Underpaid Baby Sitters

Yes, I am using this to refer to myself and my staff. I spent the whole weekend - no joke - baby sitting kids that were more than half my age. I shouldn’t have to baby sit those kids. When I was that age, I was taking care of myself and working at the movie theatre! As you may have figured out, it’s because of Step Brothers, which is actually a pretty funny movie. However, the MPAA has decided that this movie not appropriate for kids under 17 unless they have “a parent or guardian, 21 years or older with them throughout the entire film”. Yes, I know that is a pretty strict policy, but I do have to enforce it.

The way I look at it, if it’s not enforced by us willingly, it’ll become law. Thats what I tell myself anyway.

Unfortunately for me, this creates a pretty hostile environment for me at work. I can’t say this is true at every movie theatre, but there are quite a few that are pretty lax on the policy. We are not. This is a problem because kids expect to have the same lax policy at every place they go. I think that the bigger theatres are generally more lax because they have a lot more people to ID, and that can become inefficient. Well… I happen to work at a moderately sized location, and we CAN id, so we do.

Kids tend to hate us for it (and I use the term kid lightly, because a lot of them are bigger than me), but it’s our job. It’s really not my fault your parents dropped you off here for me to deal with you. I really don’t get paid enough to deal with these kids, so I do a few things to make it a little more fun.

One thing I do is sell tickets at box office. I pay attention to groups of kids that trying to buy tickets to a rated R movie. More than likely, one of them will not have an ID with them, or not be old enough. Then the real fun comes in. Once they have their tickets, I step out of box office and walk to the theatre they’re trying to go to. Then all I have to do it stand there and watch as the look on their face turns from disbelief to disappointment to anger. Really, there is nothing to get that mad about, I’m just enforcing the rules. Make it less obvious, or don’t be a d*ck, and I might be a little more lax about it. The reason why I do it most of the time is because they are acting like jerks. I think it’s funny when they try to give me a hard time about it.

Another thing I do, and I guess there’s many different variations of it, is to go into the theatre, and either watch someone open up an exit door, then kick out the whole group, or go to the exit door myself and make the kids leave. I actually caught a couple of underage drinkers this weekend also… and I could have bagged them for that, but I didn’t call the cops this time. I don’t understand what is so cool about drinking behind a movie theatre…..

In any case, it’s not just the R-rated policy enforcement that makes me feel like a baby sitter. It’s also the having to deal with fights, kids texting during movies, kids moving their seats a lot during movies, and the generally douchebaggery (I like that word) of teenagers towards other guests. I’m really not paid to take care of your teenagers, so why aren’t they taught any manners before they are let out of the house?!?! Yes, it may seem a bit harsh, but I don’t think parents really realize how bad their kids are when they leave them with us.

I guess the bottom line is… your kids are a menace, and I don’t get paid enough to take care of them like I have to. Luckily, there are many things that I do enjoy about the job that make it worthwhile. Your kids, however, are generally not one of them.

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