Ryan's Job

This is a page for nuances about my job that didn't quite fit in the other two categories. Working at the concession stand for several months has brought me great pain, and the smallest things now tend to bother me. Some of these are on the list, but are expanded on here.

• I saw a total of five fights in the lobby between customers during my 10 months working there.
• We had three sizes of drinks--Large, Regular, and Child Size. Not Small, Child Size. Harkins didn't want to sell any Child Size, so they didn't put it on display. So all people saw was the Large and the Regular. So whenever someone ordered "Small," it was my job to determine if they looked at the menu and wanted a Child Size, or if they were looking at the display shelves and wanted a Regular.
• There was one fountain on one of the soda towers that was labeled "Caffiene Free Diet Pepsi." A couple months after I started, a customer complained that it tasted like Mug Root Beer. Somehow it got switched to Root beer. So someone took a marker and wrote "Root Beer" on the label. A while later, someone complained that it tasted like Caffiene Free Diet Pepsi. So I wrote "Not" above the "Root Beer." THEN we got a complaint that it tasted like Root Beer again.
• The Six Steps to Success are required to be said by each worker for each sale in order to increase revenue. They are:
  
  Smile
  Greet
  Upsell Popcorn
  Upsell Drink
  Suggest
  Thank
  
  I have an obvious problem with smiling, because I wish I was dead everytime I work. Greeting isn't that hard. Upselling is a pain, because if anyone wants a medium drink I have to tell them that a large is only a quarter more and gets you a free refill. Some people are really bothered by this, as I would be. Suggesting is even worse... you have to pick a specific item to suggest that they buy. This is easy if they don't get a drink or popcorn, but if they get one of everything there's not much left to suggest. Thanking isn't hard, but I still find it difficult to thank some of the morons. If you don't do each of these steps exactly right, the managers get on your case.
• We have four kinds of cookies: Reverse Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter, White Choclate Macadamia Nut, and, of course, Chocolate Chip. Ninety percent of the people who buy cookies want Chocolate Chip, of course, so we're always out of them, while the other kinds just rot in the warmer all day.
• Icees. Hate 'em, hate 'em, hate 'em. I already explained this in my customers section.
• Kids trays are bad too. You have to get a tiny cup and a tiny box of Mike & Ike's and put them in a special box with popcorn. They way the box is shaped, though, makes it impossible to keep popcorn in there, so it gets all over my counter, of course. Recently we started selling Icees with the kid's trays, but some people don't know that. Whenever someone asks for a kid's tray, I just shut my mouth and don't mention the word "Icee".
• Working the popper is by far my favorite duty. It keeps you busy all night because you have to keep stuffing bags, and you don't deal with customers. The only problem: cooking oil. The lids on the kettles don't close all the way, so when the oil starts boiling, it skips out of the kettle onto your arm. I always come home with countless scalds on my arm, but it's worth it.
• Pretzels are also a pain. We have to go and make each pretzel individually. We take it out of the warmer and douse it in butter with a brush, then use shakers to put on salt or garlic parmesean, or rub it in a tray of cinnamon sugar. This gets really old when everybody and their dog wants a cinnamon pretzel.
• We have lots of losers working there, so we're constantly running out of stuff. Just about no one but me checks to make sure we're not running out of nachos or hot dogs or pretzels or ice or anything. I'm constantly running all over looking for ice because no one will come refill mine.
• Something else I'm constantly running all over for: candy. We don't have every kind at every register, so each time candy is ordered I go on a treasure hunt. Of course, we're always out of Red Vines and Reeses Pieces (or as my customers call them, "Reesees Peecees") because everybody orders them.
• Occasionally the heavens smile down upon me and I get to clean theatres instead of working the concession stand. This is where I see how stupid people REALLY are. They pay $5.00 for an XL popcorn, then barely touch it. They pay $3.50 for a souvenir cup and then don't take it home. They manage to spill popcorn everywhere. And they stay until the end of the credits as if someone they know worked on the movie, forcing us to wait until we can start cleaning.
• A new item is something I call the Moron Cup. It's a plastic MIB/Mountain Dew cup that's the same size as the Large Cup. It looks a lot bigger because it has a huge lid that twists on, but I won't fill it up that high because I know it's going to spill out. It's $.75 more than the Large Cup, and it can't be refilled. And yet, some people still buy it after I tell them this. Why?