Enjoy The Film

Chatter amongst the supervisors is how the floor staff are in the main subhuman and despair inducing. A mixture of (ever diminishing) veterans from day one in February and the very new. What amazes the supervisors is how from a exceedingly large pile of CVs such reprehensibly incapable people are then appointed. Admittedly, if you can count and communicate you are quickly moved onto Multifunctional work serving customers. But this leaves the floor to the subhumans and as day follows night problems pop up. Here are a list of some of the characters who mosey round the corridors of the cinema (and in the managers’ office).

• The work avoidance addict, otherwise known as the bear with the very little brain. Easily becomes a victim for carrying out crimes he is incapable of planning. Spends more time informing the supervisors of what he has done and for whom than actually doing what he is employed to do. Attention span of a gnat and can be found meandering the corridors looking for someone to talk to.
• The belligerent. Has an opinion on everything and will share it with you even when you are purposely not listening and then instantly accuse you of being a toe-rag for not paying attention. Arrogant and claims to be a manager in his previous life which is why he is now cleaning screens. Has B.O. and is threatening to leave any day now. Has already picked a near fight with another floor person and is now threatening to give the top manager an earful.
• The Psycho. When he looks at you, you’re not sure what he’s thinking and you don’t want to know. It’s just disturbing. And he looks that way at customers too. He hangs around the doors of screens as if he’s going to grab someone and drag them into a screen. He only talks to you to ask for a break. When he had money stolen from the locker room he pinned the work avoidance addict up against the wall and promised true justice if the notes were not delivered by Friday.
• The young heavy. You just can’t figure him out. A little bit fey. Spotty, long-haired and generally polite but underneath there is some one else lurking but trapped in the wrong body. Apparently into heavy metal and obscure fantasy fiction but incapable of, well, most things. Including holding down a simple job. Clever enough to analyse the anal detail of working on Pick N Mix but still manages to screw up his float. Going nowhere very slowly.
• The lovers. A friend of mine wanted to know about twanging stockings amongst the jelly beans. Well of course it goes on and just enough to fuel the rumour mills. Usually involving a freaked out manager on a long shift who just can’t look away from the fluttering attention of a student who will settle for the firm hands of a manager in the absence of an ogling tutor. Just like a slavering MP away from home spending too much time with his research assistant, it helps to release some of the stress of the job. Just don’t tell the girlfriend.
• The Alien. More white make-up than an actress in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and plump enough to justify always wearing long black skirts she just could not avoid standing out. Until her visa ran out and she had to leave the country.
• The Idiot. Universally derided by everyone (including the work avoidance addict) for her inability to work at the same pace as everyone else (including the work avoidance addict) and do what the job asks her to do. Part of her job was to be in a screen and check for audio-visual faults, and that the audience is behaving. Standing there watching the film instead she failed to spot a vertical green line running down through it. Last seen leaving the exit for a break at 1am (without gaining permission) and locking herself out of the site by accident.
• The autistic Manic Obsessive. Never speak to him unless it is really necessary because he will not stop talking back to you. And it’s all rubbish: why no one else is as good as him and can he have another fag break and can he have another shirt and, oh for fuck’s sake someone gas him! You just have to walk away. He is obsessed with the cleanliness of toilets which is a godsend as no one else is. But he lacks social skills in a very dangerous way. Take him on and he will raise the tempo all the way, and when you walk away you will hear him spitting out some pejorative behind your back. It does not help being a woman. Customers somehow get in his way, for instance, when he is cleaning the ladies toilets. Best kept away from people.

Management have now admitted it istime to get picky when appointing. Too late guys, the lunatics are loose in the asylum.

One of the sad facts of life about having an impossibly irritating job is how much you yearn to be back home away from it. And that is exactly what I felt today: even on a “good” day when I don’t fuck up, I am still surrounded by fucked-up situations I can’t wash off.

The detailed paper systems in a cinema are both mind-numbingly tedious and unfortunately necessary due to the brain power of the popcorn monkeys employed. A combination of autistic, full of B.O.and lazy losers who are interested in only when their next break is. Opening the cinema involves following operating procedures for the box office, retail, bar and floor. My first job is to see these completed by some of these staff. We’ve only just started and the fun has begun.

Due to the incompetents on shift the night before the cinema was a mess. Excuses poured in with staff leaving early or just refusing to work. How do these people get a job? So I’m sat with the operations manager listing the state of concessions (dirty surfaces, stock run down) when one of the multifunctionals comes in and releases a stream of bile about the poor state of the bar: “it’s fackin’ dirty…I ain’t fackin’ cleanin’ it….it’s a fackin’ joke”, and so on until it was suggested that continued swearing was not going to help her or the situation. Erm, you work here so you will clean the bar. Hell, if you are not in the mood for this then the best thing is to work yourself up into a frenzy and make yourself ill so you can go home.

It’s unclear how the building of a cinema could be so badly screwed up but this one was. There are over two thousand brand new seats, all of which have to be replaced. How it was possible to install illegal seats in the first place is remarkable. So we have these additional staff whose main responsibility is to stand in the screens to make sure they do not burn down; what they are told is to watch out for piracy. Hey, anyone can see a fire coming, we just need someone there to point it out. But that’s too easy so let’s tell them to stare at the customers instead, because, ya know, one of them might spark up a ciggie.

Watching a screen has the added benefit of, yeah, being paid to watch a movie, and they get the same pay grade as multifunctionals who work on tills. Now there’s a company policy deliberately designed to create conflict between staff. Now these guys have a simple job: check the screen is ok, check the sound is ok, check the customers are not filming the movie, and clean it afterwards. Instaed we have numb nuts who just lean on the rails and watch the movie. Hey there is a vertical green line down the screen! Duhh, why doesn’t she report it? If this particular worker actually worked at a quicker pace than a snail, she might get to a manager before the film finished.

Then we have a sound problem in a screen, the first screening of the day. Now this is where the fun really begins. Cue revolting customer, shouting so loud the manager can hear him in his office. “fix the sound or move the film into another cinema, NOW!!” “This is bloody ridiculous!!!” Yeah mate, we’ll just stop a movie in another screen and piss off all those customers too. Anyway, he’s told the lose the attitude or leave the cinema. Now there’s complaining and there’s asking for a fight. Luckily, this guy took the hint. But we were left with lots of customers leaving the screen – so that’s the bottom line screwed.

I walk away and look outside; it’s another beautiful day and I wish I was home.

Then

Tags: manager, multifunctional