Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: rant on stupid customers

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Operations » Ground Level » rant on stupid customers (Page 47)

This topic comprises 75 pages: 1 2 3 ... 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 ... 73 74 75

Author

Topic: rant on stupid customers

Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 06-04-2008 06:12 PM

quote: Mike Blakesley
If you take your 2 year old to a show, and she cries, talks or otherwise misbehaves, you have wrecked the movie experience for everyone within 20 feet of you.

It's a lot more than people within 20 feet. The scream of a baby is so piercing that it disturbs the whole theater (especially with somewhat quiet soundtrack).

quote: Mike Blakesley
People who have kids think the world revolves around their kids.

No more true statement has ever been written on film-tech. People with kids don't seem to understand that just because THEIR life revolves around THEIR kid it doesn't mean that the world revolves around their kid.

| IP: Logged

Patrick Dunn
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 120
From: newark, DE, United states
Registered: Aug 2005

posted 06-04-2008 11:14 PM

I was doing a theater check in sex and the city on it's opening night and I heard a sound as I was walking up the aisle. I looked over too my left and someone had a baby in their arms! The kid didn't even look like it was one year old.

| IP: Logged

Sean McKinnon
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1712
From: Peabody Massachusetts
Registered: Sep 2000

posted 06-05-2008 12:30 PM

quote:
quote: Mike Blakesley
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
People who have kids think the world revolves around their kids.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No more true statement has ever been written on film-tech. People with kids don't seem to understand that just because THEIR life revolves around THEIR kid it doesn't mean that the world revolves around their kid.

AMEN!!!

| IP: Logged

Adam Holland
Film Handler

Posts: 66
From: Oak Grove, LA
Registered: Nov 2007

posted 06-05-2008 07:38 PM

That brings up a good point. Why did theatres get rid of the cry room. The theatre I run still has one and it helps for problems such as this. Parents with small children feel comfortable bringing thier kids to the movies because they know they can go in that room and the kids will not distrub others. This is one thing the modern architechs ought to consider when they build new theatres.

| IP: Logged

Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-06-2008 09:54 AM

We used to have a cry room with 4 seats in it. (Everything in our theatre is small. If I was building it now, I'd put really nice chairs in there, not just theatre seats.) People would pitch a fit if we asked them to go in there. Almost no one would sit in there voluntarily. I think it was probably because the kid's screams seemed even louder to the parent while sitting in that dinky space.

ANyway, it was too small to remodel to make it decent, so we finally got rid of it because we needed the space for storage.

| IP: Logged

Patrick Dunn
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 120
From: newark, DE, United states
Registered: Aug 2005

posted 06-06-2008 01:52 PM

We have what used to be a cry room for one of our smaller screens. The glass is covered and the room is now an office.

| IP: Logged

Robert Crabtree
Film Handler

Posts: 91
From: Largo, FL
Registered: May 2008

posted 06-06-2008 11:01 PM

I forgot about this "gem" until yesterday.

During the last set on opening Friday of Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, there was this little kid (about 5 y/o) that kept bugging our concessionists for stuff- money to play the video games, free drinks, free popcorn, etc. One guy, in a last ditch attempt to get him to leave, gave him a kid candy. Then, later in the night (12:30ish), about 10 minutes after his last "Can I gets a dank" panhandling, I'm checking out our hallways, making sure that everything is okay, when I see it. In a small nook, by the door to the booth stairwell.

A big green, gelatinous [bs]

And I see a small [bs]

handprint on our bathroom door.

Following the nasty trail of [bs]

handprints, I end up in the handicapped stall, which has [bs]

smeared on the door, and find a [bs]

pair of little boy's pants.

Lesson learned: Give little concession hustlers the boot before they give us the poop.

| IP: Logged

Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 06-09-2008 11:08 AM

Am I understanding this correctly?

There was an unsupervised 5 year old child alone in the lobby of the theater late at night, not once, but twice, with the last time being after midnight?

And no one tried to find his parents and/or called the police?

Are unsupervised pre-schoolers running around late at night common in Florida?

| IP: Logged

Robert Crabtree
Film Handler

Posts: 91
From: Largo, FL
Registered: May 2008

posted 06-09-2008 01:08 PM

Whatever movie he was seeing was part of a busy 10 PM set; he just kept leaving his movie throughout the show to get free stuff out of the concessionists. Had a small, solitary kid strolled into our lobby from outside around midnight, police definitely would have been called into our urban theatre.

While I've never let my older nephew out of my sight in public, an appalling number of parents can't be bothered to escort their kids to and from the bathroom, or otherwise keep an eye on them. I guessed he was 5 mainly because he was short and the way that he spoke-he could have been as old as 8 or 9.

As for police, we had on-site security that night as well as many officers around the shopping center on their beats. Until the kid (allegedly, though guilty 'til proven innocent I say) used our floor/doors/walls in lieu of toilet paper, he hadn't done anything other than be obnoxious, and did nothing to suggest his parents were anything more than disgustingly lazy. Thus, their lack of involvement.

Not my story, but it has a similar theme:

On the opening weekend of Titanic, one of our managers was working at a different 20-plex that was packed to the gills when she came across two young kids whose mother had bought tickets and dropped them off. As if this wasn't already bad enough, said children were apparently sick as dogs and throwing up in whatever movie their mom had left them in.

Calling the police was the first thing on her mind. Cause while crappy, hands off parenting rarely gets police attention, incredibly negligent abandonment usually does.

| IP: Logged

Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 06-09-2008 01:41 PM

So the manager called the police because of the ASSUMPTION that it's impossible for the kids to have not shown major symptoms beforehand and therefore the parent was negligent?

People go to the hospital all the time with major problems that had previously appeared normal... but of course all their friends and family are negligent too.

I feel sorry for the parents getting talked to by a cop for no reason other than a manager of a movie theater being ignorant.

| IP: Logged

Robert Crabtree
Film Handler

Posts: 91
From: Largo, FL
Registered: May 2008

posted 06-10-2008 02:10 AM

It was unbelievably horrible judgment all around to abandon two little kids (I think she said both were under 10) at night on the premises of a busy 20 plex in a mall surrounded by highway on what was the opening weekend of the biggest blockbuster that year. That they were sick and puking in the theatre just made a shitty situation worse (and is probably why the aforementioned manager came across the kids amidst all of the mayhem).

Even removing illness from the equation, the possibilities of something catastrophic happening in that situation are too high to ignore. While we look out for the comfort and well-being of our guests, theatres are not a substitute for child care.

At some point in time, Florida adopted MPAA ratings as state law. If that decision was in force at the time, and they were alone in an R movie, I think the sum of the circumstances would have required her to call police, as a guardian of 21yrs or older would have been required to be with them throughout an R showing.

Sorry for the long reply- I'm just a tad long-winded [Wink]

| IP: Logged

Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 06-10-2008 06:15 AM

quote: Robert Crabtree
At some point in time, Florida adopted MPAA ratings as state law.

When did that happen? I'm not aware of it. Do you have a link?

| IP: Logged

Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 06-10-2008 10:50 AM

quote: Robert Crabtree
It was unbelievably horrible judgment all around to abandon two little kids (I think she said both were under 10) at night on the premises of a busy 20 plex in a mall surrounded by highway on what was the opening weekend of the biggest blockbuster that year. That they were sick and puking in the theatre just made a shitty situation worse (and is probably why the aforementioned manager came across the kids amidst all of the mayhem).

Dropping off kids at a movie theater isn't abandoning them. So yet again, the cops got called for something that wasn't necessary. Surely, this could've all been handled by asking them where their mom/dad is and then asking them for a number to reach them at.

| IP: Logged

Patrick Dunn
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 120
From: newark, DE, United states
Registered: Aug 2005

posted 06-10-2008 01:04 PM

I remember once a parent brought her kids in, payed for their ticket and left after they went into the theater. Later they came out and asked if they could have "their" money back so they could walk around main street. We didn't of course since it was their parents money and they were just trying to take it so they could spend it on other things while their parents thought the were in a movie.

| IP: Logged

Robert Crabtree
Film Handler

Posts: 91
From: Largo, FL
Registered: May 2008

posted 06-10-2008 02:35 PM

Lyle, I have no idea when it happened, but I know it has been the case since at least 2004, when I started at Theatre X. Most if not all theatres around here have a plaque stating that it's required by state law to be 17 to buy an R ticket, 21 to buy additional tickets and act as guardian. I think some list a statute number, which I'll look out for.

I personally would love to adopt a policy I saw on Arclight's website, which is no kid/student discount on R movies, only adult and senior. Adult movie, adult content, adult pricing. Not that such a policy would extend to kid's movies.

Chris- If there had been a single adult amongst the thousands of perfect strangers that night who had been entrusted to the care of the kids, someone who could have reported the disappearance of the kids, who could have kept the kids onsite and not wandering out of the mall into highway traffic, who would protect the kids from being victims, like Adam Walsh, to predators, like Jeffrey Dahmer, I'd agree.

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 75 pages: 1 2 3 ... 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 ... 73 74 75

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.