It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
No, not Christmas.
No, not your colonoscopy appointment, either.
It’s time for another Star Wars movie.
Ever since the franchise was handed over to Disney, fans have rejoiced over the chance to see their beloved universe on the big screen again. The first new installment, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” was well-received (92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, 81 percent on Metacritic, 8.2 out of 10 on IMDb). So far, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” has been doing pretty well itself (84 percent Rotten Tomatoes, 65 percent Metacritic).
But don’t let the lower scores fool you. Rogue One’s great.
I work at a movie theater where employees switch roles some shifts to prevent us from getting sucked into the black hole of boredom, never to be seen with an ounce of excitement on our faces again. It works for the most part.
Luckily, I didn’t work Rogue One’s opening night. I can envision the never-ending line wrapping around the theater, anxious fans dressed in their favorite characters’ attires. The thought of it makes me uneasy.
Not because there’s tons of customers and that means it’ll be incredibly busy. No, I’m used to that from previous job experience. But what I’m not used to is the aftermath of blockbuster films in movie theaters.
Here’s a quick re-cap of what I found while cleaning out theaters this past weekend:
- Four beer cans
- Three bottles of liquor, various sizes
- Enough popcorn to feed an army twice over
- Full or half-full drink cups and popcorn buckets
- Used napkins
- Endless supplies of unused napkins in cup holders
My conclusions: People are incredibly wasteful and inconsiderate.
Sure, this could be me complaining about my job, but I beg to differ.
Sure, accidents happen. But when you find buckets of popcorn and drinks barely touched still in the theater, it’s hard to dispute my hypothesis.
Seriously, people literally buy huge buckets of popcorn and drinks (which are pretty pricey, in my opinion) and don’t even consume them, let alone take them home to eat and drink. It’s crazier than the ending of Rogue One.
Moving onto consideration. It’s generally frowned upon to bring your own snacks and beverages into a movie theater, but people do it. I’m guilty of doing it in the past.
But bringing alcohol? Is that really necessary? Even with alcohol, okay, congratulations on trying to get hammered at a public showing of Star Wars, but now you’re going to leave your drinks on the theater floor for employees to clean up? Nice.
I’m only talking about my experiences at one theater, but I can’t imagine these are too far off from others.
It makes the Star Wars fan base and community look bad. But Star Wars can’t be the only movie fan base that has this problem. It’s safe to say every big movie will have something like this happen in movie theaters on opening weekend.
So if it isn’t Star Wars, what’s the problem?
An attitude with customer service that has been recurring for as long as I can remember.
Let’s backtrack:
This past weekend, I was working as an usher. Along with cleaning theaters, I also had to direct people to their respective theaters. I’m still working in my hometown, and being that it was a busy weekend and many of my peers are back home for the holidays, I saw some people I used to be associated with.
Maybe it’s just my paranoid assumptions, but there had to be at least one person who didn’t take a particular liking to me in the past that thought something like, ‘Oh, wow, he’s just working in a movie theater! I’m so much better off than him!’
It’s thinking similar to that of my former associates that has me concerned. Not because they don’t like me, but because I believe more people have that attitude that I’ve never even spoken to before.
Customer service jobs get a really bad wrap nowadays. If you’ve never worked one, you’re more prone to thinking like this, simply because you can’t relate. It’s natural, but also alarming.
If I had to bet, I would say that more than half of those who left a big mess for my fellow co-workers and I to clean up had never worked as a movie theater usher or something of the nature, and thought, ‘Well, it’s their job to clean it up anyway.’
Yes, it is our job to clean up movie theaters. No, we shouldn’t be cleaning up huge messes that take an average of 20 minutes to finish. There’s garbage cans near the exits for a reason.
I think this frame of thinking comes from not having that personal experience working in customer service. Partially.
But perhaps it also comes from hostility from others. Maybe some of those who leave huge messes are belittled in their personal lives, and times like at the movie theater are their chance to feel like they’re above someone for once.
Maybe they see themselves as the ushers of their own lives, being belittled by others and always having to clean up others’ messes.
While this epidemic will never truly cease, there has to be a way to weaken it and bring more reasoning to everybody involved. Until we find a way, I guess I’ll be sweeping popcorn off the floor.
Oh, right… the movie. Just go see it.
The Stay@Home Traveller 