Why you should be respectful at the movie theaters
Yes this is a rant. And if you are the person I am referencing from this experience, you should probably re-evaluate how you treat people. Clearly this guy knows nothing about the Customer Service Industry.
On 03/02/17, myself, New Katie and The Mountain Man raced over to our local Cineplex to catch the first screening of Logan. You could imagine that all day I was super excited to see the Swan Song of the great Logan. The film completely lived up to, if not exceeded my expectations. That was all ruined for me? Why do you ask? People and the inappropriate comments. With about 5 minutes left in the film, the lights came on. My assumption, it was set to a timer. Maybe the additional 5 minutes of the special pre movie trailer was not accounted for in the run time of the film. Maybe it was a honest to god mistake. Because you are all aware, humans are not perfect. But not for these people. These are the people I typically despise.
I have now worked in the Customer Service Industry for 2 decades. Positions ranging from a stock boy in my high school years, to a management role in a Call Center Industry. I would like to think I have seen it all. I have watched people ask for free bananas because the lineup for the cashier was too long, to people asking for a years’ worth of service free because they shot(with rock salt) a cable internet tech off of a telephone poll. I wish I was lying, but sadly I am not. Maybe those experiences are a little extreme but it’s the attitude people have now because of social media. They use Facebook/Twitter like a verbal “gun” to get their 15 seconds of fame. And for what? So you can look like a horrible human being online?
As I stated earlier, there was 5 minutes left at the end of the film and the lights came on. Was it annoying? Sure it was. Did it ruin the movie? Not in the slightest. However, I didn’t stop people from yelling obscenities in the theater. On point, the Cineplex employees came in to wait for the film to end so they can start cleaning. It was evident to them that the lights were on but whether or not they informed the manager, I am unsure. That didn’t stop the social justice warriors from calling the workers names and such because the lights came on. To their credit, the employees kept their cool and they thanked everyone as they were working out as the movie concluded. However, this SJW was yelling at them from the middle row of the theater that he wanted a manager brought to the theater. To me, that was uncalled for. That’s just a person trying get attention because he has the ability to raise his voice, but I digress.
As we exited the theater, the employees continued to thank the customers as they left and to have a good night. However SJW decided to get annoyed by the fact they said that to him and demanded a refund for the movie. The employee calmly told the SJW the manager is in the lobby if there is a concern. That’s where we go to the next part of this tale. The Mountain Man and myself exit the theater and we can hear SJW from quite a distance away. As we approached, the SJW was being completely unreasonable and acting purely ridiculous. He quickly reminded of the customers I have dealt with the past.
Even if Cineplex offered this guy a refund, it would not have been good enough. He is the typical moron who thinks he is entitled to everything under the sun even though he probably knows nothing about the industry. The way how he acted made it seem like the film stopped halfway through and we were asked to leave.
Dude, the lights were on for 5 minutes. Chill.
We stayed around for about 10 minutes as the manager continued to attempt to de-escalate the situation calmly. I was going to jump in and point out to the SJW how stupid he was acting, but the manager didn’t need me. And I commend the management staff for how they dealt with this situation. Once SJW decided to start claiming everyone standing around was there for support whereas in reality, we were there trying to figure what this guy’s issue was, we chose to leave.
Plus, its always free entertainment to watch someone make a fool of themselves.
How could he have handled this situation? Here is some points he could have used.
· Don’t act like a jerk
· No one wants to hear you complain in a movie theater
· If there is a grievance, exit the theater and have a calm/realistic conversation with the manager
· Do not cause public displays of ignorance. Its sets the tone that its acceptable in society to do so
· Do not hurl insults at the employees of the company, it clearly wasn’t their fault
· Be a respectful human being
If anyone disagrees with these points, I will be happy to explain it to them more in detail privately.