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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Topic: Becoming a general manager
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Christopher Crouch
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 128
From: Holywood, ca, usa
Registered: May 2006
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posted 04-05-2010 04:55 AM
If you love what you are doing and desire to make a career of theatre operations, then you should definitely make an effort to continue moving forward. Yes, there are certain "fun" aspects lost and burdens added as you move in to upper management (or any position of greater responsibility for that matter). However, there is also the reward of growth, achievement, and new challenges in making such a move.
As "fun" and "free and easy" as the life of an assistant can be, nothing ruins that experience like remaining in the position too long. I've known far too many individuals who avoided moving ahead because they didn't want the added responsibilities or to lose the "fun" they were having. While they may have extended their "free and easy" days a bit, in the long run, they ended up unhappy and usually left the industry. What was once "fun", becomes boring and routine; "free and easy" grows frustrating, as coworkers move on, you grow older, and find yourself left behind.
While you are still relatively young and have plenty of time to enjoy where you are, don't allow yourself to settle in to a comfort zone. Opportunities pass much quicker than you might expect. If you want to continue loving your work, look for new challenges and move forward in your career. Take it from someone who was faced with the same decision nearly two decades ago, it's much better to have moved on and reminisce about the great times you once had as an assistant, than to still be that assistant.
As for continuing your education; You will never reach a point in life where you say "I wish I had less education". Stay in school and finish what you started, I guarantee you won't regret it.
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Michael Riley
Film Handler
Posts: 52
From: New Jersey
Registered: Apr 2010
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posted 04-09-2010 09:07 PM
Hello there,
First off, I do wish you the best in your future career choice. I however was a GM for Regal briefly a few years ago, after many years as an associate, and I can honestly say I would rank the job of being a GM for Regal as being slightly above being the guy who mops up at the adult theater, and slightly below the guy who cleans portable toilets.
For anyone with any business or managerial background, Regal can be at times an almost maddening company to work for. Their corporate office is run by people out of a Dilbert comic. In fact, I'm just going to literally copy and paste from the Dilbert entry on Wikipedia, with some slight modifications
Regal Entertainment Group portrays corporate culture as a Kafkaesque world of bureaucracy for its own sake and corporate politics that stand in the way of productivity, where employees' skills and efforts are not rewarded, and busy work is praised.
Themes explored include:
# Incompetent and sadistic management
* Scheduling and budgeting without reference to reality
* Failure to reward success or penalize laziness
* Penalizing employees for failures caused by bad management
* Micromanagement
* Failure to improve others' morale, lowering it instead
* Failure to communicate objectives
* Handling of projects doomed to failure or cancellation
* Sadistic HR policies with flimsy (or purely evil) rationale
Honestly, this is Regal in a nutshell. The reason you see so many GM postings is because there is a tremendously high burn out rate amongst Regal GM's for precisely these reasons. The other reason is because of the fact that their HR department
is fashioned after the Gestapo, and operates in a way where terrible managers who happen to have friends in high places go untouched, while great managers who fall into bad circumstances, whether it was their fault or not get tossed immediately. I have seen so many awful managers over the years that somehow stay under the radar, while others who commit far less grievous fouls get fired on their first offense. It's all entirely political too, and when push comes to shove, even people who will claim to have your back will turn on you.
Oh yes, and don't go into Regal expecting to make a livable salary. Their starting pay for lower management is only about a dollar above minimum wage whatever that is where you are. Assistants rarely make more than $12 or $13 an hour on salary, and that's only at the busiest of theaters in the company. The only GM's that were making any serious bank were the ones from the Pre-REG Hoyts / UA / Edwards days when companies would actually pay a decent salary. Otherwise as a starting GM, unless you're in one of the top grossing theaters in the company, you're looking at between $16 and $17 an hour starting, plus your bonus. Oh, and you'll never max out your bonus, because your assistants won't be capable of properly managing inventory, or succeeding on the blind check scores, and your DM will insist that you make purchases or repairs beyond what you're budgeted for, and then hold onto invoices forever so they hit you unexpectedly and ruin your hopes for meeting your budget, so you won't get that one either.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't harbor any personal grudges with Regal or anyone that works there. I still know many people that currently work for the company, and some of the nicest people I have ever met are at their corporate office. My parting of ways with Regal was done on my own volition, because the job was simply too much grief, stress, and anxiety, and it was becoming detrimental to my mental and physical well being, and it just wasn't worth all the crap for just $16.00 an hour. I don't regret having worked there however, and would probably be willing to go back at some point in a lesser capacity of the opportunity presented itself.
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Michael Riley
Film Handler
Posts: 52
From: New Jersey
Registered: Apr 2010
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posted 04-11-2010 11:33 AM
It all depends really. I know people that run small 7 or fewer screen theaters that do no business who are banking 60 to 70 grand a year or even more simply because they've been there since the beginning of time before everything became Regal, and Hoyts and UA actually paid their managers a decent salary and a reasonable bonus structure. On the other hand I know people who run 14 screens that do a lot of business, but are only making 30 to 35k a year because they came in long after the days of decent wages and salaries had gone.
If you want to make money as a GM for Regal, the way to do it is to be flexible and willing to relocate. Most people start off running smaller 10 or less screen locations that do about 200,000 in attendance annually. Starting pay will typically be around 16 to 17 an hour salary. If you ever want to start making a livable wage however, you will have to relocate, possibly even frequently, because that's the only way you'll ever get a significant pay raise. I believe annual raises at Regal get capped at 3%, so by staying at the same location, you're only looking at another 50 cents a year.
If you succede at running whatever rinky dink dump they start you out in, and are on good terms with your District Manager (this one is key, your DM can make or break you), it is entirely possible that over time, you can make your way to a busy location. I know some of the people running the hyper busy megaplexes in New York and Boston are banking six figures every year with their bonus, but they definitely work for it.
Honestly, the biggest frustration with being a GM for Regal has to be the pay, and the overwhelming effect it has on everything. Every location ends up with a high turnover rate for staff and managers because of this. Replacing staff isn't too bad, and can be accomplished within a couple of weeks. Hiring new managers however is a nightmare. Regal's HR department is very particular about who they will allow you to hire for management positions. They have to have had significant previous supervisory experience for one thing, and they also have to pass a particularly intrusive background check for another. If this doesn't eliminate 80% of your perspective management candidates, then the pay is what will get rid of the rest of them. I've seen entirely too many interviews with perfect candidates for management go south once you get to the part about the amount of respnsibility involved, and the fact that the company won't allow you to hire them for more than 9 or 10 dollars an hour for a full time position.
As a result of this, a lot of GM's get overworked and understaffed. As a GM, if you have more than one or two managers quit on you at once, it's a catastrophe, because now you'll have to work an extra 20 hours a week running booth and counting money to cover for the loss. Promoting from withing can often be difficult because even your best employees will end up leaving for better pay eventually, and most will just quit or get fired before they even get that far. Hiring from outside the company is an option, but even if you do find someone Regal approves you to hire, they will almost always supplement their low pay by stealing.
Being a GM is a lot of work, you need to be strong, motivated, and completely dedicated to make it work. You also need to be willing to forget about things like your personal life and your family, which is sad. It definitely works for some people, but it's certainly not for everybody.
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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today
Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99
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posted 04-11-2010 11:58 AM
quote: Michael Riley
They have to have had significant previous supervisory experience for one thing, and they also have to pass a particularly intrusive background check for another.
Don't forget about the references that Regal requires for EVERY employee. They check 'em all, meaning the GM makes the assistants check 'em all. Absolute hell if you are opening a new theater with 50+ brand new staff. If, for example, you previously worked at AMC and provide them as a reference, Regal will try to call them and AMC really won't tell them anything. The catch 22 is that if you use Regal as a reference at another job, they won't tell them anything, either.
Also, what the Regal Riverpoint 14 did to Jen when she was hired there as an assistant manager was to pay her a low supervisor wage. She had AMC experience and AMC was not cooperative, so it took a very looooong time before they could get that reference check done, at least that's what they claimed. Only when it was did they bump her pay to $9.50, give her an S card and a proper manager name tag. They expected her to do all of the manager work in the meantime, however, and she was deemed part of the management staff and on the management schedule. Regal is very shady, they seem to hate their workers and almost have a criminal mentality about taking advantage of them, making them do much more work for less pay. They really shit on Jen every chance they got. But maybe the GM was pissed because he went from a really busy, popular theater to a pathetic new one that did not meet expectations.
Also, I have heard that according to Regal politics, GMs MUST apply for positions at new theaters and the like, otherwise they look uninterested and that could be bad for their career.
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