All the old posts from the old Your-Japan.com on the Your-Japan Blog Network

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GOOD. GOD. Has it really been so long?!?!

To make a really, really, REALLY long story slightly shorter, I’m STILL NOT back in Japan living with my old host family. Not yet. But, I think I still have to get used to being home before I can go back to the Land fo the Rising Sun. The reverse culture shock was scarring. As soon as I got back, I tried (TRIED) to eat a lot of the food I had missed while I was in Japan– shrimp po’ boys, crawfish etoufee, jambalaya- but I simply couldn’t. I mean, when you combine the daily fish-and-rice diet with Washington D.c.’s fat-free obsession, I haven’t eaten real food in going on a YEAR. So when I finally got back home to New Orleans, all the good home cookin’ tasted like flaming seafood waste. I used to LIKE spicy, flavorful food. Now– I weep at the thought of what’s happened to my taste buds.

Also, I was supposed to be in Japan as soon as my stint in Washington D.c. was over, but that had to get fucked up, too. My parents, who were none too keen on me going to Japan in the FIRST place, refused to pay for me to go a second time. Plus, my trip to Yaoi-con in San Francisco cost me quite a bundle, too. So– that meant little Pandora had to conjure up quite a sum of money on her own, and she didn’t have too much time to do it.

I had to get a job.

Or, to be more specific, THREE jobs.

Have you forgotten what kind of over-acheiver you’re dealing with?

That’s right, bitches, THREE jobs. I was a hostess at IHOP, a ticket taker at my local movie theater, and an over-night stock girl at Walgreens. I got about three to four hours of sleep a day between jobs, and my car guzzles gas like it has nothing better to do. Everyone always asked me, "What’s a young girl like yourself doing working so hard?" Finally, after getting NO SLEEP and not bothering to tell my whole story, my answer had become a terse, "I wanna go to Japan."

I’ll tell you this: it’s NOT easy. There are SO MANY TIMES I wish I could be a normal teenager and go out with my friends, and buy clothes and makeup and nice things. It’s taken a LOT of effort on my part not to strangle the bitchy girls that come into IHOP at two in the morning and boss me around, or brutally beat down the annoying twelve-year-old brats that try to sneak into R-rated movies at the theater.

And in case you haven’t noticed: TIME STOPS AT IHOP. Next time you go, make sure to notice what time you go in. Do the same when you leave. It might FEEL like your meal took you two hours, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t only 35 minutes.

OMFG– I didn’t really work there that long, but MY GOD, I already have horror stories.

First of all, the menus there should be classified as deadly weapons. They are laminated to the point of RAZOR SHARP EDGES. Trust me, there were many times where I considered taking one to my wrists and ending it all. Fortunately, the customers have a special way to protect themselves from menu cuts. Neither the servers* nor I are quite sure how it happens, but before the customers even ORDER, they already manage to get gobs of syrup on their hands, thus coating over the deadly menus quite welll. Needless to say, this causes quite a few problems for us, the workers.

*I’m not sure about the neck of the woods you live in, but if you accidentally call a server a "waiter" or a "waitress" here, they get SO offended. Apparently gender differentiation is a crime now, so instead of titles like "waiter" or "waitress", they decided to make the job titles unisex and call them "servers". I don’t really see what kind of difference it makes, because at the end of the day, you still serve crappy food to mean people and get paid peanuts, just like a waitress. Just sayin’.

Not ONLY do we unknowingly pick up these menus, only to feel sticky, warm syrup on our hands, if the customers somehow manage to get syrup on the inside of the menus, and we don’t notice, and we then give those menus to other customers, they get mad at US, like we purposely splayed heaps of maple syrup on the inside of their menu as a sick joke. Besides, cleaning those menus is a sucidal job. Armed with only a damp, 8-year-old wash rag, you have to clean off GALLONS of syrup off each individual page whilst trying to avoid slicing your hand open on the edges. Not an easy task, to say the least.

ALSO- if you HONESTLY expect the food you order to actually look like the picture: your standards are too high. Because with eight Mexicans squeezed into a 10′x6′ "kitchen", all trying to churn out a dozen tables’ worth of food at once, and considering the fact that each cook makes each dish differently from the next– there’s no way in hell it’s gonna look like the wax model in that picture on the menu. If your standards are THAT high, you shouldn’t be eating at IHOP. At least three times a day, I had bitchy old women or mean old men calling me over saying that what they got wasn’t what they ordered.

Me: Okay- what did you order?
Them: The blueberry crepe/breakfast sampler/Happy Face Pancake
Me: *looks at plate and sees said menu item* Yup- that’s what you have
Them: That’s not what it looks like in the picture!!!!

And there would be people whose ENTIRE DAY would be ruined because they were dissappointed in the food/service/table they got. They would storm out in an ANGRY RAGE, hollering and screaming at anyone who could hear that this just ruined their WHOLE DAY, and they were NEVER coming back to IHOP EVER!!! EVERRRR!!!

Like I care. Go cry, emo kid.

Our FAVORITE people to serve were people to had to be at the AIRPORT. Apparently, because they had to be on their flight in half an hour (I’m not kidding you), they thought they could just get booted to the top of the wait list, have go-speed-racer-go service, and make it out in time to fly to Timbucktoo. I wanted to SHAKE THEM and scream, "HAVE YOU NEVER BEEN TO AN AIRPORT BEFORE?!?! Why aren’t you already THERE if your flight leaves in thirty minutes?! Between checking your bags and security, you should have been there an HOUR ago!!"

I think the worst part of working there, though, was that I was a hostess. Not a server, no. A hostess. Which means I didn’t make tips. Even though I took To-Go orders*, dealt with people’s shit, shipped food out for servers, and sang that damned IHOP HAPPY BIRTHDAY song so much I heard it in my sleep, I got paid crap.

*A separate rant about To-Go orders and answering the phone at IHOP:
We hate To-Go orders. I’m sure this is true for WHATEVER restraunt around you that offers Pick-Up and To-Go as well. WE HATE IT. People that work there RUN from the phone when it rings. Because when the phone rigs, we know it could be a fellow worker, calling to say they’ll be late, OR it might be yet ANOTHER person wanting detailed directions on how to get to IHOP from their work/house/insane asylum (No joke- someone called from the local nut house wanting to know how to get to IHOP. He had just been released and was craving pancakes. Go figure. I gave him directions to the IHOP down the street, just to be safe.). However, we’d rather not take that chance, in case it turns out to be someone wanting to place a To-Go order. On my second day on the job, I was standing at the podium, minding my own business, when the phone rang. A server, standing RIGHT NEXT TO THE PHONE, looks at it ringing, looks at me- expecting her to answer it- and then looks down at the floor and says, "Oh- my foot is on fire!" and RUNS to the kitchen.

When you call, you BETTER KNOW what you want, and NO, I will NOT describe everything on the menu to you and how much it costs because I have an actual JOB to do. I was just nice/naive enough to answer this phone and take the time to take your order. Also, when we SAY "It will be about __ minutes until your food is ready." DON’T WAIT that amount of time to LEAVE YOUR HOUSE. Because after your food is made, it waits up front in a bag with your name on it until you pick it up. So, if you show up TWO HOURS LATER, and your food is cold, that’s your own damned fault. And if we forgot anything, or if something is slightly askew, don’t bitch. Just tell us, we’ll fix it. All you have to bear in mind is that while you were watching Seinfeld re-runs and slipping on your Reeboks to pick up your food, I was dealing with four crying children, a deaf person wanting to order half the menu in sign language, and three old ladies asking when their iced tea would be ready. AND TIP THE PERSON WHO TOOK YOUR ORDER. They TOOK THE TIME (or, more likely, were abandoned at that phone and forced) to take your order and make sure that it was right and fairly fresh when you came to get it. TIP THEM. TIP THEM WELL.

My other job at the movie theater has it’s own set of problems. It seems like only the most ignorant people go to the movie theater. Even though we have GIANT GLOWING SIGNS everywhere, it’s like these people are completely oblivious as to what we sell and how much it costs.

You would be suprised at some of the dumb questions we get asked. We have twenty screens in our megaplex (ten on one side, ten on the other) and we understand, when you’re in a labrynth of movie screens, no matter what side of the theater you’re on, it all begins to look the same, especially to kids. We understand this. Now- MOST people would take the TIME to LOOK at their movie stubs and say, "Gee- my movie is in screen two." then proceed to the right, where it says "Screens 1-10" and go to their movie, enjoy it quietly, then leave.

These are not the people that come to our movie theater.

We seem to attract the deaf, blind, bowlegged, unemployed crowd.

Now, when you work at a movie theater, you’re never assigned to just one job, like ticket taker or concessions worker. You’re trained for everything, and when the management sees what you’re best at, that’s where you usually get stuck nine out of ten times. For me, it was ticket taker. This was mostly due to the fact that I was one of TWO people that stopped underage kids from going into R-rated movies. Between the new Halloween coming out, Good luck chuck, Saw 4, Kingdom, American Gangster, etc. etc– just about EVERY movie that has come out recently has been rated R. Don’t ask me why, it’s not my fault. However, I WILL stop the little bastards that try to sneak in. They all look and act the same, too. The girls are usually a bit more descreet about it, but the boys are just fucking morons. When a group of rambunctious thirteen year old boys all buy tickets for Hairspray– I KNOW they’re not going to see a fat chick from the 60’s bopping around and jiggling her fat ass to Broadway show-tunes. They’re gonna try to sneak in and see something they shouldn’t. Which, I admit, I’ve done, too. Everyone has. Because of this, the younger workers at the movie theater tend to let the kids slide, and generally- as long as the kids aren’t acting up or being obnoxious brats, me and the others will let them slide, too. They’re not being loud, they’re not bugging anyone. Let them scare themselves shitless if they want. I did, when I was that age.

But when I get a group of eight or nine kids, all yelling and cutting up, handing me tickets to Hostel that I SAW them buy at the automatic ticket machine with Mommy’s credit card- No. I’m not letting them in. Even if the parents that tried to drop them off bitch and bitch, "I give them permission- why can’t they see it?!" I don’t care. The LAW SAYS that for a rated-R movie, anyone under the age of 17 has to be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian age 21 or over.

Other than people that randomly bitch at you about people talking in screen 12 (Like I can do anything about that), or wanting a refund for their movie from you (Sure, let me whip your money right out of my ass), you really just stand there, completely isolated from everyone else by your podium, and deal with the same dumbness over and over again. For instance, no matter what the weather is, about half the people that pass you feel the need to comment on it in some way. After hearing "Is sure is hot/cold/rainy/sunny today, huh?" a MILLION times, it all becomes the same mind-numbing drivel. Now, when you work ticket drop, all you do is tear tickets, give people their stubs, and tell them which side their theater is on.
"Screen one on your right."
"Screen thirteen on your left."
Etc.

EVEN THOUGH, we give them directions, as soon as they pass us, they hold their ticket stubs, and look around so pathetic and lost before ASKING you where their theater is. There are MANY times where we want to scream, "I ALREADY TOLD YOU!! WHY WEREN’T YOU LISTENING?!?!" And really, it’s the little things that piss us off. We KNOW we don’t really have a hard job, and YES, we ARE getting paid to do it, but still- there are a lot of little things that the customers could do to not be such fucking dumbasses. For one– if you are accompanied by your husband, mother, father, mother in-law, father in-law, and a litter of nine hyperactive children– DON’T pass every single person in your crowd their own individual ticket. Just hand me the stack, I’ll tear them all at once, and the whole group of you can go in. I’ll take your word for it that there’re enough tickets. I really do not care enough to count them. Another thing- don’t pre-bend, pre-tear, crumple, fold, or put your tickets in your MOUTH before handing them to me- and please hand them to ME, instead of placing them on my podium and walking away. Also- and this is just common courtesy- if you smell of rotten fish, wet dog, or used dental tools- DON’T walk right next to me, stop, and try to talk to me. YOU SMELL. GO AWAY. And this is a tip for ALL of you– when you WORK at the movie theater, you NEVER have time to SEE a movie. I don’t know if you like to go into YOUR office on your off-days for the fun of it, but I don’t. So don’t ask me if I’ve seen the movie you happen to be going to, because chances are, I haven’t. Now go away, you’re holding up the line.

Now, that’s just ticket taker. When you’re an usher, your job description gets a LOT more interesting. When you’re an usher, normally, when a show lets out, you go clean it. This is no small job, and believe me, we find a LOT of things in those theaters that we don’t exactly sell at concessions. Starbucks, Arby’s, and booze bottles are the top three things we find. We found an UNOPENED BOTTLE of Pinot Grigio stashed beneath a seat. The managers took it for "classifying and storage" and we haven’t seen it since. Other than that, your job as an usher is to pick up the millions of napkins, the spilled nacho cheese, the popcorn thrown EVERYWHERE, the drinks and Icees spilled EVERYWHERE- and even the human excrement occasionally left behind. For example- for the scarier movies, it’s actually quite common for a seat or two to REEK of piss. Not that Hint O’ Piss, like someone who couldn’t hold it, but didn’t want to miss any of the movie, leaked some out before finally running to the bathroom and running back. NO. It’s like TWO OR THREE PEOPLE TOTALLY RELIEVED THEMSELVES ALL OVER THESE SEATS. The weird part is, we don’t even smell the piss first. We smell perfume. Yes- these people PISS ON OUR SEATS, then try to cover it up using whatever kind of perfume or cologne they have on hand. So, when we go into a screen where the air is SATURATED with Axe or Obsession- the more experienced veterans tend to send in the newer workers, and stand back while the noobs clean the screens, eventually finding the source of the piss, and then shrieking in horror.

There was also one case- ONE, LEGENDARY case- of a kid shitting on a wall.

I had been working there about a month, when I was walking along with one of the more popular managers. He’s young, really cool, and is like the wise older brother to just about everyone that works there. As we pass one of the bigger screens, we see an usher stumble out and slam the door shut.

Manager: Hey- don’t slam the door while the movie’s going! What’s wrong with you?
Usher: Dude…..I went in there to check, y’know, making rounds….Someone….shat…on the wall.
Manager:………………….What?
Usher: I don’t know– but someone SHAT. On. The wall.
Manager:……….
Me:………..
Manager: No way. I don’t believe you.
Usher: I’m so dead serious. Just walk through that door, man.

Sure enough, the manager OPENS the door, goes to take one step in, then slams the door shut with the most DISGUSTED look on his face. I didn’t look for myself, but when he slammed the door shut, a gust of wind blew in my direction and I SMELLED it.

I wanted to remove my nasal cavity entirely, it was that bad.

Apparently, we found out later, some kid had to go REALLY BAD, ran out the movie theater, and as he was going down the hall- he didn’t even make it to the DOOR- he pulled down his pants and projectile shit all over the wall. We never found out who it was, but I made sure to dissappear when they were hunting down people to clean it.

Also, when you’re an usher, you’re responsible for removing people who are creating "disturbances". Talking on cell phones, crying children, kids running up and down the stairs– it pisses other people off. Stop it. Though techinically only a manager can remove a guest, when it’s a busy Friday or Saturday night, and the theater is packed with about fifteen hundred people, the managers tend to turn a blind eye to whatever the regular workers do, as long as the work gets done. So if we snap back at an annoying guest, or kick some kids out, if the managers didn’t see it- or sometimes, even if they did- it didn’t happen. Now, because I’m one of the few that ENJOY kicking out kids, the managers will occasionally form a small squad out of the ushers and use us specifically to kick out kids. They’re called Excursions, when they call us on the walkie, give us a brief description of the kids, and tell us what area they’re in. These kids are fucking NINJAS, too. Most of them aren’t satisfied with sneaking into one movie and sitting down to watch it. Oh, no. They movie-hop, from one screen to another, from one end of the theater to the other, all over the damn place. The only thing with that is, the kids that pull this shit tend to wear the most obnoxiously obvious clothes ever. So when my manager tells me to kick out the kid with Rainbow Brite streaks in his hair, blue and red striped pants, and neon green converse sneakers– that kind of narrows it down a bit. One kid was dumb enough to wear a GLOW IN THE DARK shirt. Do you know how ABSURDLY EASY it was to find that kid?! In a pitch black movie theater?!

I suppose one of the easiest and most entertaining jobs is projection. Now, the people that work in projection are all pale as death, incredibly thin, and slightly off-kilter. There’s one kid there that looks like a blonde Harry Potter, who does nothing but watch Futurama re-runs on his laptop. I haven’t been trained there yet, but when there’s nothing to do, it’s fun to go hang out up there and see what the people up there are doing. On a really busy night, it’s SO FUN to just look down from our little window, and see what the audience is doing. Actually, the projection people are the ones with the MOST interesting stories. They’ve seen a lot of people do a lot of stupid things in those theaters when they thought no one was looking. Most of it, of course, is sex-related. I myself have been witness to quite a few teenage blow-jobs at the top row of the theater. Trust me, if you’re standing in that window with a laser pointer, like I am, there’s no limit to the fun you could have.

One time, I was working ticket-taker and I saw this 14 year old girl and a guy about the same age- OBVIOUSLY on their first date. We employees ALWAYS know, and we think it’s adorable. The girl in THIS case, though, was a complete hussy, and the poor guy obviously hadn’t realised it yet. I made sure to remember what screen they were going to be in, and when I went on my break 20 minutes later, I went to projection and stood at that window. Sure enough– that couple was in the third row from the top. The previews had just ended, and the guy pulled the patented "Yawn, Stretch, and Slowly Put Your Arm Around the Girl’s Shoulders" move. It was so classic, and he pulled it off so well, I almost wanted to clap. The girl, though, moved much faster, and immediately put the arm-rest up and cuddled next to him. Damn harpy. Within TWO MINUTES- she turned to kiss him! I’m thinking- You SLUT!! The opening credits aren’t even over!! At least make him WORK for it! She turns, he turns, and I whip out my laser pointer and aim. The first time- I hit her cheek with the pointer. The guy stops, pulls away, and I turn off the laser. Though I can’t actually hear what’s being said, I can guess by their reactions.

Girl: What’s wrong?
Guy: Oh, nothing. I just thought I saw something on your cheek.
Girl: Oh- you’re so silly!

They lean in again. I take aim- and keep it focused on her forehead. At this point, three people sitting BEHIND the couples notice the laser pointer, and these three people and the guy all whip their heads around, looking for the source. Naturally, none of them think to look up at the projection window, and there’s no way to tell where the line of the laser is coming from in the dark movie theater, so I keep it focused right between her eyes. They finally tell her what’s going on, and she claps her hands to her forehead like she’s afraid it’s gonna fall off and begins freaking out. Around that point, the guy in projection comes up behind me and asks what I’m doing. I put the laser pointer back in my pocket and tell him. He laughs, then tells me that one of my friends and co-workers was looking for me, so I head back downstairs. She’s in concessions, and I help her out filling orders, when about ten minutes later, I see that couple again, walking through the lobby and filing a complaint in Guest Services. They never found out it was me.

The most annoying job, the one everyone hates, is concessions. Yet, it seems like no matter how much we raise the prices, people STILL BUY THE FOOD!! The stupidest part is, my theater has NO RULE against bringing in outside food! You could just waltz right in with a Kfc 24-pack, and there would be be NOTHING we could do about it. Instead, people come up and buy our shitty food for exhorbitant prices, and then bitch to us, like maybe if they bitch enough, we’ll just give it to them for free. No. Almost worse than the bitchers are people that come up to us with absolutely NO clue. They don’t know what they want, what we have, or how much it costs. The following is just about EVERY conversation with almost every guest we encounter:

Me: Hi- what can i get for you?
Guest: What do you have?
Me: *points to giant glowing menu mounted on the wall* That. All of that.
Guest: *stares up at the menu like a turkey in the rain* Uhhhhhh…….
Me: *waits*
Guest: I guess I’ll just have a popcorn and a cold drank.
Me: *sigh* What size?
Guest: Huh?
Me: What SIZE popcorn?
Guest: Regular
Me: Small, medium, or large?
Guest: Uh, medium?
Me: What kind of drink?
Guest: Large.
Me: *pulls out large cup* Okay- what kind?
Guest: Large.
Me: No- what KIND.
Guest: Laaaarge.
Me: WHAT DO YOU WANT AS YOUR BEVERAGE?
Guest: Oh. What do you have?
Me: *good GOD– points to drink dispensers*
Guest: *looks at them for several minutes, swaying back and forth* Uuuuummmm…I guessss…Spriiiiite-NO! Diet coke!
Me: *goes to fill the cup*
Guest: Wait- how big is a large?
Me: *It’s fucking BIG you moron!! -holds up cup-*
Guest: Oh, no, just give me a medium, then.
Me: Okay, that’ll be eight fift–
Guest: Wait- can I add a hot dog?
Me: *I HATE YOU*

I haven’t even touched on Box office or–even worse– Guest Services. And I haven’t mentioned my over-night stock job at Walgreens at all. If there’s an interest, I’ll be more than happy to continue my rant. Other than that, until I get enough money to go back to Japan on my own before I ship out (That’s right- I’m in the military now), I’ll be working a lot and traveling in my free time, so that’s mostly what I’ll be blogging about.

Thanks again for reading, and feel free to comment and ask questions!

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