Cinema SC 'tribes'

[Legacy_of_Torment]

Just a small rant about things 9/10 SC's ask me on a daily basis.

BG- I'm a cinema projectionist who has had her hours cut drastically enough that I need to work some front of house shifts to make up the lost hours. Here's a list of the most common SC's I meet on those days.

The "Where the f*ck are we" tribe.

They're regulars, they come to this cinema weekly, and yet the second they set foot over the threshold, all sense of direction magically flies out their ears and far, far away.

Regular SC standing next to a giant, neon toilet sign: Where are the toilets? Stop standing around and SHOW me.

Me trying to serve a huge line of patient customers: It's just there *points emphatically* RIGHT behind you.

SC: I said I want you to SHOW ME!!!

Me: I can't leave this station right now, but it's literally through those doors behind you, you can't miss it.

Apparently she can and will miss it. This happens at least once a week and she always insists that a member of staff be called to show her where they are.

The 'I heard you but I'm not listening' tribe.

This one is 95% of our customers, if not more. They arrive at the usher station, hand over their ticket, at which point we will tell you what screen your film is in, and (if applicable) your seat number. The scenario almost always goes like this fine example...

Me: Hiya, *takes the ticket* thanks, that's in Screen 4, Seat number J9

SC: *huffing while taking the ticket stub and barely stopping on their way through* yes, yes I know. *is suddenly confronted by 4 doors and pauses looking puzzled, before turning around* What screen am I in?

Me: *inward sigh* Screen 4,

SC: And that's free seating?

Me: *inwardly slamming my head against a wall* No, it's allocated seating today, the number is the one in bold on your stub.

SC: Well it would be nice if you told me! *still in a huff, walks into the wrong screen.

And yep, when we run in to stop them from going the wrong way, despite being told, clearly, twice where they are going, it's still our fault they made a wrong turn.

The 'I can't use a computer correctly and its all your fault' tribe.

Like most places, we have an online booking system. Our website isn't the best one out there, and it can be a tad confusing for elderly customers. However, what always perplexes me, is how customers are so quick to blame us when they book the wrong seats or for the wrong times.

The most common problem is when they book the front row seats thinking they are the back row ones. An easy mistake to make, you might think. But consider this; on the diagram, there's a huge bold message that reads FRONT and likewise at the back, it says BACK.

Almost half of box office complaints pertain to people getting this mixed up. And of course, it's not they who are being a little obtuse, no it's our problem. One such SC, for instance, took this to a new level of stupid blagging.

SC: I didn't book seats at the front, this always happens to me, I clearly book them at the back but your website changes them around!

Me: I'm sorry madam but that's impossible, nobody here can move the seats without your reference number, are you sure you didn't accidentally click on the wrong ones?

SC: I most certainly did NOT! Your website is broken, there's no way of telling where anything is!!

Me: *calling up the website* If you see here, this diagram shows you where everything is, it's all labelled, just for future ref.

SC: Well those labels weren't there when I was booking!

Me: These labels have been here as long as this site has been running. That's well over a decade. If you like, I can take your booking reference number and change your seats fir you now.

SC: You just said you can't change it! That's deception! I want to speak to your manager!!!

Me: Madam, I said we cannot change your seats without your reference number, therefore nobody here has been changing your seats without your knowledge.

SC: *hell bent on summoning the almighty manager* I want to speak to your manager!!

I called the manager, and the SC then proceeded to yell at him for a good solid half hour about how we were lying to her and how HER internet must be different to the rest of the world. Annoyingly, he gave her comp tickets to appease her. But at least that meant I won't have to deal with her next week!

[otakuneko]

The online version of SCs never reading signs.

HER internet must be different to the rest of the world.

Back in the day, I might have said sure, she's on AOL and just thinks it's the internet.

[EvilEmpryss]

Regular SC standing next to a giant, neon toilet sign: Where are the toilets? Stop standing around and SHOW me.

At least you aren't being asked to lead them into the stall and wipe their butts... yet.

The most common problem is when they book the front row seats thinking they are the back row ones. An easy mistake to make, you might think. But consider this; on the diagram, there's a huge bold message that reads FRONT and likewise at the back, it says BACK.

Right, because when you're standing in the aisle, looking to the back, you see people's FRONTs, but when you're looking to the front, you see people's BACKs.

See, SC logic isn't so hard to understand.

I'm going to go take a percocet now to make the pain in my head stop.

[wolfie]

Regular SC standing next to a giant, neon toilet sign: Where are the toilets? Stop standing around and SHOW me.

Me trying to serve a huge line of patient customers: It's just there *points emphatically* RIGHT behind you.

SC: I said I want you to SHOW ME!!!

Me: I can't leave this station right now, but it's literally through those doors behind you, you can't miss it.

Procedure I'd love to follow (if I worked in such a position, and didn't mind being fired):

1) If SC was of opposite gender, locate employee of appropriate gender (who also didn't mind being fired) to carry out the remainder of the procedure. If SC was of same gender, I'd carry out the remainder of the procedure.

2) Lead SC to washroom.

3) Stick SC's head in toilet.

4) Flush.

After all, isn't that the proper procedure for disposing of Shaving Cream...

[Ironclad Alibi]

Annoyingly, he gave her comp tickets to appease her. But at least that meant I won't have to deal with her next week!

Of course you will have to deal with her again, and again, and again, forever. Because she has learned how to get free tickets.

[Legacy_of_Torment]

Of course you will have to deal with her again, and again, and again, forever. Because she has learned how to get free tickets.

Sadly this is probably true. I don't know why managers undermine staff this way, it just creates more problems. The customer is right is the most incorrect mantra of retail to ever exist in modern times. Because as this entire forum will attest, they aren't!

[BearLeeBadenaugh]

Ahh, the movie theatre. Did a few years as the head projectionist/chief blame-taker for a 6-plex, back in the mid nineties. Some of the most entitled idiots you will find.


It's been long enough I really don't have too many good individual stories from there, but a couple customer types jump to the forefront of my mind.

Two of my least favorites were types of babysit-my-kids-for-me.
First off, there's the parent/guardian who brings their precious and lets them go to a kid movie while they go see their film. Not a huge deal if the kids are well-behaved or if the p/g makes it a point to select films of similar length, start time, and so forth. HUGE deal if the kids are watching Pocahontas and the p/g decides to go see Braveheart. I went in the theatre and got the mother in that instance, refunded her ticket and told her she needed to remove her hellions from our lobby. She tried to raise a fuss, but thankfully my manager backed me up.

The next, and the worst imho, were the parents that would drop their children off for a movie. Some would come in and buy the kids tickets then turn them loose, some would just drop the kids off with money and peel out of the parking lot as fast as possible. Sometimes it would be just fine, but much of the time it wasn't. So many problems. Kids not having enough money for tickets, let alone concessions. Kids running uncontrollably, yelling, screaming, and so forth. Parents dropping them with money for one film, telling them to sneak into the other theatre and watch a 2nd or 3rd movie, they'll be back in 5 hours, crap like that. There's nothing so fun as having to watch over a set of kids while trying to get hold of someone to come pick them up. Our theatre wasn't at a mall or anything such, it was on the outskirts of an industrial area and across the highway from a walmart, so it was kind of hard to just push young kids towards the doors. Our semi-official policy was a half hour of phone calls to mom, dad, grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc. Whatever numbers the kids could give us. Left some lovely phone messages, "mr or mrs so-n-so, you have abandoned your children at the movie theatre, we are not a babysitting service, please come pick up your child. We do not want to involve the authorities, it is such and such time, we must inform the police at suchnsuch+30"

I remember a lawsuit from back then, I was supposed to be a witness, but they settled out of court. Well-to-do couple had a nanny for their three children, who was supposed to take them to the movies once a week. She gamed their system for nearly a year, until the oldest daughter had her first time-o-the month while at the show, freaked, borrowed our phone and called mom at work. Parents find out that the nanny has been purchasing the kids tickets and then taking off. Also turned out that the kids were paying for concessions out of their allowances. Not sure how much they settled for, but apparently they had been giving the nanny $100 a week to cover the trip to the theatre and a McD's run afterwards.


Another of the types of customers just about everyone despises are the throwers. How annoying they are depends on what they throw and what they throw at. My least favorite were the truly malicious and messy ones. It's one thing to throw a little popcorn, a whole magnitude of difference when they throw a full soda. And the screen, ugh, so much extra work when something gets thrown at the screen. Depending on what it was, you might have to clean the whole screen. If you were lucky, you only had to clean a small section, then dirty it back up slightly to get rid of the extra shine from the clean spot. We kept a little container of granite dust around(thanks grandpa!), it was the perfect color and reflectance to match a slightly dirty screen.

On the topic of throwing, there are things I don't understand why theatres sell for concessions. ESPECIALLY gummy worms, DOTS, and the like. Had one malicious brat who came in for a showing and bought a bag of gummy worms, then proceeded to suck on them and throw them high at the screen, one at a time. By the time we were notified, there were over a dozen of them stuck on the screen. Had to shut off the film so I could clean, which meant we had to refund tickets and concessions for nearly 50 people. Couldn't wait and just say sorry for the long intermission, we only had a gap of ten minutes for normal cleaning, it took longer than that just to get the genie lift set up.

[Legacy_of_Torment]

I sympathise with everything you have just said. I've had to stop entire shows to clean the projection porthole before now because some parents let their little darlings hurl nacho cheese at the window! And what's even more irritating is these kids weren't even unaccompanied, the parents were sat next to them.
Screen cleaning isn't so much of an issue for us as we don't stock sticky sweets, but every so often there's a little bigger who sneaks some in. So we aren't entirely screen cleaning safe.