By the way, I once had a pet named "Peeve". 
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Scott
Another pet peeve: I can't stand seeing operators thread by tossing the entire leader on the floor, and lacing the platter after the projector.
I can't think of any more right now.

I also really hate it when I'm training some hot shot in the booth who thinks he knows everything.
Oo! I also hate it when digital sound cuts out. Really makes me cringe.
I hate when splices over an existing broken splice without peeling the tape off.
I hate when they splice with shitty yellow marking tape and cover up the entire soundtrack with the colored part or even worse, right across the middle of the picture.
I hate colored splicing tape.
my pet peeve is finding conga lines of splices near the heads and tails of an umpteenth-run print, just because few platter jockeys (not Film-Tech-ers, of course!) were trained to separate the head/tail splices made after a print was first ran. This includes the aforementioned splices-upon-splices. Duh!
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Rob
I have a lot of pet peeves, many have alreay been mentioned. But here are a few more:
1) Lab splices
2) Prints that were printed too fast by the lab, resulting in an unsteady picture.
3) Pennywise Peripherals (the company)
4) The LED/Photocell assembly going bad in the Christie platter (happens a lot)
5) The overall annoyingness of anybody who calls "Hey boooooooth" over the walkie.
6) Idiot managers (not all of them are idiots, but there are a few who have enough idiocy for everyone)
7) Dirty auditoriums or lobbies.
8) When the janitors don't put the curtains back when they prop them up to blow all of the trash under the screen.
9) Trash under the screen
10) Training anybody. I hate it. I work best alone anyway.
11) Threading, as it sometimes gets in the way of what I really want to do, which is sit on my lazy ass!
-Getting S--Ty shipping reels in (we sometimes run off of these!)
-Dirty, scratchy prints (and when viewers complain that we messed them up?!?!?!"why'd you get all that dirt on the film?")
-not putting the booth away for the night: leaving film on take-up, carbon stubbies in the lamphouse, wrong lens for the next day's film,etc.
-having to run drunk bums out of the theater at night who fall asleep during the show, and cleaning up all the popcorn they spilled
-patrons always complaining about the climate control systems either being too hot, or too cold
1. Technicolor Entertainment Service ANYTHING <aggh>
2. Staff that forgets your existance when they make a food run...
3. People that use the booth for a break room and leave all their food trash and other stuff ALL OVER the place..
4. The *idiots* in Hollywood that think that trailers are *SUPPOSED* to be earsplittingly loud and features that you have to crank it up to 10 to be able to hear any dialogue (usually in the same program)...
5. Staff that puts any old sound format sign up on the mylar boxes above the auditorium doors ( I gave up on constantly correcting them ad infinitum)...
6. Patrons that think THEY know more about running a multiplex booth than you and get real attitudes about it...
7. Asshole Patrons (usually kids, but you'd be suprised how many ADULTS I have caught doing this) sticking their popcorn greasy hands against those port glasses that are within reach and smearing the grease all over them...
8. Piss-Poor theatre design with auditoria stacked above other auditoria with the resulting 'Sensurround' effects when a digital feature is playing in one of the lower houses... and having to deal with VERY upset upper-auditorium patrons afterwards
9. Operators that don't bother to run a film in the best possible format be it digital or analog... Many a DTS film I have seen running and the discs are sitting in the cans... of course i *immediately* correct this problem...
10. Polyestar film stock. Although Film-Guard promises to end the maladies presented by this new stock, the problem will still persist in many a theatre...
Aaron
1. Customers staring at you when you're hauling a heavy print, as if you're performing some amusing trick in a circus side show. "Oh look, manual labor. How quaint"
2. Anyone who has worked as a projectionist who downplays the importance of the position, tells people it requires no thought or skill, tells people it shouldn't pay a decent wage, and helps eliminate professional operators.
3. Operators who are obsessive-compulsive about cleaning the film path but let two inches of dust and crud accumulate on top of the lamp house
4. Theatres that have broken (chipped) rollers with jagged edges on their Autowinds and run them that way for years rather than dish out 4 or 5 dollars.
5. Customers who assume we never get to watch a film from inside the auditorium with the normal people. We work 7 days a week and get all our entertainment through the porthole.
6. Ushers forgetting to close auditorium doors and letting sound bleed from one to another, or in one case, letting the screen be flooded with light from outdoors well into the feature.
7. Overzealous managers raising the lights from inside the auditorium before the credits have started and making your presentation awkward just when you were getting ready to hit the lights at the appropriate moment.
8. Managers changing the show schedule without informing the projectionists.
9. Managers deciding to interlock only a minute before showtime, thus sending home everyone who showed up for the less popular feature (with some excuse about mechanical failure) and sending the operator on a mad dash to hunt down a 250 ft leader.
USHERS!
Ushers who call up on the radio and say the slide projector is out of focus. For heaven sakes, the people have to have their propoganda before the movie.
Ushers who call up on the radio saying a theater is too cold, even though the thermostat is downstarirs in the office.
Ushers who tell customers "Go see a manager and they'll give you passes"
Ushers who trip over the feed from the platter and send me into an aneurism as I try to get the show back on while they say "woops" and i give them a look like I want to send them through the portal glass...
and just plain USHERS!!!
1) Managers not informing the booth that we need to be in early for special screenings. This happened a couple of weeks ago where we had a super early auditorium rental for Toy Story 2 and nobody felt the need to tell anyone in the booth about it because after all, it runs itself, right? So on my day off I get a phone call from management asking why nobody is there to run their show of Toy Story 2 for their auditorium rental. I simply explained to them that since nobody told the booth about it, we didn't know and therefore the projectionist would be in at the normal time. The projectionist eventually showed up at the normal time, started the movie, and had to delay the start of nearly every other show in that auditorium for the entire day, pissing off countless customers who came to see the show later. What's up with management like this?
2) Nobody realizing that you exist until you have a problem. The response downstairs is always "Oh yeah! There's a guy in the booth! He f*cked up!" And they blame the stupidest things on you (like when the Christie CA21 automation constantly fails, which it does, by the way) no matter how many times you explain what really happened.
3) Open captioned prints. For some reason we get all of these prints. They are always in horrible shape and have the captions laser scribed onto the film, whch means you either focus for the captions or the picture. I don't know why my theatre has to be the one to get these prints all the time. Nobody ever comes to them. Of course if we didn't, we'd probably be sued by the one guy who does attend for discriminating against the deaf. It's interesting that these movies always come with DTS discs. Maybe I should be putting DTS and THX sound logos on the front of these movies. Or is that too cruel?
4) Pennywise Peripherals (the company). Oh did I already mention that?
My biggest pet peeve is when at either theatre something goes wrong on screen and some house manager or director of this or that, who can't tell an exciter from an aperture, is immediately phoning or appearing in the booth and demanding to know what's wrong. In some cases I don't know yet what the problem is, but in most cases I do and they don't have a clue what I'm talking about even when I tell them. It's especially irritating when they phone because that forces me to run to the wall phone and delays my dealing with the problem, keeping us off screen that much longer.
- Theatres that buy the cheapest projection equipment possible, but whose owners drive Mercedes or BMW cars.
- Being distracted by anything when a changeover is imminent.
- My all-time favourite: Soft prints (poor 16MM blowups or otherwise) or scenes in films in which the actor (or focus puller) has missed their mark. Some audience members cannot tell whether or not it is the film in the projector or the photography of the film which is out of focus, which is fine, but it isn't when they automatically assume that the projector is out of focus, especially when the grain of the film is visibly sharp on the screen!
- Soft credits. It always amuses me to get a rep print of a 1970's film with tack sharp optical credits and then show a recent release with CG credits that are nowhere near as sharp, or basically just soft.
New Line's new reels that have no MUT-peg holes in the hubs
Previous theatres that cut-off and keep the "attached" trailers
Ditto for the "enclosed" trailers
Technicolor always being out of the trailers I need
Projectionists or Technicolorites who don't use a good ("NEW") piece of tape to secure the film end before shipping it out
Cheap splice tape that won't peel off without leaving sticky gunk behind (If you're not using Neumade, then shame on you)
Prints that still have the foil cues from previous theatres on them (and cues made out of cheap tape that can't be peeled in one piece)
Release dates on one-sheets and in trailers (HEY! STUDIOS! IT ISN'T NECESSARY!)
Ancient film cans that weigh 30 pounds empty and require a screwdriver and hammer to open
People who:
-Stick gum to the seats
-Bring babies to the show
-Bring kids to R-rated movies and ask, "Is it really THAT BAD?"
-Stare at our "Balcony Reserved for Adults Only" sign and then ask, "Can I take the kids upstairs?"
-Show up at twenty minutes past show time and get mad when I tell them the feature has already started
Booth operators who:
-Don't clean their equipment
-Run a film onto a 3/4" plywood sheet to move it from one platter to another, thereby scratching the entire print (Yes! I've seen this done!)
The announcer on the "MovieTunes" CDs (the blandest announcer since Casey Kasem)
And lastly, I hate the music on the "policy" trailers that are produced by Filmack, Cinema Concepts, etc. Those things look and sound like they're from the 70s.
I could go on, but I have to go thread.

What's wrong with keeping the enclosed/attached trailers? DUH! The next theatre down the line might like to use'em! Don't assume everybody feels the same way you do about those trailers.
There's usually a note in with the film asking you to "please do not edit or remove from print." Your fellow projectionist might be in a smaller town, but would still like the opportunity to promote the upcoming movies properly.
Of course, this problem would not exist if the studios would make more of their best advertising tool....MAKE MORE TRAILERS.
-Mike
PLATTERS I can't say enough bad about them and the damage they have done to the industry (both personelwise and showmanship wise)
The next thing is the huge tolerence of mediorcity for the show by the big exhibitors. Why they allowed polyester to be forced on them, don't back bill for broken/crappy shipping reels...spending untold dollars on the lobby but squat on the booth, including qualified booth personel.
Steve
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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
Also then the power goes out, comes back on, you get all the projectors going again etc... and the power goes out again just as you start that last projector.
1. Not cleaning up the heads and tails, leaving masking tape and s**t film to tail out through the machine and around the sound head.
2. Those stupid yellow dots some like to plaster over the image to mark where the reel change is.
3. Not keeping the booth clean, or at least tidy.
4. Walking into an un-prepared box (wrong lenses / plates etc.)
5. Making up a print where the previous guy /gal has just slapped any old leader and tail on any old spool. (ah, they'll work it out!)
Floor.
1. Ushers standing around chatting to each other while the bins are overflowing.
2. Patrons who think you owe them a quart of blood because they just paid $5 to see a picture and they didn't like it.
3. Patrons who walk out at the end of a film and demand their money back because YOU (never seen them before in my life) sent them into the wrong auditorium.
Management.
1. Who never appear once they waltz through into the office until it's time to lock up and go home.
2. Upper management (Loose terminology) who abuse the two-way.
3. Programmers who program 4 shows to start at the same time in a four-plex with four separate projection rooms, one completely manual, all on four separate levels. Fortunately, this no longer affects me, but it should be even more fun once they add the two extra (separate boxes) screens.
- Too many people working the booth. Things get lost, misplaced, mistreated, movies made up badly, stuff isn't cleaned, need I go on?
- People who have no business in the booth smoking (!!!), eating, or whatever up there and leaving a huge mess.
- Other theatres stealing my equipment and not bringing it back. Just because you got a print from me on 36" reels doesn't mean I want you to keep the reels.
- Splices that nobody has bothered to remove 8 layers of tape from.
- Tails up prints (how is this even possible???).
- Star Wars: TPM, which we're getting back for Christmas. I could just puke.
- Patrons who are convinced the print is out of focus/too loud/too quiet/whatever when it's fine.
- Going to a movie at another theatre which is out of focus, or has the masking in wrong position, or is too quiet/too loud.
- These get special mention as being the most annoying: holes in the screen, booth lights left on and reflecting off of everything, suck 'em 'n' chuck 'ems (gummi bears stuck to the screen) aka lick 'em 'n' flick 'ems. And last but most annoying of all: OUT OF FRAME PRESENTATION!!!!! How hard is it to frame a movie? I hate the "start it and walk away" method!!!
This comes to mind after going to see Toy Story 2 tonight out of focus, out of frame, on a screen with a huge hole, and the masking jammed partially open.
Johanna, I hope that you went and demanded your money back, hopefully before the second reel of the show, or at least talked to the manager about these problems. If I were to find the conditions mentioned, I would not stick around to see the whole show. I've walked out on a show and demanded my money back, not a pass, and got the money. Told them I would not come back until the problems were fixed. I Have not gone back to a theatre or two. It might also help to get the number to the corporate office and write a letter to them. I've done that too. But If we, the people who rant about bad presentations here on this forum, don't speak up about these things, why would we expect the public at large to be any different? 
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Scott
- When people put more than one or two folds in the leader when attaching it to a take up ring.
- When the opening usher-b/projectionist doesn't clean the port hole glass.
- When people don't keep the leader off the floor when threading.
- Trailers that are base side out.
- Preshow ads (the slides too).
- Interference on crappy walkie talkies.
- Technicolor and pissy patrons.
Alternately, you might want to try this:
Next time you have a problem and the man calls you on the intercom wanting to play 20 questions... cut him off in mid-sentence, tell him to hold on, and hang up. Then, calmly walk downstairs to his office and explain as best you can what the trouble is. When he asks why all the people are standing around in the lobby, tell him you didn't have time to fix it, because he wanted to know what was going on!
I know someone who actually did this, and he got left alone from that point on.
This guy really knew how to get results, consider this stunt... a manager appeared in the booth doorway, holding a trailer, and demanded it be put on immediately. The operator calmly got up from his chair and took the trailer. He then walked over to the automation, hit the STOP button and killed the show, then proceeded to put the trailer on!
Ya gotta love old-time union men!
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1 Leaders&Tails spliced soundtrack opposite.
2 Automation cues left on film grrrrr!!!
3 Film not taped down for shipping.
4 Staples used as automation cues.
5 Cardboard dividers not used in shipping boxes, just left stacked at the bottom of the box.
Josh