A Look at Six Flags' Guest Service Training

Disney isn't exactly swiming in people wanting to work for them: http://www.miceage.com/allutz/al112905a.htm

As a Cedar Point employee, I also have to say that I don't do it for the money. I also never met anyone that said the reason they were coming back was money. We all care about the place. The people who don't care leave sometime in May every year.

Sure... it would be nice if they treated us better, and I bet they would get better people to start with, but I don't think about my $6.25/hr when doing my job.

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wahoo skipper said:
Well, this isn't rocket science. Customer service is poor EVERYWHERE these days.

(snip)

What is the common denominator to all this? The workforce. There is an attitude of privilege that is running rampant amongst teens and young adults right now.

(snip)

My generation is partly to blame because we are raising the current generation. We are giving them everything they want. Cell phones, cars, the latest games, etc. When you are given everything you want, what instills the proper work ethic?

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I just wanted to highlight those points of this argument that I felt were more slaient and societal in nature....I'll go back into hiding.....for now! ;)

Thanks wahoo...and I'm *supposed* to be the knee-jerk liberal around here? ;)

:)

"Sure... it would be nice if they treated us better, and I bet they would get better people to start with, but I don't think about my $6.25/hr when doing my job".

Some of us have famililies to support and bills to pay. We *have* to think in terms of pay, that's why the pool is so shallow and young.. But as I said, that's just a small part. Like you said, if you care about the place your working, and have just a general pride about yourself, there are ways of working around low pay, like, second jobs.

Six Flags doesn't present that kind of atmosphere consistantly. I must say, they do weed out the bad apples eventually, but unfortunately, all it takes sometimes is one bad encounter with a guest, to keep them from ever returning. And Cedar Fair is not exempt from this. Knott's has some of the same issues now that SFMM does.

And I should have specified, *Disneyland*.

*** Edited 12/21/2005 7:50:31 PM UTC by DWeaver*** *** Edited 12/21/2005 7:56:34 PM UTC by DWeaver***

Pay, Atmosphere, and Passion for that field of work. These three things play a large part in how well someone performs on the job.

The posts about cedar point being a great summer job, I can buy that. It not being about the money, I don't really see that because, you could just get a season pass and enjoy the atmosphere without dealing with guest so much. If you had a job in the off season of Cedar points schedule that paid much better, I highly doubt that you'd quit just because you like the atmosphere.

When I worked at Six Flags over Georgia in 96 and 97, I absolutely loved the atmosphere, but that wasn't enough to keep me working there another year. Following the end of that season, I went on to become a Naval officer and my pay is simply incomparable to what I was making at that amusement park. Summer Jobs are great but in my opinion are only useful to teens that need something to do while they are off for the summer from school.

Wow, I seemed to have derailed from the subject alittle, but pay will determine the type of people you'll have to chose from. Currently there is nothing to really look forward to for this new group of kids. Most of them don't have significant bills, so when I said they should be fired, I really thought about it and that wouldn't really improve the situation because there are tons of kids lined up to replace he/she that was let go. This just shows how much this can lead to employee turn over which is a shame.

I agree with a lot of the previous posts. I also think that "Crap rolls downhill". If you have supervisors and managers that aren't doing their jobs correctly and don't care, those attitudes are passed on to the "grunts". Training programs are important and might look good on paper but they mean nothing if the policies are not enforced. People will always get away with whatever and as much as they can....

Alot of it IS personal attitude of the park employees. An old friend of mine was a manager for SFGAM for several years and started out as a ride op. he was one of the few that went out of his way to make sure people had a great time, and while management liked that, he got alot of crap from his co-workers. I was there almost every weekday that summer and watched him work day after day.

Another thing to consider is that parks like Disney try to attract alot of would-be actors and actresses or something similar. I was heavy into drama and theatre in high-school and the park had been sending me materials for months after one of my teachers sent in my name for audition information for Disney park or cruise line shows or standard jobs. I seriously almost packed my stuff and went for an audition to try and get to tokyo disney in a show of some sort. But ultimately I chose another route

So when you've got little broadway-starseekers working for you, it tends to make a big difference. ;) It was the same thing at a theme restaurant I used to work for, Mars 2112. The Chicago one failed and the NY one stayed open because most of the employees at NY were starving actors that needed the cash at the time. Us? Well there were a few that wanted to give it their all but most of them just wouldn't be motivated.

It's a shame though. I'd love to see a little more enthusiasm at some of the parks.

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YoshiFan said:
I'm not sure how much other parks pay but I know that in general, Six Flags doesn't pay their employees much. That probably factors into it, when you are paying barely above minimum wage for many positions in the company a lot (not all) of people probably don't care about their job that much and know if they get fired they can just get a job somewhere else with similar pay.

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Knott's Berry Farm pays its ride operators minimum wage and from what my supervisor told me (summer of '04, when I worked the railroad) that you can only request a raise after more than full year working at the park, and that raise is a measly quarter. That surprised me. I had supervisors that have been at the park for more than 3 years and they didn't make that much more than I did as a starting employee. So I don't think Six Flags is the only park operator out there that does it.

And Knott's isn't flawless either, "just because it's a Cedar Fair park," doesn't mean jack squat. Most of you here will buy into the stereotype that Cedar Fair employees "care" and "do their best." I'm sorry, but that's not always the case most of the time. During my 2002 visit to Cedar Point, I saw operators slack off, not checking every restraint on a train, playing on their cell phones - and all of these things I've witnessed over and over at Knott's as well. What I'm saying is, that whole idea that Cedar Point/Cedar Fair employees working at the park because of the atmosphere and not the pay is NOT TRUE.

Yeah! So take that you pansy-ass fanboys! :)

Yeah, and Cedar Fair's mom is FAT too!

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SixFlagsKingdaKa said:
You make it sound like you were a better employee. But, Don't I recall a while back that you found joy in hearing that a guest was injured on Batwing by a ride op? you're no better.

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Apologies for the late reply, but I would briefly like to address this. About "finding joy that a guest was injured on Batwing by a ride op," that's a complete lie. I found humor in the irony that Sam Marks, of all people, got stapled on Batwing. I did not find the stapling itself to be humorous, but rather the irony of the whole situation. Basically, I'm trying to say that I derive no pleasure when a guest gets stapled. I do, however, find it humorous when a well-known coaster enthusiast, of all people, is the victim of a lousy ride op's poor work or attitude. I believe I know who the ride op was, and she wasn't that great. Trust me.

And as far as thinking that I'm a better employee, at SFA, I was. I'm not arrogant and I'm not cocky, but I'm better than that park. I won't settle. I know how little I can do and have no one care, but I also know what I'm capable of, and I strive for the latter. I wanted to be the one SFA op who wanted to give guests the best experience possible. I wanted those trains out of there quickly, and I wanted them out of there safely. I wanted the bar-checkers to give me their clears before I reclined that train and sent it. I watched in horror as a lead almost got crushed by the op because he, "thought I was done." He failed to notice the lead sitting behind one of the cars trying to fix something real quick. He said to me, "If it looks like everyone's finished checking bars, I recline it."

That is 100%, completely, positively unacceptable. I was standing on car 6 just starting to check restraints when all of a sudden I felt myself tilting forward. I'm better than that, and I don't feel that I'm bragging when I say that. I'm saying that I know how SFA operates and I'm not going to do things the way they do. That alone defines me as better. *** Edited 12/22/2005 3:26:41 AM UTC by sirloindude***

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scubasteve673042 said:

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Mabye Dan Synder can change this and get his employees to care. As for SFA until the get their act together and make it less ghetto then things will not change at that park

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Does that mean that they should screen out "less sophisticated" blacks from the park, or all blacks together? You you know what the definition of ghetto is? Here, I provided number 2 for you:

2) any section of a city in which many members of some national or racial group live, or to which they are restricted

If this isn't what you meant, then there are other ways to phrase things. For example, "and make it more appearing visually-wise." To me, I don't see anything at SFA that implies a ghetto. Just because they didn't spend as much time and money on the architecture in Gotham City as the other parts of the park does not make a park a "ghetto."

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That's the "gayest" thing I ever heard, IFan (lol).

In 2000, when I was in my late 20's, I thought I had finally found out what I wanted to be when I grow up. I decided that I would move very far away from my family and work for the rest of my life at a Florida Theme Park. It was a great plan. I finally felt like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.

There was a huge problem though. 40 hours a week still didn't pay the bills. I was a great employee, who loved his job and would have done anything to make the gusets happy, but I couldn't get by on the crappy wage.

And that sucks real bad.

What I have found is that that's just the way it is. A lot of low paying jobs take a lot and give a little.

One of my biggest wishes is that I could afford to work at a park for the rest of my life.

I was a better employee too. My standards were much higher than those of my co-workers.

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sirloindude said:
I found humor in the irony that Sam Marks, of all people, got stapled on Batwing. I did not find the stapling itself to be humorous, but rather the irony of the whole situation. Basically, I'm trying to say that I derive no pleasure when a guest gets stapled. I do, however, find it humorous when a well-known coaster enthusiast, of all people, is the victim of a lousy ride op's poor work or attitude. I believe I know who the ride op was, and she wasn't that great. Trust me.

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What's sad here is that you found it humorous, and to find that humorous is not very responsible of you. You should have been the better man and said something like "that's just wrong regardless of who it was" and that's the truth! You finding humor in another persons pain is just as bad as an employee not caring about their job.

If you were truly the stellar employee you claim to be, why didn't you speak up about the drunk employees? They could have caused the DEATH of a guest. Why didn't you immediately blow the whistle?Could it be that you didn't care either? Ignoring a potentially fatal situation like that is so wrong that you have NO EXCUSE for it. Claiming that someone else should have caught it, is irresponsible and unacceptable. You obviously could care LESS than the typical SFA employee. Looking the other way is where you went wrong, thats what brings you down to a lower level than the typical op. sad but true.

Are you ever gonna let that stapling thing go, or are you gonna keep living under the assumption that I found the stapling humorous? I said it was irony that I found humor in, not stapling. Frankly, the girl's a complete moron for even stapling someone she didn't know, and an even bigger moron if she did know who Sam was (which I doubt).

Also, I said I regretted not saying anything to the sups who so blatently turned their heads and looked the other way to the drunk employees, so how exactly do I still not care? You need to back off and quit bringing this back up. I made my apology. That's more than you'd ever get from anyone else at that park. Should someone else have done something? Absolutely, but I should've too. No excuse for it, and I'm glad nothing happened. I could try and cop-out and explain the conversation when I finally found out they were drunk (I'm taking my lead's word that they were drunk, just so you know), but regardless, even if they weren't, I should've spoken to the head of operations who was nearby and told him to at least look into it. It was a mistake I'll never make again.

Now, if ^you reply to this post and still try to drag my name through the mud, you're being belligerent. Just accept my apologies and drop it.

Yeah, its just the way things go. Although, ride ops are just one piece of the pie, and they should enjoy their jobs. What about the others, such as myself, who got to work in the food stands, and get *****ed at about how high the prices were, since, you know, when I got to work each day, I took it upon myself to jack up the prices. At SFDL, the same kinda stuff happened. At least on rides, you got some training. In the glorious food serv. dept, you got put in a stand. That simple. A different place each day, and you got to teach yourself how to run the equipment, where things were, and even what things were. Let me tell you, people in food serv. didnt give a flyin f**k about much of anything. I stayed the whole year because i loved being at darien lake, i loved goin there since i was 3.

The comment about racials and all that, there is alot of truth behind that. At SFDL, in food serv. anyway, there are what they call 'laborers' which are people from the city (Buffalo) that arent allowed to even be near the money. They dont follow any rules, they dont care, anything. Its the lowest level of desperation when you cant trust the people youve hired. The internationals from poland and bulgaria russia etc. they are good workers for the most part. The beginning of the season, they usually dont speak that great of english, but by the mid to end of the season they are really doing a great job.

People dont value their jobs, and the higher-ups sometimes dont value their workers till they find themselves understaffed, which makes the ones that are left even more ornarry (sp?) because they have so much more workload on their shoulders.

Its a customer service job, and there is no reason to get mean with the guests. They come once a year usually, and dont need to get snotty a$$holes serving them, theyre payin enough to get in the gate. There are some times, on relly bad days, when I have gotten upset, but those were rare, and usually with people that are just plain stupid. But yeah. Half an hour later, thats my take. I left lots of stuff out, but it was covered by the other posters, with drunks etc. So yea...

Hmmm...I guess I'm just on crack. You all know so much more than anyone that was there.

Did I say that everyone was there for the atmosphere. No. There were people who really were there for the money, and let's be frank, it was the HS kids and the PWT for the most part.

Yes, I do think Ride Ops had more people that really weren't there for the money. But from my experience, most of the employees I saw on a daily basis could have been somewhere else for the summer making more money. They were at CP because they enjoyed being there, and that's why people come back for 2, 3, 4, 5 or more summers.

It's a pretty good summer job while in college. The pay rate is low, but with as many hours as you work, the overall rate is still "decent". You live in a college dorm type atmosphere, with parties and bars an option every night. If you're gay, it's a safe, welcoming environment to work in considering the number of fellow gay employees. I can't think of any of my friends that worked there because it was just a summer job. But then again, what do I know, I'm a "fanboy".

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sirloindude said: Now, if you reply to this post and still try to drag my name through the mud, you're being belligerent. Just accept my apologies and drop it.

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You started this thread, pointing fingers at other employees. You brought up how bad "other" employees were, while "you" ignored what could have potentially been a fatal problem.

Sorry, I'd rather have slow moving employees that understood the safety rules than ones that look the other way and blame everything on the supervisors.

How many employees saw you (Mr Good Employee) look the other way whenever there was an issue and figured "if he doesn't care, why should I"? You could have cultivated a crew of great people using the pride you had in the job you did, but you turned it into a "look how good I am, and how bad they are" game. Probably making mental notes specifically for the next Bash Six Flags Thread right here on CBuzz!

Ok you've apologized thats fine, I suggest if you don't want your own actions questioned, you not post them, and not start a thread to boost your own misguided ego.

alot of ppl at sfdl just worked there for a summer job, cause its in a rural area and its the closest place around

Happy Holidays! Everyone.... :)

Bah Humbug!!!

guts

^^^Everyone else who was there looked the other way, too. It was my one mistake there, as far as I'm concerned. The others don't understand the safety rules, period. I screwed up once, nothing happened (thank goodness), and I think we need to rest the issue. I don't have a misguided ego. I'm not the best ride op on the planet and I'm not perfect.

Oh, and that was the only time I ever, EVER looked the other way. It never happened before that incident and it will never happen again.