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The woes of a concessionist
I work at a movie theater. "Oh wow! That's one of those 'cool' jobs!" Hardly. Don't worry; I was once that naive. I actually looked forward to working when I first got hired. Then I actually worked, and I realized that many people just don't realize that we concessionists are human beings just like them. Brace yourself, this will most likely turn out to be a lengthy rant.
First of all, people like to assume that I can read their mind, and then get mad when I don't. "I would like a drink and popcorn." Umm... that's fantastic. What drink would you like? What size drink would you like? What size popcorn would you like? Would you like butter on that popcorn? It makes my job easier when you actually tell me what you want rather than be as vague as humanly possible. I realize that some people don't realize that they didn't tell me what drink they want, but I don't understand the people who just say, "a large drink" and stare at me and leave me to assume what drink they want. Believe it or not, some people actually get annoyed with me when I ask what drink they would want. A lot of people seem surprised when I ask what drink they would like. "Oh, I get a choice!" So they look back at the choices and quickly make a decision. Did they not think that when they asked for a drink that they had to make a choice? It's not really that hard. Though, what I love most is when someone came up and asked for "candy." Umm... well, there's just a small selection of candy to choose from. "Which candy would you like?" Or people who ask for M&M's. Now, it seems obvious that when people just ask for M&M's that they want plain, but no. About half the time (if not more so), they want peanut M&Ms. What the cravitz? How am I supposed to know that? That reminds me of Sour Patches. There are two kinds of Sour Patch candy. Sour Patch Kids and Sour Patch Watermelon. That doesn't really annoy me; I just think it's funny. "I want Sour Patch Kids Watermelon" or "Sour Patch Kids, the watermelon kind." Actually, what really cracks me up is when people ask what the difference is between them. "Well, one of them is kids and one is watermelons."
That leads me to how people order. I realize that it can be a hard choice to decide what they want, but what I don't understand is when we are really busy and they have been standing in line for at least 15 minutes, and they don't start deciding things until they come up to me. "Okay, now, what did you want? Okay, umm, one large Cherry Coke--oh wait. You want Sprite? Okay, make that Sprite. And umm, what did you want? Okay a small popcorn and a large... Pibb. And umm, I would like some nachos..." Didn't you have all that time in line to decide these things?? You could decide it all beforehand, and then when you come up to me just say, "Three small popcorns, 2 large Cherry Cokes and a large Coke, nachos and a large popcorn with butter and that's it." See, now that didn't take very long and now I have all of the information I need. I can get everything so much faster if you tell me it all at once. I can get all the drinks going while I get popcorn, or whatever else you want. It just goes smoother. That also ties into just telling me up front everything in your order. It's so awkward when someone just says, "A large Coke" and then they stare at me, and I assume that's it so I go and make it. I put it down and they tell me "a large popcorn." So I get it. "And a hot dog." I grab it. "And Goobers." I grab it. It takes about 4 times longer to do it that way. Now, I've come to realize that I should ask if there's anything else to eliminate that problem, and I've gotten better at that, but when you just stare at me, sometimes when I'm in a hurry I just assume that you're done and hurry off to prepare it. Telling me everything up front is always a good bet. *thumbs up*
I realize that movie theater concessions are ridiculously expensive. I'm not stupid. I'm also not the person who decides on these prices. Don't get annoyed with me when you came up and decided to buy the overpriced food, and don't be surprised when I say the final price. The prices are right behind me in huge letters and numbers with bright flashing lights around them. It's not like the theater tries to hide how expensive it is. They don't force you to buy their food. But Jephthah, they don't let us bring in outside food. If you really wanted to, you could sneak food in; it's not that hard to do. I can tell you that at the theater where I work, most people don't care if you bring in outside food. We all know that our concession food is way overpriced. Ugh, speaking of overpriced stuff, our dumb tubs of popcorn. Now, this is only relevant to Cinemark theaters, or at least at the theater that I work at. Every once in a while we get these promotional tubs of popcorn. The first time they were $5.75 and the second time they were $6.25, while the large bag of popcorn is $4.75. Now, I've filled the large bag and poured that popcorn into a tub, and it almost fills it up. There's like half of a scoop of popcorn added to the top of the tub. That's it. Both popcorns have one free refill. The only difference is the tub won't leak butter and it is easier to handle. Though, I guess the most annoying part is that since it's a promotional item, the price isn't posted anywhere. People like to assume that the tub is the large popcorn, despite the 3 prices that are marked and the three bags of popcorn advertised. So they ask for a large and I have to clarify and then it's normally awkward and the person has to tell me how they thought the tub was the large and they are thinking that they are getting so much less popcorn, when in reality they are really getting a better deal getting the large bag of popcorn. (That was a rather long sentence.) And since we have these occasional promotional items, whenever we don't have the tubs, people always ask about them and are disappointed to only get the better deal of the large bag of popcorn. People always seem to underestimate the amount of popcorn in those bags.
Speaking of popcorn, there are so many people that make sure to tell me to get the "fresh" popcorn. We have two poppers in our main concession stand, and there are many times when people tell me to get the "fresh" popcorn from the popper that is popping at that moment. I can understand their demand to an extent; they want the most for their money. But it does cause me more trouble, and many times when they ask that, the popper that I'm closer to just got finished popping popcorn, and the popcorn in the other popper is literally about 10 seconds fresher. But, for you ma'am, I'll burn myself for the "fresh" popcorn. Yes, those kernels are rather hot when they come shooting out of the poppers. Oh wait, I'm a stupid teenager who doesn't care about anyone or about anything, so I don't matter. Gotchya. Anyway, back to getting "fresh" popcorn. There was one woman... *shakes fist* Okay, so one of our two poppers wasn't working, and we were really busy. So we are constantly popping new popcorn, but of course, one popper doesn't suffice. So, people are ordering popcorn left and right since this is a movie theater, and many people are having to wait a couple of minutes to get their popcorn because we have to wait for the popper to pop the popcorn. So, anyway, back to this woman. She orders a large popcorn, and luckily we still had some leftover from when the popper last popped, so she didn't have to wait. The popcorn was maybe one minute old. I filled up a large bag, and she ate a piece and said, "Oh no. This won't do." Apparently, it wasn't hot enough for her. It wasn't "fresh." So, I poured her popcorn back into the popper. Since we were so low as it was, I wasn't going to waste that popcorn. So, I waited a couple of minutes and got her some fresh popcorn. I half expected her to complain about that popcorn, but it really couldn't get any fresher. I mean, come on! If you carry that popcorn over to your theater and sit down, then that popcorn is just as fresh as the popcorn that I just gave you. What the cravitz.
Another thing that bothers me is people assuming that I'm an idiot. About half of the people that order from me have to lean forward and look me in the eye and carefully tell me everything they want in their order, like I'm a small child. Not to mention my personal bubble space. Give me some room, man. I can understand you if you talk to me like a normal human being. And, you know, the baby-talk is always accompanied with the big eyes and serious look as if I'm going to look at them dumbly and completely screw up their order. "Did you get that? A L-A-R-G-E C-O-K-E." I got it, sir. No problem. You are actually slowing me down.
Another annoyance of ordering is simply understanding the customer. It's the exact opposite of the last little rant. There are of course people who have English as a second language and make grunts and point their finger to order. That's actually somewhat entertaining at times. Actually, what's more entertaining is what people call the different candies. Such as Buncha Crunch. Isn't that clearly marked as Buncha Crunch? You wouldn't believe how many people call it Cruncha Bunch. What the heck? It's a bunch of little crunches. And then of course there are Goobers. So many people call them Gobbers, and just today someone called them Gobblers. Then there are Whoppers, or so-called Whoopers. Look, on the box they even replaced the one and only 'o' with a Whopper to make it more obvious that there is only one. Though, like I said, those are more entertaining than annoying. What is annoying, though, is when people point to what candy they want in the glass case. Do they realize that I can't see what they are pointing at? Sometimes I just start listing off candy and eventually they say yes.
Oh... butter. Butter, butter, butter. At the movie theater I work at, we have the butter pump back with us and with each person we have to ask if they want butter on their popcorn. It's so funny how easy it is to forget a simple yes or no question of if they want butter or not. But, that's not what this rant is really about. I know people might think that we put on too much butter, but seriously, I think that any amount of butter is too much butter. That stuff if so unhealthy. (It actually isn't real butter, anyhow.) But, I have this pattern set for how I put on butter. I like to cover all of the popcorn on the top, and that normally takes about 4 or 5 squirts of butter. It looks like so much more than it is. So many people see me put like 2 or 3 squirts and say, "That's plenty" and I've got half of their popcorn buttered. It's like they have this idea in their mind that when a squirt of butter goes into their popcorn that all of the popcorn within the bag gets a small portion of that squirt. That is so not true. With one little squirt, it's probably like 5 or 6 pieces of popcorn got butter on them. Way to go. Why get butter in the first place? I've put enough stupid buttery flavored popping oil on popcorn to know how it is distributed better than you do. Though, I suppose it is your popcorn, and you want it your way. *rolls eyes* Whatever. As long as you don't come back and complain to me, I'll get over it.
Alright, I suppose this rant has gone on long enough. I could go on and on for at least 3 times as much as what I have now, but that would just be boring. This already is boring, Jephthah. Well, more boring, I suppose. Just know that any concessionist you order from probably does not like their life at the moment and all they are thinking about is going home and getting away from customers and their job. Just try to be nice.
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