When I was a Hollywood Movie Star!

I had a job one time at American Multiplex Cinemas. As you drove into the huge parking lot, a gigantic neon lit building came into view. It didn't look like a movie theater, rather, it looked like a movie studio. It had 16 screens. When they advertise in the newspaper for employees, they say, "Start your movie career at the AMC." So it is no accident that it looks like a movie studio.

When I showed up for training, there were a bunch of pimply faced teenagers there. One kid was a gang banger with a dew cap and pants with the crotch down to the knees. He went through the whole training which lasted about three days dressed this way and was not told to change his "look" until his first night on the job. The pants magically became higher up to the crotch, and the dew cap disappeared. This kid used to talk about all of the girls in his life. He had his wifey and his girlies. The "wifey" was the one he was really serious about and the others were purely for fun.

When I showed up for my first night of work, I was trained on the popcorn machine. It was a dangerous contraption that could easily burn the arms of the operator. It was then that I knew that the job wouldn't be for me. And talk about clogged arteries! You had to use a blow dryer to melt the oil in the hose coming from the source into the popper to get it flowing.

Cleaning the theaters between shows was a half hearted business. The person who was training me showed me how she did the job by running down the aisles with a broom sweeping popcorn and other debris underneath the seats. I don't know who did the actual cleaning of the theater, but all I know is, it didn't happen on my shift.

The coup de gras came when I wanted to take off a scheduled shift. You had to "telemarket" for a replacement. They gave the employees a complete employee list that included the names of people who no longer worked for the AMC. You had to call people on the list until you found someone who would be willing to take on your shift. When I did this, I found no one who was willing to come in for me. After I left this job, a few months later, some poor young kid called me to find out if I would come in for him. I had to tell him that I was long gone from the job.

The last job they had me doing gave me agoraphobia (fear of wide open spaces). I was by myself taking tickets in the huge open area connecting to all of the theaters. Talk about not getting respect! Most of the customers were single people out on a hot date. They treated the ticket takers with scorn. My shift didn't end until 1:00 in the morning it was then that I decided to take the next shift off and tried to telemarket for a replacement. As I sat down at the phone with the employee list, I had no idea that I would go through the whole list and not find a single person willing to fill in for me.

So that was the end of my "movie career!" I still love pulling up to the Hollywood like building and especially enjoyed taking my mother and mother and law out to the attached restaurant. A funny event happened when Betty, my mother in law found her steak gristly. She didn't want to complain and dealt with the situation as delicately as she could. She hid the gristle under the edge of her plate without telling Virginia or me. When she excused herself to use the restroom, the obviously gay waiter came over and asked if she would like the rest of her steak wrapped up to go. When he picked up her plate, there was a neat little circle of gristle all around. Betty was caught red handed in her ploy to discreetly dispose of the unwanted portion of her meal.