I Work at
It’s Been A While
- July 18 -
It’s been a while since my last post here. Work has been going well. I’ve picked up many pieces of popped corn, many soda cups, way too many pickles, and way too many cups filled with spit out dip (gross). Tonight is my last night of work for the theater. I will miss getting out of the house and working with people. I will miss the people, both the coworkers and the customers. I will miss the paychecks. I will not miss being exhausted at the end of a shift. I will not miss working until 2 or 3am. I will not miss having hands covered in soda and candy and “butter”. I will not miss having to wear a uniform.
linkSick Policy?
- May 27 -
Yesterday I was pretty sick. I woke up with a sore throat and I think I had a fever in the morning that broke early afternoon. I slept most of the morning as well. I called Cinemark around 4pm to see what to do in case I was sick, and working that day which I was (8pm-3am). Seems that I need a Dr’s note in order to be sick at work. That just doesn’t make any sense. If I am sick, I know what to do. Rest, take medicine, and rest. I don’t need to go to the Dr’s office for them to tell me that. If I were to go, I would pay more for the visit than I would make in the evening working at Cinemark. Especially since I don’t have insurance at the moment. That just seems like a crazy policy to me, and is going to make more people go into work when they are sick. Needless to say, I went into work.
Please correct me if my knowledge of the sick policy is not correct.
linkTraining
- May 21 -
We get our next weeks schedules on Tuesday, or is it Monday… I believe it is Monday sometime, but we know it will be posted on Tuesday, so that is when I check. I worked Wednesday, so I got it at that time. Turns out that two days next week I am training a new person. That should be fun. I just hope that they are a good worker or it might be hard to train them. I just ask for a good attitude and a little work on their part. I suppose that if I am training a slacker I can always tell a manager that this person might not work out. I think I may be a tough trainer.
Anyways, it is exciting, should be something to brighten nights that could otherwise be dull.
link- May 17 -
Popcorn! These are all the bags of popcorn we have behind the scenes. Well, I don’t know that for sure actually, we may have more someplace else, but this is all the popcorn we have at the ready behind the concession stand. I would hope that we would have more bags somewhere. We make a lot of popcorn every day, and most of it gets thrown right away.
- May 15 -
This is all of the soda syrup we have hooked up to our main concession stand. I don’t know how many gallons one box makes, but I imagine it is a lot. I will need to find that out.
Finishing Early
- May 2 -
Finished work early today. Usually that’s a good thing, but when you need the money it isn’t exactly. Still put in 8 hours though, so I guess I can’t complain too much. If I were to work the rest if my shift, 30 minutes, I would only have made $3.62. That’s kind of sad, and not worth it.
link- April 11 -
So, I have started work at Cinemark. I worked Friday and Saturday. Today I have off, but I head back in on Monday.
Friday was a long shift, 8 hours, from 6pm to 2am. I learned how to rip tickets correctly. I learned how to say “your theater is off to the left” when in reality the theater was off to my right. I also learned how to sweep up popcorn and other debris.
The tickets part is easy. You have half of the theater to direct people to. You have to know what movie is seating at the moment. If the movie has finished, has the theater been cleaned for the next showing? If it has not, you need to have people wait a couple minutes, if it has been , they are all set and can go sit down. Friday was the opening night of the movie Date Night, so we had a line for that, that was interesting.
Cleaning is also easy. A group of ushers swarms into the theater after the movie has finished and all the patrons have left the auditorium. Some of us have brooms and dustpans, others have a plastic bag for bigger items. A theater can be cleaned pretty quick, maybe between 5-10 minutes. After it is cleaned we let the ticket taking usher know that it is ready to be sat and turn on the ‘seating now’ light.
On Friday I had to help close the theater. That was interesting. The theater is so empty after midnight. No more patrons enter the theater, we just have to wait for people to leave the movies that they are in. When the theater is empty we rush in and pick up only the big items. After we, the ushers, are done some janitors come in with leaf blowers and get the small stuff and mop the hard floors. It being easier does not mean that it goes any quicker. There is a lot of waiting for movies to finish and people to leave. We did get to go home a little early on Friday, maybe 1:45am.
Saturday was pretty similar. I started out taking tickets, and ended my day cleaning. about 2.5 hours of each. While taking tickets I let Chuck Norris, his wife and two kids into Clash of the Titans. That was pretty neat. Letting a movie star into the movies. I imagine that he will be my only actual movie start sighting while being an usher.
At this point nothing on me hurts, except for my feet from all the standing and walking around, so that is a good thing. Working at Target made my forearms flare up and I couldn’t use them for several days after having to quit Target. That was crazy, and unfortunate. I am making less at Cinemark, but at least I am making some money, and having fun. And, I get free movie tickets for me and one guest! Thats pretty good, and better than the measly 10% discount that Target gave. I think I might have lucked out with this new job. The hours are way better too.
