REEL talk – Confessions of a Movie Theatre Manager

I started working at my movie theatre in 2009 at the innocent age of 19. I wish I had taken a picture of myself on the day before my first day..to capture that happy young girl, full of life.
I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan but I’ve seen a couple of the movies and nothing explains my theatre better than this: It’s a dementor. It’s a monster whose only purpose is to suck out your soul and kill you slowly and painfully. A bit dramatic? Possibly…but it’s closer to the truth than you might think.
Sure it’s seems glamorous on the outside. I get to watch unlimited free movies; eat all the popcorn and nachos I can eat; and drink all the soda I want all while getting paid to do so. Ahh, the high life. But behind the scenes it’s a dark and scary place where dreams are shattered and corpses lie.
Maybe I’ve seen too many movies and I’m being much more dramatic than necessary. But by telling you just SOME of the ridiculous experiences I’ve had there, I’ll give you a glimpse into managing a movie theatre and then you can let me know if I’m going over the top a bit.

This is my first post so I have to give you a little background and necessary information that isn’t as fun to read but important to the future of our relationship. The theatre is an extremely stressful place to work. Within an hour and a half, on a busy night 1,500 human beings walk through our doors to face our 2 box office cashiers, 5 concessionists, 3 ushers and 2 managers. That means for every one employee we face 125 customers within 90 minutes. Often the movies are more clumped together so it’s even less than 90 minutes and often we have less staff than the example I used so it’s more to deal with. But since I’m a manager no matter who the customer deals with first…when they want to vent or argue or yell or complain or sometimes cry, they aren’t content with just speaking to a 16 year old in a polo. Nope…they utter the six words I dread more than anything in the world. The six words that make my insides crawl and my stomach nauseous…The six words: “Can I speak to a manager?!”
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard nails on a chalk board, or a cat being slammed against a brick wall or the sound of thousands of shrieks from ghosts in an attic…but I imagine those sounds are like Mozart compared to those six dreadful words.
My blood pressure starts rising and I can immediately feel my heart pounding in my ears. A little shiver runs down my spine as I slowly find the will to turn around. “I’m a manager,” is usually my response in a nice happy voice with a smile…a smile that is soon ripped from my face as quickly as I faked it on.
“Well you’re obviously not a very good one!” And there it is. A little dig at me, that of course I can’t refute..heavens to betsy no! God forbid I yell back at a customer to kiss my ass…something I’ve longed to say everyday for 3 years. No I have to sit there with a concerned look on my face and listen to their little petty problem and act like it’s the end of the world and they have every right to curse at me and yell at me and get 2 centimeters from my face while they poke me.
“Well sir, I’m sorry to hear you’re unhappy. What’s wrong?” That’s what I say on the outside…in my mind I’m daydreaming about reaching over the counter and slamming their head against the counter (too much?).
“Oh you wanna know what’s wrong?! I’ll tell you what’s wrong!!! I gave my son a 5 dollar bill to come out and get a bottle of water and he only came back with 25 cents change! Don’t your employees know how to count back change?!” Now for the full effect I would bold, italicize, underline the text and write in all capital letters LIKE THIS!!!! … But that’s not pleasant to read…so just note mentally that that’s the tone it should be read in..because he didn’t “say” these words to me. He yelled them at me, with hand gestures and spit flying from the hole in his face as fellow customers stood by and looked on at the spectacle.
I brace myself. Because as always I forsee the next few minutes of my life happening before they actually do. The guy’s pissed…obviously, but I know he’s going to be even MORE pissed when he hears my response. So I stay silent for a brief second…taking a breath and enjoying the second of silence before the storm clouds burst and set fire to the world.
“Well sir. My concessionist did give the right amount of change. A 20 oz. bottle of Dasani water is $4.75. If you’d like, I can take the bottle back and issue you a refund.” Oh how I wish I had a cameraman following me everywhere…I’d love to show you this story as opposed to just writing it for you because no words can express his face and his tone and the fire in his eyes.
“How dare you.” He said it with such disgust I honestly had to think about whether I’ve killed a family member of his or something…that’s the hatred that he spoke with.
“Well sir, I apologize fo—-” Nope, Marge, why are you trying to get a word in…you know that’s not going to happen…good effort though.
“How DARE you!!!” He interrupts me…and here it comes. “Who the hell do you think you are!? Who the hell gives you the right to charge that kind of money for a God damn water bottle!? A water bottle!! Water is free!!!!! How do you sleep at night setting your prices that high!! It’s a disgrace!!! You’re a disgrace!!”
He catches his breath and wipes the sweat from his brow. A little bit of an audience starts to gather around him. Now it’s during this time where I wanna hold up my hand to him to silence him and say this–
“Sir. Look at this suit jacket. It was 40 bucks at WalMart…$20 more than I had wanted or intended on spending on a God damn suit jacket I’ll never wear anywhere but here. These black shoes are from Payless and have started to rip at the top already. My dress pants were on sale at Kohls and this t-shirt underneath the jacket? … $5 at Old Navy. Now I can’t say for sure where a CEO shops or what brand of suit jacket a VP of Operations wears…but I can pretty much guarantee he doesn’t have duct tape covering a hole at the bottom of his right sneaker. So please…let me just ask you…WHAT about my entire appearance makes you believe that I have ANYTHING whatsoever in any form or in any way to do with any decisions regarding this multi-billion dollar company. Please! Tell me!? Do I look like I’m buddies with the financial advisor to the company…do I stand around the golf course with my buddy District Manager and chat about the prices of our water bottles? Are you a GOD DAMN MORON!! I have NOTHING at all to do with it so how dare you scream at me like that! You wanna know how they can charge $4.75 for a water bottle? You wanna know why it’s possible?! It’s quite simple and takes very little, if any, knowledge of economics to explain. BECAUSE YOU IDIOTS BUY IT. Is $4.75 for 20 ounces of water, probably from tap for all we know, 100% ridiculous? Absolutely. We have a water fountain right outside your auditorium that’s free. Is it absurd to sell something you can get for free for a mark-up of 1 million percent? Without a doubt. But the company isn’t stupid for charging it…they’re brilliant. You guys are the dip-shits who constantly buy every over-priced item we sell at this place! Because guess what…every week we get a shipment of 20 cases of water that go in our stock room and every week I watch as that stock is depleted faster and faster. It ain’t disappearing bro..it’s being sold..to you idiots who have already spent over $50 just to take your family to see The Muppets…which is probably going to suck anyway. So sir, turn that finger around and point it at yourself and look at the mirror as you spray spit all over the place in your fit of fury because if it wasn’t for you and all the schmucks in this town like you…the water price wouldn’t be astronomically high because if we weren’t selling the stuff, they’d be forced to lower the prices. I have nothing to do with it so don’t come flippin’ out on me cuz there’s nothing I can do about it!”
Of course this is not what I say…I apologize and explain that corporate sets the prices and unfortunately there’s nothing I can do..and then I apologize again.
“It’s because YOU’RE greedy. You know what you are?!”
“No sir, what?”
“You know what you are!?… YOU ARE A PROFIT SEEKING SON OF A BITCH! THAT’S WHAT YOU ARE AND YOU DISGUST ME!”
Yup..that’s what he said to me..word for word. Clearly half the money made on 20 oz. water bottles goes into my pocket and pays for that fancy 1996 Dodge Caravan sitting out in the parking lot.
I watch him walk off in a huff. Notice…he didn’t return the water bottle. He kept it and therefore continuing the cycle. Little does he know prices are raising a quarter soon. Haha.
I go to the back to collect myself and relax and think about one day…
One day…after I’ve put in my two weeks notice for bigger and better things…I will say my peace in the form of some rant like this and it will be glorious…I dream about that day..But it’s not today. Nope. Today I look concerned and nod my head in understanding. I apologize about the whole situation and offer him anything to calm him down and I take full responsibility for his unhappiness. Today, I suck it up and bite my tongue until I can taste the blood because today…I need this job still and customer service is our number one priority. So today douchbag….Today you win.

I’m told that the company I work for has a person that monitors blogs and the internet for disparaging remarks about the company. So…

Disclaimer: Of course I love my job and this blog is just a fictional account of a character told in the first person for this media class. Any relation to any real people or events is strictly coincidental and shouldn’t be interpreted any other way. These are just stories from my imagination. No animals were hurt in the writing of this blog.