Upon digging through an old hard drive, I found a few old versions of my site. Most of the files were incomplete or had been overwritten by pages from newer designs, so there isn’t a complete site to upload, but some pages are still intact. Here’s my thoughts on working at the cinema, which I wrote almost 13 years ago. 23rd of August 2004.

Work.

Now then, you may get the idea from reading this piece that I do not like my job. However, this is not the case, I love my job. I don’t have much to do as such, but I do hold a fair whack of responsibility. So much in fact that if there is a fire, or some other incident and people die, I, not the company, am liable. I don’t mind that though as I do my job very well. Alas, we are not here to discuss the procedures of my work, merely to whinge about what it is I dislike about working here. I shall put to you a list of annoyances and then detail the… well… erm… details to you. OK, here we go.

One: Cunts. Customers.

OK, that’s it. I hope you weren’t expecting something longer because to be honest “customers” are the most stupid people in the world to date, and remember, this is a world that includes Jade of Big Brother “fame” and that dude that created American Football. Yes, admit it, American Football is just plain stupid. A game where you watch for like 4 hours and see about 2 minutes of actual action from grown men, so wimpy they have to wear about 8 layers of padding. Anyway, I’m going slightly off track. Right, so I’m thinking that these examples I am going to give you about the stupidity of customers will seem more stupid if I give you a general layout of the cinema I work at. It’s basically made up of 3 floors. Top floor is screen one, middle floor is the toilets, and the ground floor is screen two and the confectionary counter. Let’s do this.

Example one:

I am sat behind my desk, on the ground floor, and I am approached by a middle aged couple who ask me “are we in the right place?”…. How the fuckery should I know? I don’t know what your looking for! You’re supposed to tag that on to the end of your question in some form or another. “Are we in the right place for the dancing cat on a motorbike ?” would have sounded less stupid.

Example two:

Once again sat behind my desk, and to the end of my desk is a sign that says, and I quote “All tickets must be purchased from the main box office”. So what do people ask !? “Can I buy some tickets please?”. Now you need to understand that this sign is pretty fucking huge. Like the same size as a standard sized film poster. If you miss this sign your either blind or… nope blindness is the ONLY way to miss this sign, and in that case even guide dogs would be clever enough to work it out. This sign also details on which floors which screens can be found, as well as where the toilets are. So questions along the lines of “Where is screen one?” and “Where’s the nearest toilet?” are equally as fucking dumb. Although I do love that question “Where’s the nearest toilet?”, as though I’ve measured and know exactly which toilet requires the least effort for the lazy fuck to go to. Plus the inclusion of “nearest” possibly indicates that unless they’d stated, I’d have sent them off to a toilet down near the south pole or something.

Example three:

Stood on the door of one of the screens whilst taking tickets, people who have already been seated like to come out to go to the toilet before the film starts. These people are annoying for one of two reasons. One, they ask permission to go like I’m their mother or something. “Is it ok if I go to the toilet ?”. Like I’m going to say “No you’re not, sorry, go sit down and piss yourself”. And two, and this reason is more annoying than anything, they say “I’m just going to the toilet”, as if I’ll respond “thanks for the information, can I come and watch?”. If you’re going to the toilet I do not want to know. It’s not something I take pleasure in knowing. “Hey, where’s Pete?”, “Well, m’lady you’ve come to the right person, I happen to know Pete is in the toilet taking a shit… aren’t I the knowledgeable one”. I mean sure, tell the person your seeing the film with where you’re going, but don’t inform strangers of you “movements”.