Twenty Orders Expected in Five Minutes

September 21, 2013

in Odds & Ends Stories

This is another story from my theater days in the concession stand. This incident occurred during the release of Hannah Montana’s 3D concert.

It was a REALLY busy day as you can imagine. Being short staffed as usual didn’t help either. About halfway through my shift I had a woman come up with two little girls. I’m thinking she wants two kid’s pack meals since I had been making those all day. She then asks me to fill an order for 20 kid’s pack meals. I looked at her and asked her, “Twenty kid’s packs ma’am?” She says yes as she’s hosting a birthday party and the rest are on their way inside with their parents. I looked and saw that she wasn’t kidding. Worst part was, she expected all this to be done within 5 minutes since she was running late. I’m not kidding.

The kid’s pack meals contain a small drink, popcorn, and candy. All of which have to be individually poured, scooped, and bagged. Not to mention we have to assemble the trays for them too. Needless to say, she was not happy over the logic that it would take more than 5 minutes, and was rushing me at every turn and even remarked that she should come back and help me with her order.

Since there were other staff members who had orders to fill, I tried my best to get all the drinks at the soda fountain as fast as I could and had to get all the different candies the kids wanted from the case. The popcorn was the only easy part from all of it. About 10 minutes later, I had 20 kid’s pack meals made and ready. This lady was still making remarks to me the whole time. After ringing her up, I told her we actually have a call-in service for large groups such as birthday parties, and people can call in orders in advance so they would be ready upon arrival. She told me that sounded stupid. Wow… How can someone be this dumb?

Thankfully, I never saw that woman again throughout my time at the theater.

– Eric

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

mrsjamiecbaker September 23, 2013 at 2:21 pm

I was not aware of theaters having a call ahead option for concessions, but in cases like this, it would be a great thing to take advantage of.
People like this, in theaters or anywhere else, drive me batty. If you have to make a 7pm movie, don't show up for dinner at 6pm and then rush your server. If you have 20+ kids to be snacked up and seated, don't be late to the movie. If you have to be to work at 8am, don't leave the house at 7:45am and drive like a jerk the entire way there. It's common sense. Although… we should probably rename that "uncommon sense" since virtually no one seems to have it anymore 😉

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James September 24, 2013 at 7:17 am

No — it is common sense, quite fortunately. The problem is that the one idiot stands out against the background of the many who do exercise common sense.

At least, they provide amusing stories.

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Estelle July 31, 2016 at 6:56 pm

She should have arranged this before hand. It is crazy.

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