Ushering was one of the top jobs at AMC. Why? Because you don't have to consistently deal with customers. You get to walk around freely and sweep after everyone has left the theater in silence. As long as it's not a weekend with an insanely popular movie coming out, then it was an easy shift. Of course, this position came along with it's fair share of problems as well. But hey, getting paid ten dollars an hour to sweep isn't bad at all.
1. The amount of trash people left in the theater.
If you weren't in the theater by the end of the movie with a trash barrel for the theater to see, good luck! People just don't care anymore and will literally leave their pile of trash anywhere. In the seats, on the floor, underneath the seats, they put it everywhere. I just don't understand. I'm not cleaning up after three year old toddlers, I'm cleaning up after grown people who have two perfectly working hands to pick up their own trash with.
2. Kid's movies.
The worst part about ushering was cleaning up kid movies. On average me and my team of ushers could clean a theater in under ten minutes (depending on how trashed it is, it could have been longer). Kid movies would take about twenty minutes to clean. Parents love to buy their children kid packs which is like the AMC Happy Meal. No escaping those! Kid packs everywhere! To make things worse, parents don't even teach their kids to clean up after themselves.
3. The stare down.
The stare down was basically a tactic to get people to leave or pick up their trash. Basically, once the credits start rolling, people leave the theater because no one cares who actually made the movie. When a majority of the people have left, there are always those last few stragglers that remain in their seat either on there phone, watching the credits, or causally making out. I would stare down customers until they got up, grabbed their trash and left.
4. Asking where the bathroom is.
I worked at a movie theater with 19 theaters in it. Of course we are going to have a restroom. Instead of asking me where it is, why not use the gift called eye-sight and look around before asking someone where something is.
5. I saw a mouse! What are you going to do about it?
Absolutely nothing! Most places downtown, believe it or not, have mice. I, personally, would not do a thing about it. Once someone told me I would act like I was hearing the news for the first time and say I would let my managers know. I wouldn't; the only way to stop the mice infestation in our building is to hire an exterminator and close down the building for a couple of days. AMC would never do this because of the loss of revenue, plus I doubt they actually care about the mice popping in and out during the movie.
7. Dark corners.
Beware the dark corners! I say this for two reasons. My first is because it is scary as all hell cleaning and your mind beings to play tricks on you. You may see a figure of a man, you may not. In a world of maniacs and psychopaths, I don't take my chances and just leave whether or no the theater has been cleaned or not. Two, the dark places are where people hook up, some even go the whole 69. I wouldn't want to sit on some nasty chair where someone had sex.
8. Getting paid to watch movies.
This was the best thing about ushering. We would get a gap of time where we wouldn't have to clean a theater. Most movies I watched this way, peaking my head in and watching up to twenty minutes a movie. I would time it and try to catch the place where I left off upon returning from cleaning other theaters. During the weekday when only three people where in a theater, you could sit back, relax and possible watch a whole movie.
9. The occasional quest who paid for 3-D and didn't know it.
KNOW WHAT YOU PAID FOR PLEASE. I cannot stress this enough, you should know what you are buying. If you walk into the the theater knowing that it is 3-D please ask for the glasses before entering the theater. If you didn't know it was in 3-D then sorry, that is one hundred percent your fault.
10. Is this concession stand open?
NO! Why do you think no one is behind it. At my theater, there used to be a concession stand in the movie theater hallways in addition to the main one when you first come up the escalator. Customers would always come up to me asking if it was open. Of course it's not open dummy. If it was open, you would see someone behind the counter waiting to serve you. Sometimes people would just be standing there and I wouldn't even tell them. I would just walk on by minding my own business.
