Enjoy The Film

Working on box office presents the staff with the initial needs of the customer.  Some may think of them as having special needs.  The way of the customer:

• Turn up at the cinema and ask me what you think you should see. Hey buddy I don’t know you from Adam but now you are my bezzy and I think you should definitely see Donkey Punch. 
• Okay, so you walk away without a word and I figure you may not like teenage horror flicks introducing the latest sex tips after all.
• Computer Says “No” - you turn up late for the film naively arguing its just the previews but you’re stupid cos we know the film has already started and genuine film fans don’t miss the beginning of films only sad freaks like you. Computer says you’re not going in late spoiling for the rest of us.
• We know okay?  The flat screens behind us have never worked properly since day one and the clock lost the plot completely with the arrival of British Summertime and the management no longer - so why be the millionth person to point it out?
• Ask me where the screens are.  We know the site was designed by a dork but, why not like around the corner of the box office and, oh look, there is a humongous arrow with the word screens next to it.
• You’re not as clever as you think you are, you’re a dweeb.  So you’re a spotty teenager dressing to look 18 and then presenting yourself to me trying to buy a child ticket (aged 14 years & under).  Get a life.
• Smile it may never happen.  There is something about being young that prevents certain people from even looking at us never mind smiling, especially young women with their cool boyfriends. It’s your life, baby.

Tags: Boxoffice, Donkey Punch

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

Mamma Mia opens tonight and the women flood in. They like to make a night of it with their friends so we are busy meeting their needs. For the record there is one man in the screen but he engineers an emergency work call and steps out of the screen for a while.

Correct me if I am wrong but I am here, in this multiplex, to work. To serve you the customer. To sell you an overpriced ticket and then overpriced popcorn and coca cola and smile when we do it. But hey, what is it with these numb nuts we employ who nag me every five minutes for a break.
Hey dude, I don’t care if you’ve not had a break for the last half hour or five hours we’re busy right now! And why do you keep asking me every time you see me? And why do you ask me for a break when the previous supervisor already gave you it? And why do you tell me the previous supervisor said you could have that extra break when I’m now in charge? By the way, don’t even think about applying for Supervisor because we rarely have breaks – we are too busy listening to your whining!

Okay, so we turn up for work knowing our shift says we are here till 12 midnite, “close”, whenever. So why negotiate it down and piss off everyone else who stays? It beggars belief. So there is no one in a screen means you can go home early? Go and help your colleagues you schmuck! You’ve been put on yet another “close?” Go talk to the manager who put you on it a week ago like you should have done before you started your shift. My heart bleeds for you especially since I will get 3 ½ hours sleep before I am up for work again.

And remember to smile.

Tags: MammaMia, supervisor

Okay, so you get promoted to Supervisor ahead of all your mates. Along with the position comes the responsibility…and then the pay increase. Frankly, the derisory pay (barely more than the minimum wage and below that of other large retail employers), for the multifunctionals is what drives a few of us to apply for the role of supervisor. So you pass your interview (if you have one) and get your contract – and then it hits you. Eighty pence. That is how much extra you get paid an hour. So what do they ask you to do for that extra eighty pence? Well, let’s make a list…

• Reorganise everyone to cover the large number of staff who don’t turn up. After striking off the list those staff who are sick or just don’t turn up you have to organise teams on a skeleton staff.
• Stop the staff taking too many breaks for longer than they are allowed. After cramming in everyone’s breaks - because once they arrive that is what they look forward to and take every opportunity to remind you about - you may find the time to have one yourself if you’re lucky. As staff know they can have an extra discretionary break during the day you have to absorb the moaning when they are denied it and then catch out those that try to take it anyway.
• Do the job of the previous team. Get the team to do the tasks the team from the night before didn’t do.
• Herd sheep. It’s amazing how staff disappear - especially in the screens - or just take a comfort break that lasts a very long time.
• Act as the UN. Getting certain people to work together requires certain diplomacy some people lack.
• Act like the US. There are times when jobs don’t get done or the moaning and whining is unbearable….
• Do other people’s jobs. No security officer today?
• Teach monkeys. Some guys just aren’t up to the job.
• Count Money. The manager’s job.
• Grovel to customers. Air conditioning broken down in a screen and not getting fixed till next week? You take the flack.

And the list goes on. Yo, you’re No. 1 on the floor managing a team of at least a dozen disaffected hungover popcorn monkeys with a manager stuck in an airless back-office on the radio. For 80 pence an hour. Enjoy. (more…)

Okay, so it’s midweek and nothing is happening in the film world to coax in the crowds.  So what could possibly go wrong?

First up, invite your loyal customers in to a screen without a film showing and let them sit there until one of them walks out and asks you what is going on ?  So your film reel turns up late and it’s in a state but, hey, don’t forget to tell the Operational Manager will you?

Secondly, promote your leading product, unlimited films, with your computer terminal laughing at your customers.  So your equipment sits there and refuses to give the customers there ID number but enjoys the fun of taking their bank and card details.

Don’t have enough staff on the shift to keep your costs down and get them to do two jobs at once.  So when your popcorn monkeys just don’t show up (some may be physically sick, others maybe sick of work) you can’t open your underperforming bar or look after your VIP customers.

Promote your latest Sex and The City Film by asking your customers to book ahead and then switch screens without telling them.  This is the fun part. A group of high maintenance ladies organise their big night out together, babysitters (apparently), the lot.  They turn up and the card machines are not working (again) so they have to get the box office staff to print out their tickets.  Now the box office staff know the Sexy City film has been switched to another screen (in favour of The Incredible Hulk would ya believe it) so the customers - who have VIP tickets - should be told they will have to sit with the riff raff now.  No chance.  So off they go, buying their popcorn, getting escorted up to their VIP Box (hang on a minute, anyone checked their tickets???), sit down to see……a big green ugly man.

It’s 9am on a Sunday morning and we have been summoned for a staff meeting. Gathering up students at that time is only possible through threats; they work but most turn up half an hour late under protest. I work two days a week at the cinema on top of my five days for a full time job, so an extra two hours on a Sunday morning is not helpful, especially since I did not get home from last night’s shift till 2am. What would have helped is all the managers being there, at this first meeting too, as a statement. But they don’t have to attend, do they?

The General Manager is prodded about the sales figures and admits it’s not going to plan. The cinema is part of a new large shopping mall, built on the belief that firstly standing still is suicide for a town centre and secondly, the town is expanding and local people were not shopping there. But the thinking went too far and the new mall is expected to compete with neighbour towns and larger malls in bigger towns. And it hasn’t worked. The hinterland is disturbingly rich but they are not coming into the town centre and mixing with the riff-raff in the new mall.

The cinema relies on the punters shopping in the town and then making an impulse decision to stay an extra couple of hours (paying the extra car parking fee) and watch a film. Like who does that? By the time you’ve hung around outside numerous women’s fashion shops whilst she tries on clothes that either don’t fit or don’t match her shoes you’ve had enough and it’s time to go back for the football scores.

The scariest clue for the poor “admits” is the almost complete lack of tickets sold for the VIP boxes, complete with their own bar. At the moment it is a complete waste of money. To exacerbate matters at the weekend staff numbers drop (some bother to phone in “sick” some don’t), so there are never enough to open the VIP boxes. Those that just don’t turn up often never come back. Turnover is so high it must also be a drain on the costs. The recent Council scare has meant whatever staff turn up have been piled in to watching the cinema screens for couples humping on the back row and then sharing a fag in the loo. And piracy (apparently this is a hot spot and we are being bribed by FACT with cash if we catch ‘em).

Iron Man could not have come any sooner to bring in desperately needed income for the cinema. It is not a blockbuster but, with so much drivel on the screens (Russell Brand in Forgetting Sarah Marshall – purrleeeeze!!), it cannot fail to succeed. But the cinema has no hope of reaching its company’s regional average. It is at the whim of the success or failure of the new town centre mall. And it ain’t looking good.

It’s a Thursday night so it should be relatively busy. Fools Gold is on the main screen which is not a good sign. The weather is warming up, so crowd pullers are needed to keep the profits coming in. In Bruges is all we have tonight.

I find out that the day has been appalling with even the shift managers joining the mulitfunctionals for a chat. This is not good. Already they are not showing late night films and Concessions had only one rush all evening. The Sales Per Person is holding up compared to other sites but, as I check the screens, the numbers are poor. One screen has no one in it. It usually takes at least two multifunctionals to clean a screen but I manage on my own even with a rush of change overs. It’s a slow night all round.

After three weeks’ training and then a stern effort to impose those standards it appears the rule book is being thrown out of the window to hold on to customers at any cost. On the floor I am presented with a customer with a ticket to see the wrong film. The rules are he needs to exchange it for a correct one so the system has an accurate record of attendances for films. Bollocks to that, the manager says just let him in.

I’m on the floor tonight which means cleaning screens between films. The manager’s job is to construct the screenings for the night. Oh look, in one screen the film finishes after the next one starts! Luckily ( or not for the company) no one is actually watching the earlier screening so projection cuts the film early in time to start the next film. Projection diplomatically point out to me that the times for another screen are completely wrong. It’s not clear at all that the duty manager tonight has any idea of this.

A lot of staff have left already and another batch will go when University finishes for the Summer and there will be no one here to train the new crew. So far only one multifunctional has been appointed to supervisor. But will they cull the establishment numbers to keep costs down?

It’s the backward weirdy human rule in life that when we leave our stuff behind in the cinema we only come back to collect the rubbishy sentimental stuff that other lowlifes decide they quite fancy.

I’m standing behind box office in the waiting room for the back office, it’s a cold airless, window-less chair-less clinical room that you have to wait in before you go into the cash office, to have your money counted and then get bollocked for not upselling enough and for having no explanation as to where the fify quid went that your float is down on.  But I’d rather be here than waiting at the dentist’s.  Anyway, it’s where the bulk of the lost property goes.  The valuable stuff should be in the cash office but no one seems to give a fuck.  So there is a steady stream of staff coming through here to stroke the shiny new dark grey iPod Nano 3rd generation some stoopid eedgit has not only left behind in a screen but not bothered to come back to collect.  There is a long list of underpaid staff here who are in the valley of temptation because the managers have not bothered to hold it in the cash office.

It beggars belief what customers do not come back for. Bizzarely, though, a lot of customers do come back for missing odd gloves and scarves that have walked, probably with another customer.

I’ve handled a Mercedes Benz car key and pondered how that rich person managed to get home and avoid their car park fine.  I’ve seen wallets stuffed full of credit cards.  Yes credit cards can be cancelled but why not ask the cinema first before going through all that hassle????  And what about all the other personal cards we hold in our wallets and purses? Membership cards, driving license, reward cards…. Businesses are not slow to charge for a replacement card these days.

And then there are mobile phones.  Maybe people are thinking leave it at the cinema, report it lost and ask your telco for a nice new one.  But what about all the personal information we have on our phones?  While we are on the subject of personal information on mobile phones, never leave it lying around if you don’t want other people to look inside it.  Being a manager in a cinema is not a job if you want to liked.  So if you are married and then start taking time off with another member of staff it’s only a matter of time before the rumour mill kicks in.  And when you leave your mobile phone unattended with messages on it that are best described as embarressing……before you know it everyone else has read them..

It’s 3am in the morning and I have spent the last five hours closing the concessions on the cinema. The only thing that stopped me waving goodbye altogether to this miserable job is that tomorrow (or today) is a bank holiday.  I’m not sure whether this is the second job I imagined, and it’s certainly not doing my sleeping pattern any good.  I spent the final two hours with one jabberer and his BO, and another miserable egotist who just moaned about the illegality of it all.  By 2am, having done all the checks my brain could handle I had still missed the checks the others should have done on Pick ‘N Mix and the bar.  Spending the evening training new staff whilst serving overly long queues is not healthy.  The management knew two multifunctionals were going to be off sick but they left us understaffed without a manager on the floor (he was forced to stay in the cash office rather than assist us.

I briefly stop my blog as some arsehole taxi is honking his horn outside!  At this hour!

It is at this hour as I reach for the vodka I contemplate the loneliness of this secondary vocation. Where once my life was fulfilled I now come back to my home in the middle of the night after being on my feet for 9 hours (with a 15 mins break) thinking only of enduring in this mind-numbing job to hold on to my home.  It can take an hour to wind down after such adrenalin-inducing heights from churning out so much coca-cola and sweet popcorn at exorbitant prices.  What to do in such time than contemplate one’s own life.

I don’t know how many customers I served tonight but Indiana Jones has definitely saved the cinema’s bacon.  And the rain helped too.  If only there were another tin of jalapenos in the stock cupboard…

Respect to the “My Soul has been crushed by Cineworld” group on Facebook for this collection of portraits about the experience of working for Cineworld:

The cinema trilogy trailer http://youtube.com/watch?v=d_sk6Ff2tRU&mode=related&search=

The multifunctional http://youtube.com/watch?v=0bZzZ9UkgUw&mode=related&search=

The Projectionist http://youtube.com/watch?v=tZKFFK4×4Fc&mode=related&search=

The Manager http://youtube.com/watch?v=HFvPtWFCtYg&mode=related&search=

Kitten Trailer http://youtube.com/watch?v=cjRbbhO_axI&mode=related&search=

Kitten http://youtube.com/watch?v=AilyBJ5szac&mode=related&search=

all cineworld staff members should remember this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7PkwhWi1LY