Miscellaneously Yours

Okay, I’ve worked with the public for about 5 years now, I know that not everyone is a horrible customer. However, I would love to know where some people purchased their manners, because I think they ought to issue a recall.

from aol.com

Case 1: This one’s a classic. They walk in between movies, get up to the box office, and ignore me when I ask how I can help you. They’re going to stare at the movie board, again ignoring me when I say that there  are no movies starting for another hour, as they have all started already. They will then ask me if anything’s starting now, and get angry with me when I repeat that nothing starts for an hour. Because it’s obviously my fault that they didn’t check the movie times beforehand.

Or the other variation on time: They walk in half an hour before/after their movie starts and ask for the tickets without looking at the board. I ask if they wanted those for the one that’s already in progress or the later show. They look at me like I’m stupid and say, “The X:XX show.” I tell them I’m sorry, but we don’t have a show at that time. “The newspaper said you did.” Well, then that changes everything doesn’t it? Let me just go up to the projectionists and tell them they need to stop the movie and play it from the beginning now, because that’s when the newspaper said it was on.

Case 2: They come up to me and chomp away at their gum making gross noises with it while they’re talking to me, and continue chomping with their mouth open so much that I’m amazed that the gum hasn’t fallen out. That’s just rude and disgusting.

Case 3: (this is one of my personal favorites) They come up and buy tickets to a movie that is available in 3D in select theaters, but not this one. Even though there is a notice on the movie board that it is not in 3D, I warn them before ringing them up, because I know that most people don’t bother looking. First they look at me as if I have three heads, then give me some variation of “Are you kidding me?” as if I have just ruined their life. Then come the dirty looks to everyone else in the party, then the angry, “Why not?” I inform them that we unfortunately do not have the correct projectors to show that type of movie. Then comes my favorite: “Who does?” Why do people think that I have every theater in the area memorized? I work at this theater. I know what movies we have playing here. If you would like to know what movies are playing at the other theaters, try calling them. And no, I do not have their phone number.

And yet I just keep smiling through them all…