Interview with a Drunken Movie Theater Employee is a six-part series that will progress over the next few weeks. For some context, the anonymous employee was in the process of dying their hair during the interview, hence the hairnet. I hope you will enjoy the story as it unfolds.
What is the best part of working at a movie theater?
Anon: Alright, everyone’s going to say: the popcorn. Then everyone would say, you know, the movie tickets, the free movie tickets. Maybe I would say that [the] first few months. Yeah, great, cool, free shit, I don’t care. Don’t put that in there. No, you can put it in there. It’s fine. However, the best thing… about working… in… a movie… theater…
Me: Do you want me to make sure these pauses are reflected in the interview, like ellipses or something so people know the emphasis?
Anon: I can’t think of anything. There’s nothing good about it.
Me: There has to be something good that you like.
Anon: Oh, okay, um. Oh! We have these competitions where we like try to throw popcorn into each others’ mouths.
Me: Alright, so when you first started I thought this was going to be a legit competition you guys had in the company, but it’s not. It’s just you throw… you’re throwing the corns.
Anon: Yeah. I get half-priced French fries, which is important. Next question.
Me: Follow up question to that: Do you get a discount on the alcohol since you are now serving alcohol soon maybe?
Anon: Not sure. We don’t have that yet.
What is the weirdest customer interaction you’ve had?
Anon: Okay, one time this woman with a man, who I presume was her husband, but we don’t know, came up to me and they asked for a ticket. Then, they tried to pay with a Farmer’s Outlet receipt, and I said ‘Excuse me, ma’am, I think you gave me the wrong thing.’ Then, she got angry, and she said ‘What do you mean?’ And I said, ‘This is a Farmer’s Outlet receipt, this is [name of theater], ma’am.’ Oh wait, don’t put that in there. You can’t put the cinema name in there. 'This is a movie theater.' She was like, ‘What do you mean? I just got this yesterday.’ I was like, ‘Okay.’ Then, I turned to the man, and he gave me money, which was good because it continued the transaction in a timely manner. Then, she put her mouth up to the microphone and told me that when she got home after the movie she was going to kill herself. I looked at the man, and he just said, ‘No, she’s not.’ I was like, ‘Okay, that’s going to be $22.20.’ Then, they left. To their movie, not the building.
A lot of people [come] up to me telling me—no, not a lot of people, just one guy.
Me: That shifted very quickly.
Anon: It’s this guy. Okay, he’s like… I’m trying to think of an equivalent of pop culture that someone would know. He is—who’s that crazy British cook who yells, like, 'This soup is dry!’
Me: Ramsay? Gordon Ramsay?
Anon: Yeah. He’s like the Gordon Ramsay of movie theaters. He’s gross.
Me: Gordon Ramsay I wouldn’t say is gross, so he’s like a gross Gordon Ramsay?
Anon: Okay. I would say [Gordon Ramsay is] gross, but we can keep that to ourselves. So, [the customer will] come up to us and be like, ‘Excuse me, I need a refill on this drink.’ And I’ll be like, ‘Oh, we only do refills on large.’ And he’s holding a medium cup.
Me: You only do refills on large? Why is that?
Anon: Because if you pay for a medium or a large and get refills on both, no one’s every going to buy the large. What the f—. It’s simple marketing, people. So, he comes up to us, and we say—Oh, he cuts the line, mind you, to do this. He comes up and says this bullshit. We say, ‘Oh, no refills, sir, sorry.’ He’s like, ‘Well, you do it in the other town where your theater is.’ I was like, ‘We are not them, sir.’ I don’t give a shit. He starts going on these rants about how life has changed, and about how things should stay the same, and about how he should have his free refill on his medium drink. It’s like, sir, it’s 50 cents more to get the large. It’s not that difficult. And he’ll come up to the manager and be like—he’ll explain the same thing, right? And the manager will just be like okay, same answer, bye. And then, he’ll ask for the general manager who will say the same thing, and then [the customer said he was] never coming back again. He came back the next day. He came back the next day. The next, like, not even 24 hours had passed, and he came back, no questions. I hope he got that large, bitch.
