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We can have 1 concession person per 70 customers. This is watched by the District Office like a hawk and if we're even a little over the correct ratio we hear about it.

Maxinum staffing allowed:
Monday thru Friday Afternoons (per shift):
1 concession
1 usher/projectionist
1 box
1 manager
Sunday thru Thursday nights (per shif):
2 concession
1 usher/projectionist
1 box
1 manager
Fri night thru Sunday Afternnon (per shift):
2 box
6 concessions
1 ticket taker
2 usher/projectionists
1 assistant manager in addition to head manager

Oh,yes,I did wash my hands before threading up. No tops-it on the prints please!

BTW,we're a single screen!

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...and THEY say there's no one who can help me move prints!!! Geez. >

Weekdays:
6-10 concessionists
2-4 box
1 ticket ripper
4-6 cleaners
1 coordinator
2 managers
One projectionist

These are usually our limits from what I've observed. But management is quick to cut people if business is slow.

------------------
"And the monkey flips the switch."
- Major Don West, "Lost In Space"

The routine:

• Set up the concession stand.
  
• Come in, power and thread everything up.
  
• Do the "safety checks" in the auditoriums and such as required by the company.
  
• Get the money out of the safe and get ready to open downstairs.
  
• 1 minute before opening the doors, set the timers on the projectors. (Note: we only had 30 minute timers for a 60 minute rush.)
  
• Open the doors and begin selling tickets, explaining to the customers that I would be at the concession stand in just a moment.
  
• Run to the concession stand after selling a few tickets when the customers looked like they wouldn't wait around any longer (angering the people outside who wanted to buy tickets).
  
• Serve concessions.
  
• Run back to box office.
  

This would continue back and forth until...

• Customer complained the movie was out of focus (we had this one really old Strong turret that was a p.o.s.!)
  
• Lock the box office and put sign up notifying to please wait 2 minutes.
  
• Stick the concession drawer in the freezer (Hey, it locked! Talk about your "cold hard cash".)
  
• Run like hell upstairs and focus that p.o.s. turret on #1 the company wouldn't put forth the money to replace or repair. (Fortunately the other 7 were the TU-2000 turrets which were fine.)
  
• Run back downstairs to greet the very angry patrons because there was no one there to serve them for the last 30 seconds.
  

30 minutes later

• Try and find a "reasonably" slow time to stop selling tickets and concessions.
  
• Lock the box office.
  
• Put the concession cash drawer in the freezer.
  
• Run like hell to set the rest of the timers.
  
• Run like hell back downstairs...more angry customers.
  

And the process would repeat until halfway through the second rush when the ONE daytime employee would get out of school early to come help.

That's no way to run a theater. All the company had to do was pay more for daytime help. They would've made it back easily with the lost concession sales and the people who walked through without purchasing a ticket.

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I had one employee who loved to work those weekday afternoon shifts. All on her own, she would empty bulk candy bins and wash them out on a rotating schedule (we had 70 bins) between serving customers.

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Your buddy certainly did staff well, but wow can we say "worst presentation in town"! I've never ran across another theater that had so many film breaks it was required to keep a splicer beside every projector. Funny, I remember that day when they were running Hoffa in 70mm when they made it through all 4 shows in one day without a film break. They all went out and celebrated! (I still maintain that's why he had such a large amount of staff...to be able to control the crowds when the film broke.) If only he would've taken a few extra minutes to TRAIN the staff on how to thread properly. That place was a nightmare of projection until you got there.

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