" as though I could enter in a fantastical code that could make his drink stop spilling and go back into his cup. Perhaps he was waiting for me to come around and take it from him, but I guess kids don't believe in counters, seeing as one was standing in between the two of us. In the time it would take me to venture over to where he was, I'm sure he would have found a way to spill the rest of his drink, then set the building on fire. After a few seconds I sighed and told him to bring his drink over to the counter, because apparently he didn't know such a thing was possible. Thankfully someone else took care of his mess as Jerrod and I both had to retreat to the scullery to both laugh hysterically, and become enraged.

The following emotions were so contradictive that my brain melted from exhaustion and had this article written by the Alejandroid 2.0.

Cinema Customer Scoop #3: If Only Phonics Came In Pill Form...

Evidently, the company which owns the theater where I am employed seems to believe that it's employees should both follow the USPS's code, and have the patience of Prometheus. Upon my arrival to work at three PM (Central Time), on Thursday the seventeenth day of March, in the year of our lord two-thousand and eleven I entered into the box office to find my coworker David. I was glad to find that I would not be suffering the wrath of brainless customers alone. Seeing as I would be there until after midnight, I needed all the help I could get. Though David only worked until five, I was later joined by Mattie later in the day, and we both learned to become greatly annoyed a incredibly irking mechincal problem.

To my dismay I discovered a horrible plague which had affected the electronic money machines throughout the course of the day. Apparently the building's internet service went down at some point during the night, an no one noticed or cared and it had gone on unresolved. Because of this, whenever you would enter in a credit card transaction, it would take eighteen seconds of your life away, and not give them back. This led to many a supreme awkward silence as you wait for the computer takes it's merry time printing out the ticket. As it took eighteen miserable seconds for this to transpire, a large portion of my life has been spent not talking to people while holding their debit cards.


But eventually the day came to an end, and I went home for a handful of hours, only to return to the theater at ten-thirty the next morning. To my great disappointment(and expectation) the internet had not been repaired, and card transactions still ate away a third of a minute of time away from me. According to one of the managers who called the company's corporate office telling them about the fact that the machines were acting so slowly, and likely was causing the company to lose money by simply accepting cards despite the fact that the information could not be sent out to the card companies the card made a purchase. The head office said they might get around to it on Tuesday. Showing that the company doesn't even care about earning money at this point, we decided to simply continue on possibly losing money.

Eventually the internet became operational again (thanks to some elves I guess) and I was able to send customers away quickly, instead of being forced to stare at their meaty faces longer than needed. Once again I was given Mattie as a cell-mate, but we also received several visitors, who would eventually crowd the box like a phone booth filled with 1920's college students. Around four thirty Bow came in to take away the cash monies from my drawer so I wouldn't have to work for the last half hour. But as she was pulling the cash from the drawer a rather portly and ape like man waddled up to the window. Sensing that something stupid was coming she rapidly said "Someone get them" many a time, but it was to no effect. It was bad enough when customers come up to the employee who is obviously busy with something that is not helping a customer, and demand satisfaction, but this was historically different.

The man came up to the window, looked down at Bow, read her nametag and decided for some unknown reason to shout out "Me Bow!" like a Neanderthal. This led to four grown men to shuffle out of site and laugh themselves stupid. After hearing the customer Bow's jaw tightened to an extent that it could make diamonds out of coal. A happy moment I will treasure forever.


After the not-Gieco cave man left, I still had about twenty-five minutes before my shift ended, and there was no money in my register. Unfortunately a line started to build up in front of Mattie, so I had to go back and work on my impoverished computer. Despite me constantly informing the line that I had no cash in the drawer, and was only able to process credit or debit cards they still came up clutching those pieces of green paper.

Eventually Bow decided to write a sign telling customers that I was only able to accept those wallet dwelling plastic planes. But this would require customers to actually read something, which as we know is one of their least developed skills. Hell most of them don't even know to put the money into the opening at the bottom of the window, a surprisingly large number of them press the money up to the glass, only to find that there is some kind of shield between me and them.

After the addition of the sign, I still had to constantly point and inform people that my line would not accept cash. Eventually another apish man came up to me and tried to give me cash money, to which I told him I would only accept cards. Apparently this was believed to be a verbal attack on him so he quipped at me with a mighty "Well, where does it say that?!" to which I pointed to the piece of paper which appeared to float above my left shoulder. So he countered with a crushing "Well you should get a bigger sign!" Granted the sign was not the largest size possible, customers still would not have read it anyways. Apparently reading is a chore to them. So, to assist them I place the note directly in front of my face, but apparently this was still not subtle enough for them. If people actually cared about reading, Hooked on Phonics would make a fortune off of nearly illiterate baby boomers.

The Audacity of the Masses

Throughout my career of working in movie theaters, I have accumulated a treasury of titillating tales showing the dark side of the creature known as Man. Now, when I say dark side, I don't simply mean a basic idea of evil, but rather an hash of the smaller things that compose the lives of us all. Over my years I have seen examples of hubris, malice, self-infatuation, slobbery, sloth, stupidity, another thing starting with an "S," arrogance, and above all ignorance. Perhaps I will eventually sit down and write a seven volume epic about my journeys throughout the life of a cinema worker, but not now. As of this entry I will regale you with three short anecdotes which occurred within the last month.

Usually people complain when we as employees do something less than productive, or for some ridiculous reason they do not get their way. But in some strange and rare occurrences they complain because we were simply doing our jobs. On Sunday the 16th of January 2011, a manager of mine; Ware, the magenta-haired Alyssa, and myself received one of this enormously stupid complaints. The three of us were standing at podium enjoying some Earl-Grey and raspberry scones, and Alyssa was notifying us on her theater work in the West End. Wait, no that's not right. Ah, yes. I had just returned from taking out some trash and didn't want to go back into the concession stand yet. The doors leading to the dumpster are right next to theater 11, which was showing Black Swan that week.

A small woman wearing a yellow jacket, and toting a large popcorn walked up to us with a slightly smug look on her face. She complained that she kept hearing the door open and closing during the movie and it was very distracting her from watching "Swan Lake." I followed this stupid remark by telling her, that those doors are used by employees so we were able to leave, or take the trash out. It is not a large grapefruit or bottle of Pine-Sol, I can't stress that enough. She went on to say rather indignantly that perhaps we shouldn't use the door while the movie is playing. Also customers use those doors from time to time, it's clearly labeled as an Exit. Did she expect us to bar anyone from leaving that way? Hopefully she went home, realized she was terribly wrong, and sat in shame.

The other two events happened within hours of each other, so as can be assumed, my limits were being largely prodded. I had made it though several hours of a shift , but fate decided it wasn't meant to last. Within the yellow light of the early afternoon waddled in Ms. Butterslob. She stood slightly taller than Gimli son of Gloin, with some owl-eye inducing glasses, and a grimace that would send wombats whimpering without weather-proof wallets. She looked me in the area of my face where she believed my eyes to be, and ordered a medium drink and small popcorn.

I handed her the drink and popcorn, and she handed over the money, and I gave her the change (if only I knew that she didn't deserve it.) After getting her popcorn she vigorously took the bag and dumped a large portion of the contents onto the Formica infront of me and said "Pick that up." without an ounce of regret or sympathy. If that wasn't enough, she went and complained to my friend Danny who said she complained that:

1. I gave her too much popcorn

2. The popcorn was too expensive

If both of those were the case, why did she chuck out two dollars woth of corn? Perhaps she reached a point in her life where she decided to spite everyone as much as possible without them killing her outright. I think her days are numbered.

The other story from that day concerns someone closer to the womb than the tomb. An hour or so after the Ms. Butterslob incident, a young land around the age of ten wearing a cap in a jaunty way came up to my register. He ordered a cherry Icee, which was fine and not complicated in anyway, so I got it for him. His first strike was the fact that when I turned around to give it to him, he said he wanted a large. So, I had to make another cup for the punk. While I had my back turned he placed his money on the counter, which helps speed up the process of selling. Yet, when I gave him his drink and picked up the bill, there was an odd weight to it. I opened up the folded bill to find that it was wet, seeing my reaction to the damp nature of the money the idiot boy informed me that he dropped in the toilet before coming to the register. My mouth was agape. This child was so blindly stupid to the disgusting state of his currency that he did not realize he was holding something that shared water with human excrement. I was far to blinded with rage to further deal with the child, so I banished him away from my sight. It seems that the majority of generation X's rebellion made them into some rather sub-par parents. Who don't even tell their children not to pay with toilet money.


Now, had it been in a bidet, I might have been more accepting.

Diddly Design

I tend to spend some of my time working on what might call “art” though others, may simply believe to be some kind of hand spasm I had while holding a pencil. Though apparently today, a spasm on paper, or canvas can be considered art, the days have long since past where artists needed to put a great deal of effort into their work to receive some recognition. But now, any stripling with a ratty jacket and a beard can tape some yarn onto a pizza box and call it art.

Though I occasionally doodle, I do it as a hobby, rather than trying to make a career out of it. So, a lot of the time I may just jot something down in a sketch book, then not draw anything again for a week or more. Yet, as a child I would apparently try and fill any empty sheet of paper with some kind of visual representation of my insane imagination. A lot of my work usually consisted of atomically incorrect felines, often wearing sun glasses, because they were in effect “cool cats.” Because when you are a child, a pair of Blues Brothers’ style sunglasses was the definition of what it was to be cool, or perhaps it was just me who believed that.

Anyhow, during elementary school, it seemed that less was emphasized on reading, and more one things being covered in glitter and macaroni, or perhaps I was in the wrong classroom. Whenever we had some free time, I was usually choose to doodle, even doing so on the blank spaces of the practice TAAS test. “What?! A blank space? I’ll remedy that!” sounds like something I may have blurted aloud once I finished that pancake of a test.

On the occasions when we were assigned to draw something, or had the option of drawing something for class, I would nearly wet myself with excitement. My first memory of such an occasion was back in the first grade, when I was attending Memorial Primary in New Braunfels. From what I remember we were supposed to draw some kind of a representation of what people did on their summer vacation. Being the realistic young lad that I was, I choose something rather sensible and mainstream: A cat riding a wave on a surfboard. What else do cats do in the summer?

The picture was fairly basic, two waves, two fish, a towel, a cat, and a mighty happy sun. Like the cat, the sun also sported a pair of sunglasses and had a refreshing drink in his hand. Now, despite the complete lack of any kind of proper depth, or lighting properties, my teacher found a fault with my picture that she decided to bring to my attention. The sun had a brown bottle in his hand, of a refreshing drink, but apparently because I had labeled it as Beer, I had offended everyone in the entire school, and brought shame on the heads of my family. She let the fact that a cat was surfing, and wearing sunglasses slide, but horror of horrors! The sun drinking a beer? How dare he!

Seeing as the sun is 4,570,000,000 years old, I’m fairly sure it’s old enough to drink. But alas, I believe I gave up on the battle, and added the addition of the word “root” to the bottle, allowing for my classmates continuing their non-alcoholic ways for at least another ten years. How was I to know what Sol was a member of AA, and had been trying to stay sober for the last two epochs?


Surely, not even all of Rembrandt's work combined could compare to this.

Elipse Absurdity and a Raging Redhead

As currently I am largely given box office shifts at work, I happen to have to deal with a lot of the crazies that come up to expel their pointless flap at me through a sheet of glass. Though sometimes I get the pleasure of witnessing someone throw a hissy fit without their anger being directed at me. Last Sunday (8-1-2010) I was in the box office with Ricky and Miss Bow, so thankfully I knew I wouldn’t be completely bored to death during my six hour shift.
Occasionally customers will pre-order their tickets, usually when they are buying a large amount of tickets, or for a movie that is expecting to sell out on it’s opening weekend. While working box with me Ricky had a customer, a blonde woman wearing a white blouse, she had apparently pre-ordered tickets for Eclipse, and wanted to redeem them to see the movie. She flipped Ricky her credit card so that he could put it through the machine, and print the tickets, as flying platypus jumping out of the machine isn’t likely to happen. And that way…was no different. Though strangely enough, the card did not work, as a message reading “No Transaction Found” appeared on the screen when the card was swiped.
Ricky told the blonde lady that apparently the card was not the one that she used to pay for her tickets with. She took this to be some kind of strike against her, and began to yell at him for what was obviously his attempt to publicly humiliate her in front of the absent customers behind her. Following this she went inside and knocked at the door, and Ricky went to open the door without checking the peep-hole. As he opened the door the woman began ranting at Miss Bow who stood by wishing for psychic powers, so that the lady would blow up. We closed the door on her, and barricaded ourselves inside the box offices as if he were under attack by sasquatches from the future. Eventually the blonde woman found her ticket conformation code, and we put it in the machine, waiting for a dingy-load of tickets to come up. Alas only one ticket popped up, leaving us very disappointed.


Despite my obviously angry and gladiator-like exterior, I don’t try and get myself into fights with most people, seeing as they would instantly lose once I showed them my incredible kung-fu grip. Recently, Linzie; a colleague of mine returned from an extensive trip of a certain boot shaped country located in the soft underbelly of Europe. Though we aren’t the closest of friends, we aren’t above saying “hello” to one another in passing, or perhaps we were. As for a long time we would simply open our eyes wide as we passes one another in the hallway, as though we had just seen something rather shocking.
On one of her first days back working Stateside I was in the box office changing the movie times, when my manager Chris walked in, followed by Linzie. We had gotten to chatting while I was going through the plastic rectangles in a fastidious fashion, and replacing the now outdated show times for movies. At some point of the conversation I had mentioned that Linzie’s hair was the same color as a well known citrus fruit, this was my undoing. She flew into a rage, and gingerly (pun) picked up a local screwdriver and reeled it back to strike me down into the ground. I bravely cowered in fear as she stood above me with a flat head, ready to hack my ineffective brain all over the floor, while Chris stood back and laughed.
I’m not sure how I survived, perhaps she felt I was too pathetic to kill, or just not good sport. Whatever it was she learned in me a lesson I shant soon forget. Unless I do.

Cinema Customer Scoop #1: Card-Swiping Lunacy

In my four and a half years of working at movie theaters it is inevitable that I will have my fair share of stupid customers and the inane gibberish that spouts from their noise holes. Each of them has their own personal stories, each with it’s own aggravating idiom. Now, you will be able to enjoy those wonderful stories of ignorance and all around nearly unbelievable acts of ineptitude.

This story comes from the month of June, in the year of two-thousand and ten. Obama was president, and the world was not yet overrun by pink zebras with deplorable table manners. I was working on concessions all day, the sun had gone down, so the glare from the cars in the parking lot was no longer frying my retinas. The box office worker had needed a break, and I being the only other person qualified to work it, left concessions and sauntered over to box.

I gave a rappa-tap on the door, and found it opened by Thomas, who was working within. He left and I sat down to a half hour of taking green paper, and exchanging it for glossy red papers. The first twenty-eight minuets went on without a hitch, few customers came, as I was assume everyone was out hog-calling, and hadn’t the thought to go and see a movie. I was almost done covering for Thomas, and a squat-bent up little man with a wife in a purple blouse came up to the window.

He ordered two tickets for Grown Ups, as if that wasn’t a big enough mistake, he proceeded to hand me his credit card, which became an extreme source of anger for me. I swiped the card through the machine, and the message popped up on my screen reading “This is not a Credit Card,” despite the fact that I looked very much like one, and it even said the words on it’s colorful surface. I shook off this first attempt at preventing the card from working, and went about swiping it again, as sometimes the register sometimes will refuse to scan on the first swipe. The message appeared several more times, so I shouted “Vile machine! Thou shoust not make me a fool!” and began entering the card’s information manually.

After entering the card number and expiration date, then asking the customer for his billing zip code, I turned the card around to find it’s three digit security code. What’s this!? The code was absent from its spot, not only had the ink from the letters disappeared, but the entire of the backside of the card had been sanded smooth. Unable to read the back of the card, I asked the squat man if he knew the code, quite obviously he didn’t. But, he did go on to tell me to keep trying and swipe the card fruitlessly. After five minutes of “this is not a credit card” I told him it did not work. He then produced a second card, which worked instantly.

Why hadn’t he given me the working card from the get go? Instead he let me go about frivolously trying to make the shell-shocked card work, despite it obviously being long dead. After leaving box, I saw him talking to Sean my manager about something. I scurried away into the hallway so that he wouldn’t see me, and attack me with his defunct card. Sean later told me that the small man said I had abused the card and given him a dirty look when I threw his tickets at him. Despite the fact that I give a neutral reaction to his card not working, he made me out to be a rather angry-elf who stabbed his card in the heart with a letter opener.