Behind The Scenes At The Movie Theatre
When I was 16, I got my first job as a concessionist at a movie theatre. I was so excited about the job and the general manager seemed really cool. Seemed being the operative word.
I was gung-ho and bright-eyed going into my first shift, but all that went down the drain when one of my first customers yelled at me because I was having a hard time with my cash register. I was home schooled at the time (sigh) and though I wasn’t incredibly awkward, I had a lot of anxiety when around all my co-workers. Then I realized that my manager wasn’t cool at all. Instead, he was a major douchebag who would yell at any employee he wanted to in front of whoever was around.
He also bragged about his romance with an employee who hadn’t been legal for long. He also noted how he hired most of the girls for their looks and would comment on their bodies to their faces. Four months in, after almost having a nervous breakdown because of all of the drugs (apparently marijuana can be consumed by putting it on your tongue! What you don’t learn from home schooling…), the sexual harassment, and mood swings, I turned in my two-week notice.
Flash forward to a year and a half later, I was a freshman going to community college to get my general ed classes out of the way. I naively thought that because I was older & more mature that I would be able to handle the same job once again. Things were good for a while (primarily because the entire staff from before had been overhauled), but the more I became integrated, the worse it became.
Over the course of the next year and four months, I was hit by a sign that a customer punched at my manager and then bullied into pressing assault charges on this woman because she was black and my manager was racist; was put in a headlock by an usher and had my head stuffed in a trash can; had by butt groped numerous times by other male employees; and was on the receiving end of many confounding mood swings. The final straw came when a co-worker tried to stick a blunt holder up my butt through my pants. I wrote a letter of resignation (which I also mailed to the head office) and didn’t look back.
A few months later I was contacted by H.R. from the head office, saying they were doing an investigation on the operation and were given my number by a co-worker. I told them everything, and the next week the manager was fired.
This is my story! If anyone has any questions feel free to ask.
One thing I’d like to make clear is that the 2nd time I worked there I worked in the box-office, not concessions.
On another note, it’s kind of funny because this week is the 4 year anniversary of when I quit the 2nd time. I have a freaky memory.
I thought you were a girl!! or are you?
questions: what’s this about drugs? were you doing them/forced to do them at work? or was this a side thing?
and how does consuming marijuana through the tongue even work? i thought it had to be smoked or digested. :/
I’mma boy! Which adds an entirely extra level of awkward to this whole story.
I wasn’t forced to do them but pretty much everyone else did partake. I wasn’t used to being around it, so it freaked me out. One of the manager’s had a drug dealer come by periodically to hook him up, & I saw a deal go on outside the office while I was counting my cash register.
I don’t really know what the whole thing involving the marijuana on the tongue was about. The girl who did it didn’t seem to be the most stable individual.
You were being abused and tortured. Tell me again why you stayed that long?
Because I was hoping it would get better. And I was actively searching for other jobs but there wasn’t really anything available at the time that would work around my school schedule. I ended up just quitting without having a job lined up because I knew unemployment was better than that hell-hole.
This sounds exactly like a place where I worked! All the managers got fired because they were smoking pot on the job, and I quit because I was tired of getting sexually harrassed by a manager. Was is Carmike 12?
No, it was Premiere 14. There’s only one manager there now who was still a manager then. He’s gay & now only hires attractive boys & chases them around.
>Because I was hoping it would get better.<
Sounds almost like Stockholm Syndrome. At least you didn't begin to identify with your captors…err…coworkers.
Haha! Yeah, it did have a quality like that. It’s sometimes easier to stay with the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
Oh please. MJ is not consumed by putting it on your tongue. Get a clue! If it was a drug at all (which I guess you can’t spot from 12 inches away) it was probably X. Stop being part of the problem with misconceptions about marijuana.
Medmjpatient, I would say you’re just as big a part of the problem as ‘people with misconceptions’… when people read your post they’re not very likely to think ‘hmmm, MJ must be really calming, and good for the mind as well as the body, this individual seems so well balanced and nice’… I suggest YOU get a clue about other people’s upbringings and how not everyone knows the ins and outs of drug use… and how this is not a sin!
If it was on the tongue it was probably LSD/Acid, not X. Every time I’ve done X (er, not that I have or anything) it was a pill. Marijuna has to reach a certain temperature for the THC to get released, hence the preferred method of smoking it and the also-fun cooking with it.
Putting it on your tongue? Do you mean eating it? Or did she put it on her tongue and stand there for 30 minutes while it got soggy? I’m confused. You can eat pot to get high, leaving it on your tongue probably won’t do much, it doesn’t dissolve.
It’s a plant, in case you weren’t aware.
They ingested it (I definitely didn’t describe that very well). I watched as she put it on her tongue but I assume it was swallowed. It was either marijuana or some herb that was meant to look like it. But at the time (I was 16) this was one of my first instances around drugs & it was very overwhelming.
And medmjpatient, I don’t quite see how I’m the problem. I was there. I know what I saw. How about you not be so biased? That doesn’t exactly help your cause.
If it was marijuana, she would not have gotten high just by eating it. The reason people eat brownies or cookies and get high is because during the cooking process, the THC is released. Unless she baked pure marijuana and then ate it…though I don’t know if that would even work. Maybe they were just pulling your leg and hoping you would eat some fresh MJ (which I think tastes revolting…and I’m a pot smoker).
In any case, it sounded like a crap job. I assumed you were a girl because of the described butt grabbing, but that’s even more disturbing! Glad you got out and glad at least some of them were reprimanded.