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Can I have a break now please! 11 July, 2008

Posted by Drop Box Junky in Entertainment, Movies.
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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.

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Pay Peanuts – Get Monkeys 29 June, 2008

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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…)

The Honeymoon is Over 17 June, 2008

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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?

How Not to Run a Cinema 7 May, 2008

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Want to get your cinema shut down. Easy peasy. A few simple rules.

  1. Let customers smoke and have sex in your cinema. Don’t manage your team so there is no organisation on the floor and customers can break the rules.
  2. Allow kids to run between screens. See above.
  3. Let your duty managers hide in the cashiers office. Don’t manage your duty managers so they sit in the cashiers office listening to music when they should be on the floor.
  4. Screw up your film times. Set start films so they finish after the next film is set to start.
  5. Demotivate your staff so they have no pride about working there. See above. Take an age to recruit supervisors so the only one you have goes off sick with stress, too many new multifunctionals leave, teams are left on their without direction, and managers openly criticise the lack of progress – “it’s a joke.”
  6. Don’t listen to your customers. Allow them to go to the Council and your Head Office and wait for your neck to go on the line.

Let It Snow 28 March, 2008

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It may be Sunday but I am still asked to start my shift at 8.30am. I arrive before then as expected and there’s no one around. It’s literally freezing out here and snowing. Some kids in the bus station ask me who I work for and assume I am a manager. An obvious view on the world when you take age and ethnicity into account.

A duty manager appears 10 minutes into my shift to let me in. There is one other multifunctional upstairs but she crept through an open fire door (not that it should have been open). We crack on with the concessions preparing it for the day. A new guy has started and asks what to do. He is brand new and has had no formal training apparently, there is no supervisor to either introduce him or guide him, he’s just there surviving on that initial motivation. I doubt that will last once he sees how things work around here.

A group of kids arrive and go down to the duty manager in the cash office to ask what to do and get sent to us. The concessions is now crowded with half of us trying to set it up and the other half filling time. Eventually the general manager appears and I have someone to alert what we are are low on, in particular popcorn. That concerns him.

We have two members of staff sick on a Sunday. Not good – there is no one on the floor to clean up the screens. I set up my concessions till and immediately get pulled off onto Box Office. I set my till up there and get literally 5 minutes training and a radio for help. The young woman on box office is put on concessions – she has also never worked on box office but would struggle with its complexity of ticket options. I struggle with the ticket options with a steady stream of customers in the morning coming up with many varieties. Consequently the radio is busy with pleas for assistance and I learn by jumping in the deep end. My voids list and refunds list begin to lengthen because the manager rushes through the till screens to fix my problem and then escapes – he has no time to show me what to do.

The fun part of the day is the general voucher from the mall for use in the cinema. It may only be to the value of five pounds but the wording on the back of the voucher is ambiguous and he has managed to get his kids in for free with it. The general relents and I can put through every customer that day for free on this ticket. That’s a lot of lost revenue but luckily the offer runs out soon.

It’s not only snowing outside but there is gale blowing through the automatic doors as they open all they way up to the box office. With a wall mounted heater blowing out lukewarm air it is freezing. Despite being promised fleeces a month ago there are none and we are freezing our nuts off down here

It’s a slow day with the snow outside. Some of the first films of the day are empty. Horten Hears a Who, 10,000 BC and Meet the Spartens attract interest only. The highlight of the afternoon are three teenage travellers causing a commotion in The Other Boleyn Girl, and then frantically asking me for their money back after 25 minutes into the picture because they’ve had a call saying their mom is in hospital having a baby. They get their money back and are asked not to return. They wander into the Bowling Alley and re-appear 10 minutes later arguing with each other. Three older teenage traveller girls turn up dressed up ready for business and go into see the same film until they are ejected for being caught smoking in the toilets.

Out of about fifty multifunctionals the rumour is 15 have already left. Motivation is clearly low as we grasp what we should be doing now the support from managers in other sites have gone and we are on our own. With one manager on duty during the day he is stretched with no supervisors to organise.

During training the management informed us we could apply for supervisory role after a couple of months learning the job and getting some experience behind us. After only two weeks and not yet gained experience in all areas of the job (floor, concessions, pick and mix, VIP lounge, and bar) we are being asked to apply for the supervisory role. With a new group of multifunctionals starting soon, probably without full formal training, they urgently need some leaders in the pack.

Anarchy on Legs 22 March, 2008

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It was anarchy on legs. I had just checked every screen’s fire exits, came out of the final screen to be confronted by a confused and annoyed mob of parents with their children blocking the whole corridor. Some had tickets, some claimed they were told by box office they did not need them. All thought it was a mess. We had no radios to ask anyone. We didn’t have managers at first. The customers were crowded outside one screen for three different films. And for no obvious reason. What was going on at the drop box? Why were they not queueing inside the tensile barrier? The day had just begun.

Its Saturday morning, the supervisor is hung over from all nite clubbing. I turn up and am asked what I want to do today – so I go for the floor. No game plan of what we all should be doing then. A multi functional is missing and won’t turn up till midday claiming his drunken flat mates kept him awake till late. No mention of an alarm clock there. Eventually a manager turns up and the annoyed crowd is split into three and directed to their movie auditorium. Thank goodness they are not paying today.

Saturday morning is Juniors Day and parents get in free today as a one-off for its launch. It’s normally a pound a film and it’s going to be a hit. Children are going to eat a lot of popcorn – not all of it because the auditorium will be a mess with the rest – and drink a lot of coke. So the real money is made on concessions. That’s a heck of a lot of children hyper on fizzy drinks.

When customers arrive with their tickets at the drop box there is nothing to work with at first. Then I am given a manila envelope to put receipts in. Then lists of what films are on where and when the come out so they can be cleaned. But the supervisor is freaking out because there is no game plan. Managers and supervisors from other sites take it in turns to impart their knowledge and how things should be done but it’s all conflicting. I go off to close screens for cleaning and when four films end at the same time we are harangued by different supervisors and managers to clean different screens as customers attempt to wander in. But it’s all our fault.

I get to have a break during the day by asking for one – there is no schedule of when staff take breaks. One loser is threatening to walk because he can’t have a break after only one hour on shift and is deeply unhappy about having to wait two more.

I am happy to stay on the floor – no one working seems to know what to do on the Ben and Jerries ice cream counter. We’ve all had the training but there is no substitute for the real thing and the approach here is clearly thus 1) get allocated a role, 2) stand there and panic, 3) do something – anything – when approached and asked by a customer, 4) confirm you have been trained when questioned by a supervisor/manager, but that was for under an hour about 2-3 weeks ago, and 5) five minutes with a manager and get on with it.

Concessions feels the pain of being thrown in the deep end. At the Drop Box I implore customers to enjoy their film as I rip their tickets but they grumble about being late as concessions is slow. The lack of staff means the managers from other sites actually have to do some work rather than wander round giving confusing advice. It’s welcome to see one out on the floor with a dustpan and brush.

Nothing goes to plan but, hey, there is no game plan. A cubicle in the ladies is a mess so I close it. A urinal in the Gents is flooded but it’s not overflowing so that’s okay. A supervisor asks two of the male multifunctionals to sort out one of the ladies and they bluff her by saying they can’t. She reports them. Hilariously, male managers end up unblocking a toilet in the ladies.

At some point there needs to be leadership from within the staff of the site, not those from other sites, there needs to be trained supervisors quickly, otherwise, the kids will lose heart and give up bothering out of loss of motivation.