** Warning** - DON'T DO THIS**
Working a minimum summer job at a movie theatre tends to leave you with
an un-godly amount of time in which you have nothing to do but clean
countertops and get creative. Since we're certainly not paid enough for Tyler Durden's
shit job, I decided to kill two birds with one stone, and find me something
to do. For your criminally bored enjoyment:
- Box Office:
- Flip the breaker that powers your ticket machine. This is sure to frighten
and confuse both other employees and any surrounding management, while
remaining completely unfixable for at least an hour (the technical savvy
of the typical theatre employee remains, to this day, shamefully low).
Alternatively, you could hide your blank tickets, and claim that as an
excuse for your breakdown. Anyway, once your register is disabled, the
theatre has no record but the one you keep, and, short of closing the
box and losing the day's income, they've got no choice but to trust you.
Instruct your ushers to allow customers in without a ticket, apologize
profusely to said customers when they pay you for a ticket you can't
give them, and feel free to pocket as many unrecorded sales as your pitiful
little underpaid heart desires.
- If equipment failure (intentional or otherwise) is out of your reach,
do not despair! Box workers can also double-sell tickets, a much less
fool-proof, but easier scheme. What is double-selling? Well, say two
people come to your window to get tickets to the 7:00 "Glen or Glenda."
Customer A pays you $7 (or whatever), you ring it up, and out pops a
bright yellow (again, whatever) ticket. Here's the cool part: Before
you hand it over, tear it in half, and give the customer just one of
the two halves. They will give it to the ushers, and no one will be any
the wiser (nor, typically, will they care). Customer B approaches and
pays you $7 for a 7:00 Glenda, also. Instead of ringing it up on the
register, you give them the second half of Customer A's ticket, and pocket
$7. Cool, no?
- Concessions:
- This is significantly harder, since everything you sell will usually
be kept on inventory. The trick, of course, is to find things to sell
that aren't inventoried, and that's not as hard as it sounds.
Fountain drinks and popcorn are near-impossible to accurately inventory,
but cups and bags are, so you can't profit from selling those. Wait!
Offer refills on medium and small sizes of both, for a small fee (Keep
it low, or patrons will complain, and questions will be asked). It's
ludicrous, I know, but the only thing which surpasses the stupidity of
the average theatre worker is the stupidity of the average movie-goer.
- If that's not your taste, you could try my personal favorite, stocking
your own candy. Dollar General sells movie-style candy at $1 a box, while
Carmike Cinemas sells it for about $2.55. So just keep a personal stash
of candy in your display case, and rake in $1.55 profits in exchange
for your creative entrepreneurship.
- Door workers (otherwise known as ushers) have an extremely hard time making
any extra cash in their jobs. You can nick posters and promotional items
for later sale on eBay, but that's barely worth doing for your average movie.
If fact, your best bet is to stay sharp, notice when the box workers are
sending you patrons with torn or non-existent tickets, and take advantage
of your knowledge via some calculated blackmail. It won't make any friends,
but it's free cash, without the risks!