On Sunday morning, I sent the following email to my former employer of five days.
Hi [Redacted],
Unfortunately there has been a family emergency and I have no choice but to relocate to Asheville for the foreseeable future. Because of this, I have to resign effective immediately.
Very sorry about this.
Best, Nathan
Now, this clearly is not true. My family has no such emergency. I feel no such sorrow about my having quit the job after only two shifts. Below is what I would write in a truthful resignation letter, if I had free will and/or courage.
Dear Management,
I applied via Snagajob for the position of “Team Member” at your dine-in movie theater sometime on or around 11pm on January 23rd. I received an email soon after, inviting me to walk in sometime during a three hour window on the following Monday for an interview.
I showed up exactly in the middle of that three hour window, realizing about halfway into the 40 minute drive that my black lulu lemon dress pants from last summer no longer fit me. It was already shaping up to be a bad day.
When I arrived, I was sat in a chair and asked to wait for a manager. Fifteen minutes later, when I was just beginning to think I had been forgotten and left to die, someone waddled my way so slowly I couldn’t tell when it was appropriate to address him, so I never did. He shook my hand with a wet palm and sat down across from me just to tell me that the manager had left and I would have to come back in at the same time tomorrow for the interview. As I walked back to my car, I noticed that at least four other people had just suffered the exact same fate as me. After doing some quick math, I realized that the amount of people who must have been invited for interviews in this three hour window was obscene. I had scary thoughts — Did the entire previous staff die of carbon monoxide poisoning? Was this a pyramid scheme?
My worries, however, did not deter me. I had too much free time to justify not having a job. The next day, I showed up once again, down a quarter-tank of gas but dressed in much more comfortable pants. I walked inside and asked the man at concessions — Mister written in bright red letters on his name tag — where I could find the manager. I’m supposed to have an interview, I said. He said nothing, simply nodded and guided me to yet another sticky leather chair where it was implied I’d wait patiently. He didn’t ask me my name or shake my hand but as he walked away he said my name is Mister with his back turned to me. I never saw him again. I got through almost a quarter of the book I was reading before the elusive manager finally sat down across from me.
In the following five minutes, he asked me no questions and was very vague as to what my actual role would be as an employee. He specified how much I would get paid three times, but every single time he said a different number. He was very clear that he thought of himself not as a boss, but as a coach. I was hired and would be coming in for my first shift the following Friday.
On my first day, I wore all black because I was not told about any uniform or dress code. Two hours before I was supposed to arrive, I was sent an email full of paperwork that, according to the body of the email, I was supposed to have completed before you walk in the door on your first shift!
Upon arrival I was escorted to a very kind and gentle man named [Redacted] who was to show me the ropes. I soon learned that I was on the “turn team,” which is in charge of cleaning the theaters between showtimes. Easy enough, I thought.
I was satisfied until I realized I had no way of knowing which theaters were to be cleaned at what times, and that there was no system for this except to make educated guesses. [Redacted] seemed to possess a kind of killer instinct for this knowledge and so I simply followed him wherever he went. Intermittently he would disappear for periods of up to thirty minutes and I would walk aimlessly around the theater pretending to know what I was doing until he got back.
I asked [Redacted] many questions to attempt to better understand the job. I asked him how much he actually got paid, to which he responded with a vague sentiment that it depends on the day. When I asked when payday was, he gave me the same answer. I asked more specific questions about payment but he skillfully found a way to avoid providing me with a number or date every single time. The only question he had a clear answer for was when I asked him how often we replaced the dirty rags we cleaned the seats with. Oh, he laughed. We don’t do that.
I soon memorized the lyrics to the song that blasted at full volume in a thirty second loop while we cleaned each theater. This didn’t seem so bad, though, because I also learned that the two perks of the job were one free meal per shift and unlimited free movies.
At the end of my shift, I realized I did not have a schedule and had no idea when next to come to work. I realized I had not actually seen the manager since I had arrived many hours earlier. I asked [Redacted] what to do, and he just shrugged his shoulders and said probably same time tomorrow. This wasn’t a satisfying answer but I decided I’d go with the flow. I tried to clock out and got an error message. Supervisor fingerprint required, it read.
I wondered why the fuck I needed someone’s fingerprint to clock out of my job for a moment before meticulously opening every single door in the building until I found the manager. I finally found him in a dimly lit room with an eerily wide smile on his face. I again asked about my schedule as the computer scanned his finger and he told me same time tomorrow, buddy, hurrying off before I could ask another question.
On my second day, I met the third member of the “turn team,” who’s name was either Ryan or Evan. Throughout the day, Ryan/Evan asked me all sorts of baffling questions, like do you fuck a ho on the first date? and have you ever gotten head in a movie theater? Despite my never returning his questions, he made clear that his answers were yes and yes. Around halfway through my shift, Ryan/Evan disappeared and a pack of about four managers trampled through each theater looking for him. They eventually found him in the special event livestream of WWE Wrestlemania and yelled at him in front of the entire audience. I was thankful for this incident as it spoiled his inquisitive mood for the remainder of my shift.
I attempted to order my free meal around 9pm, hoping that it would be ready by the end of my shift thirty minutes later. No employee meals, the kitchen staff said. What? I said, confused. No employee meals, they repeated robotically. While cleaning the next theater, I asked [Redacted] why I couldn’t order a meal and he disappeared into the kitchen without a word. Thirty seconds later he emerged, laughing. Hell nah, he said. You ain’t getting food tonight.
At 9:30pm I again began a quest to find the manager so I could use his fingerprint to clock out. When I found him, he told me that he couldn’t clock me out because he needed me until the end of the ‘big push.’ When I asked him when that would be, he ignored the question and thanked me for my positive attitude before jogging away. He had already disappeared into the crowd when I realized I still had no idea how to find my schedule or when my next shift would be.
Nearly two hours later, management finally decided they were done holding me hostage. As the laser scanned up and down the forefinger of the manager I decided that I would never be coming back.
I hope the friendly people at [Redacted] Cinemas understand why I came to that decision, and I hope there are no hard feelings about the fact that I already submitted my application to work at Taco Bell.
All the best,
Nathan <3
Laughed out loud