From Action Film To Slasher Flick In Seconds Flat

There was recently a “National Cinema Day” on which major theater chains in the US offered tickets for only $3 for one day only. Naturally, this turned our theater into a madhouse. Virtually every single show sold out from open to close, which never happens, and people were showing up literally by the hundreds at certain points of the day.

Even with extra people scheduled, it was essentially Hell on earth. Box office lines were out the door the entire day. The concession lines were wrapped around the lobby and there was up to a twenty-minute wait at times just to order. And it got so hectic that even with the extra popper running, it was physically impossible to make popcorn fast enough to keep up with demand. It was madness.

Because it was so busy, we were only able to clean the lobby and bathrooms in the brief time we had after each rush. We’d clean and get the place looking immaculate… and twenty minutes later, the next rush would start and it’d be totally destroyed again within minutes.

It was the very end of the night, and we had just finished our final rush, which was about 300 people over the course of a half-hour. The lobby was, of course, totally destroyed. Popcorn, wrappers, straws, and napkins were everywhere. There was spilled soda around the Freestyle machines, etc.

We started to clean the lobby when a lone woman wandered in through the front door. She looked around, her face turned sour, and she exclaimed:

Customer: “Pfft! This is pitiful! I’m the only one here and it’s this dirty?! How lazy can you guys be?! I want a manager! Clearly, nobody here knows how to do their job!”

And that was the night I got mad enough that I almost killed a woman with my bare hands.