11 Things Anyone Who Works At A Movie Theater Knows To Be True

1. You know firsthand that customers can be the absolute worst. Some people don’t seem to understand that you aren’t the one who sets those ridiculous prices and that you aren’t the one who decided that anyone who looks like they’re under 25 needs to show their ID. You’re just doing your job, trying not to get fired, but people still get pissed at you all the time.

2. You hear the same jokes every damn day. Customers think they’re original by asking if their twenty-year-old girlfriend can get the children’s discount of asking if you want to ditch work and watch the movie with them, but it’s about the millionth time you’ve heard someone say that same exact thing. And it wasn’t funny the first time.

3. Customers think that they’re smarter than you are. You can see the food they’re trying to smuggle in underneath their shirt and inside of their pocketbook. You can also tell when they’re going to sneak into an R-rated movie even though they bought a ticket for a PG one. They think they’re fooling you, but really, some days you are just too lazy to say anything.

4. You haven’t seen as many movies as people think. Customers are shocked whenever they ask you how good a certain movie is and you admit you haven’t seen it yet. Sure, you get tickets for free, but after spending thirty hours of week in the cinema, you don’t really want to go back during your days off.

5. You drink an unhealthy amount of Icees. And eat more than your fair share of Raisenettes. And pretzels. And popcorn. Whenever you get a free second, you much on movie snacks.

6. Your room is covered in posters. You get them for free, so you might as well take advantage of the fact. You’ve probably even given some of those posters (and specialty cups) to friends for birthdays and holidays. It’s a cheap way to look like you were thinking of them.

7. You’ll either have plenty of free time — or you won’t have a second to yourself. On weekdays, the theater is dead. You’ll have all the time in the world to work on homework or play on your phone. But on weekends, you might not even have time to take your break. The crowd is never-ending.

8. You’ve seen how gross people can be. Not only will they leave their popcorn all over the floor, but they’ll leave beer cans in the cup holders, even though they snuck them inside. Even though they shouldn’t have been drinking them in the first place.

9. You work every single holiday. Your friends all get off for Christmas and Easter, but those are the busiest days for movie theaters, so you’re always stuck working. You never get to see your family, because you’re stuck with your coworkers instead.

10. You’re a jack of all trades. You’ve learned how to sell tickets, rip tickets, cook food, sell food, stock the fridge, clean theaters, and run a projection booth. You can do pretty much everything there is to do inside of a cinema. You could run the place if you wanted to.

11. You know everyone you work with. Since you are thrown around a lot, working as an usher one day and selling tickets the next, you’ve had the chance to speak with pretty much everyone. Because of that, you’ve made a lot of new friends. Friends you’ll actually keep, even after you quit.