Summer Job Chronicles: Dylan!!!!

Saturday, June 25, 2011

My other fellow ushers and I were going about our own business cleaning the theater that had just finished a showing of the highly anticipated, and from what I've heard, very lackluster, Cars 2. This lady was still in the theater frantically looking for something. I continued sweeping up the garbage and spilled popcorn all over the floor by a bunch of little bastards while the other two ushers went to assist the crazed lady. It turns out she was looking for her daughter's doll's glasses. Not real glasses that belonged to one of them, but the doll's glasses and having a cow over it.

I have no idea if the doll's glasses were found, I can only hope she has contacts at home. Anyways, while searching, Dylan, the crazed lady's son decides this is a good time to run away. So the little bastard runs out of the theater into the lobby. So lady, daughter, and doll pursue. My coworkers and I don't think much of this because the lobby at our theater is not very large so it won't be that hard to find delinquent Dylan. However, when we are exiting the theater, this fat cow just outside the door looks at us and asks us if there is a little child in the theater.

We politely tell her that there is no one else in the theater. She proceeds to tell us that a mother is looking for her child, as if we can't hear her cries coming from the back of the lobby: DYLANNNNN!!!!!!!! I don't know why the crazy lady/mother was looking for her son out the emergency exits door, as I highly doubt the child could even open those doors. Apparently the fat cow thought we were unconcerned and instantly went to bitch mode: "You guys could at least pretend you care. That mother is looking for her child," said in an annoyingly condescending tone. I was thinking about how SHE could help out, too, instead of sitting her fat cow ass right there and bitching at us. So we split up and headed in different directions in the theater to look for the little fuck. I think about thirty seconds later Dylan ran over to his mother. Who knew the kid had been running around the theater! I thought we was half way to Timbuktu!

I found out the next day that the Dylan had apparently ran into the bathroom and went up to some guy who brought him out to his crazed mother. I sure hope that this event didn't distract them from finding the doll's glasses. We should also look at the silver lining in situations such as these. There are always important lessons to learn. In this case, perhaps Dylan is bi-curious.

Summer Job Chronicles: Days Without the Internet (Chapter 1)

On Wednesday June 22, 2011, I went to work expecting a normal monotonous day of work at the local theater. It was to my surprise that the internet at the theater was down and had been so since sometime on Monday. The major concern here: no cards allowed, whether credit or debit. At first I felt a little bad for customers for the inconvenience they faced when they were forced to make the minute trek to the nearby CVS to get money out of the ATM. But as time wore on, I couldn't help but find pleasure in watching the disappointment in these miserable pricks when I told them we could not accept cards. Apparently most people cannot read either as customer after customer failed to notice the sign on the window in front of them that read something about the system not currently working and we were sorry for majorly inconveniencing their lives. Here are some of my favorite reactions, the dialogue might not be exactly right, but it conveys the gist of each situation.

Reaction 1

Customer hands me credit card.
Me: "Sorry, but our credit card system is down. We can only accept cash at the moment."
Customer: "Oh great! Now we're going to be late for the movie." (walks away angrily)
I think to myself about how this wouldn't happen if you didn't show up to buy the tickets at the movie start time.


Reaction 2

Customer hands me credit card.
Me: "Sorry, but our credit card system is down. We can only accept cash right now, sorry for the inconvenience."
Customer: "Yes, this is very INCONVENIENT." (now I have to walk my fat ass all the way to CVS to get paper money, what is the world coming to!)

Reaction 3

Customer hands me credit card (notice the trend here)
Me: "I'm sorry, but our credit card system is down. We can only accept cash right now, sorry for the inconvenience."
Customer: "Really." (with a very surprised expression)
Me: "Yeah, it has been down since Monday."
Customer: "Yeah? YOU should probably FIX that." (what a fantastic idea!)

Reaction 4 (By far the best one I witnessed)

Customer hands me credit card.
Me: "Sorry, but our credit card system is down. We can only accept cash right now, sorry for the inconvenience."
Customer: "You mean I can't use my card?" (as if I can do some voodoo gypsy magic to make his credit card the one exception to all the other credit cards I have denied today)
Me: "No, our credit card system is down."
Customer pulls out twenty dollar bill and hands it to me. He also asks if a manager is around to speak to. As I get his change I tell him my manager is inside.
Me: "Thank you. Your change is $2.50. Enjoy the show."
Customer: (to child) "I'm not sure we'll have enough for a drink now, we'll have to see the prices when we get inside." (I'm thinking about what this guy could be on, what movie theater sells a drink for $2.50. At this point I knew I had to listen in on what happened inside the theater."
Customer: (to me) "We should be able to get in for free if you're not taking credit cards." (yeah man, that makes sense.)

I was able to listen in on the conversation this particular customer had with my manager, and it was classic! He was going on about how no one carried cash on them these days (even though he had a twenty dollar bill to pay for the movie tickets) and that this whole situation was absurd. Did this guy really think that a system heavily dependent on the internet would never experience technical difficulties? He proceeded to get the name of our general manager so he could further press his absolutely pathetic argument. He also went on to ask my manager if he could give us his credit card number and his license number so we could charge the drink to him later. Of course our management did not let this happen. But reflecting on the situation later, we decided we should have taken his card number and taught him a lesson!

So what can I take away from this experience? Apparently absolutely no one carries cash on them, except for the majority of people who originally intended to pay for their tickets with cash. If the credit card system doesn't work, then no one should have to pay for tickets. Walking to the CVS next door is a marathon and most importantly, it is perfectly acceptable to be rude to the bearer of bad news.  Although, I have to say, I'm glad that this happened today because it is just plain funny to see people get riled up over something like this. It is priceless!! I can't wait for someone to tell me I suck again! That was a great experience I had last year when I told these two assholes that The Last Airbender was sold out. They should have been thanking me for saving them from watching a piece of shit movie! But the best part is that this is only the beginning! There are so many more hours to work! So many more assholes to encounter!

When I was your age......

I always get a good laugh when adults tell me about how things were back when they were growing up. Sometimes you get the classic, "back when I was your age, gas was three cents per gallon." The way these statements are communicated makes it seem like they thought nothing was ever going to change. I'm very curious about what the future holds when it's my time to tell the world's youth about when I was growing up. "When I was your age, I had to text my friends," as if that is so inconvenient compared to whatever people will be doing in the future. Maybe people will be able to send messages from their brains to other people's brains or something.

I had to use books to do research!

Another one of my favorites is when teachers or professors are talking about research for a paper and they tell us about how much easier we have it now because we can look up sources online. "When I wrote my thesis, I had to look everything up in books at the library," (said in an obnoxiously annoying teacher voice). I guess they're right though, you don't need to know how to read or sift through information to find sources on the internet.

I notice that most of the changes between different times in history result because of technology. I also notice that most interpretations of the future whether through literature, film, or whatever medium, have extremely bleak outlooks. Hopefully I won't be saying, "when I was your age I didn't have machines from the future trying to kill me." Because with the current advancement in technology, how long is it until machines become self-aware like SkyNet from The Terminator series? It could happen! Or maybe it will be like Orwell's 1984 and we'll all be watched by cameras at all times.

Hopefully none of these views of the future come true, but if they do I hope we get a hybrid! If the future is going to be bleak let's hope that it's at least intriguing! For example, machines become self-aware, think for themselves, and realize that they can take over the human race. Meanwhile, a company finds a deadly alien species in the depths of space that could be the perfect weapon and sends an unknowing crew to bring it back to earth. A planet-cracking ship finds a marker that turns people into hideous necromorphs, but the church insists it is good. People are trying to water grass with Gatorade (yay for electrolytes!), a man named Randall Flagg is gathering sketchy people in Las Vegas, and some scientist/doctor has found a way to recreate Dinosaurs.The government has become extremely oppressive and monitors everything that happens everywhere, but the surveillance crew thinks that they're watching a reality t.v. show and get overthrown by a guy wearing a Guy Fox mask, thus creating world-wide anarchy in a world rife with battles among humans, machines, necromorphs, and aliens.

It's Summer Time!!

Woohoo! It's finally summer! The weather is great again and the constant ass-rape of "knowing" random shit subsides for a few months! However, my favorite part about summer is hyping up all the awesome things my friends and I will do that most likely will never happen! I've been around for long enough to know that sweet plans rarely ever come to fruition, but that's ok because it sure beats talking about debits and credits and who the hell Meternich or Bronfrenbrenner was/is respectively!

Summer is all about hype, we're going to do this and we're going to do that, but what it boils down to is quite simple. I am going to see the same people all summer and most likely do just about the same things with them over and over again, but I wouldn't trade it for anything because my friends are awesome!

Another thing I love about summer is sunscreen, not because I use it (because I usually don't), but because so many people are paranoid to not use it! I always get a great laugh when I see someone applying SPF 3000, but if they believe there's a benefit, then why the hell not! So go on, lather it up and get it all over your body! Lifeguards also make summer great. I have never actually seen a lifeguard do anything except sit around and catch sun rays all day and yell at people for going too far out in the ocean. They literally get paid to cast their aura over the pool or beach that they are "watching over." I have nothing against lifeguards, in fact, one of my very good friends is a lifeguard and we joke about his job all the time.

Is that guy going past the buoy?

Actually, when I think about it, most summer jobs can justly be labeled comical. It's not just lifeguards, they just stick out in my mind because they have a strong connection with summer (and they barely do anything, no offense intended). My summer job for example, I work at a movie theater (because I'm not one of the chosen ones to work as a promise filled intern!) and spend most of my time dealing with morons and their ridiculous questions. I find it entertaining when I'm asked why the screen looks like shit while I'm standing at concessions. Do I look like I know? At least I can laugh about these instances to myself and later! I won't have the opportunity to serve dumb-asses my whole life, right? Guess we'll find out! Basically, summer jobs suck ass but that's also why they're great! Summer jobs are a guiding light because of the great message they send to youth: go to college so you don't have to do this stupid shit   for the rest of your life, asshole!

Well, it's only June 3rd, so there's still time to hype up the summer! I'm ecstatic for ideas falling by the wayside and filling out Mad Libs all summer!