Another Six Flags down...
- R.A
Jeffrey Seifert said:A $10.4 million reimbursement is nothing more than corporate greed. I don't expect them to give away their product, but I certainly have a right as both a consumer and a stockholder to complain about handing $10.4 million over to Snyder.
That's right, you have a right to complain. But unless you do something to impact SF's bottom line, such as not going as often, not going at all, or somehow convincing other people not to go, I'm not sure it will really make a difference.
Again there's a difference in saying
A.) My own completely subjective, individual opinion is that SF's prices are too high and
B.) SF is involved in price gouging. *** Edited 4/13/2006 5:52:55 PM UTC by matt.***
Again, isn't going to Six Flags a choice guys?
matt. said:
Ok, no parks really have free parking just like no parks really have free soda but that's another conversation.
Okay - lets get on another conversation. If I don't give the lot attendent $15 when I drive into the parking lot - That is free parking. If I go into an overly air-conditioned "oasis" and pour myself a cold one any time of the day I wish and Santa doesn't yank a 4 dollar bill out of my pocket when I leave - That is free soda. Granted, a soda company is without a doubt giving the park a sweet deal to have their logo on top of the building and on every cup in every snotty-nosed kid's sticky hand as they walk around the park, but if I am not paying for it, to me it is free. (If it were SF, they would get even more promotion from all of the logos laying all over the ground. But if you try to put a Pepsi Oasis cup on the ground, you get nothing for Christmas.) So yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as free parking and free soda. Some parks do treat their guests like guests, not as another $$$ in someone's talor-made suit pocket.
If you disagree, I would love to read your reasoning.
Kraven the Raven said:
If you disagree, I would love to read your reasoning.
I'd love to disagree. :)
The park has set the ticket price at a number that they feel covers their operating costs. Let's say $20.
They decide to lure guests in with a 'free soda' angle and figure they can cover the cost of the soda by charging every guest through the gate an additional fee. Let's say $8. (soda units used in one day x cost of unit / average daily guests)
You pay $28 to enter the park.
That entrance fee includes the $20 to enter the park and an unfront, prepaid fee for all the soda you will drink during the day of $8.
That's how you're paying for 'free' drinks.
Free parking? Same thing. (cost of lot maintenance / average number of guests)
Let's make that imaginary number $3.
Now the park charges $31 to enter at the gate and advertises free parking and free drinks.
*** Edited 4/13/2006 6:51:27 PM UTC by Lord Gonchar***
Kraven the Raven said:If you disagree, I would love to read your reasoning.
Its worked into the prices for other things. You know those furniture companies who offer free delivery? They still have to pay for the gas, the trucks, and the delivery guys.
Holiday World is my favorite park in the entire world, and I think the "free" soda and "free" parking are great, but that stuff does get paid for one way or another.
I personally love those perks at HW simply because I don't have to wait in line to park my car, or wait in live to grab a soda. But its not as if HW and parks like it are simply giving out free soda for the sake of giving out free soda, its a business decision, and they expect the (usually huge) profit margin on soft drinks to be made up elsewhere.
Gonch gives an excellent explanation as well. *** Edited 4/13/2006 6:48:13 PM UTC by matt.*** *** Edited 4/13/2006 6:54:54 PM UTC by matt.***
As for morality...is *greed* a moral issue? Does any single, private person need 10 million dollars?
MrX said:
As far as I can tell, Shapiro earns his money. Guys like him work 24 hours a day.
Other than millrace's amazingly succinct "Bottom line is that *nobody* is worth that much to do *any* job.", nobody else thought this little nugget was hysterical?
So, theoretically, if I worked MY job three times, I'd make...15-20M/year...cool, who's teling my boss? And booking my charter flight to HN? I could get used to this. *Anyone* that thinks they EARN an 8-digit salary is living in a dreamworld...or Cinderella's castle...and chances are *their* employees aren't living in the Happiest Place on Earth... ;)
millrace said:
As for morality...is *greed* a moral issue?
I think it is.
On the other hand, how is someone's personal income related to how greedy they are?
Are people who make $100,000 a year greedier than people who make $10,000? What about people who make a measily $1 Million a year? In the eyes of some people that's absolute chump change.
Wouldn't a persons greed have more to do with *how* they procure their money, and what they chose to do with it once they have it? What's a single monetary amount have to do with it?
SF is paying Shapiro what they see is fit. Whether that is too much or too little is a business decision, playing some sort of morality card is nonsense. *** Edited 4/13/2006 7:27:46 PM UTC by matt.***
millrace said:
But it is also interesting that these "free" perks seem to only be available at parks that have much MUCH better prices than Six King Fairs. And how do you account for the free parking at parks that have no general admission fee? I can go to Coneaut, park for free, go swimming in the lake and have a little free entertainment all without paying for anything.
Agreed. It's always these smaller parks in the middle of nowhere that need to use low prices and sell people on 'perks' to attract any sort of business base.
Conneaut is an even better example. It's a park in a general state of disrepair with a parking lot that is nothing but a hole filled field of grass and dirt, is holding a ridiculous amount of debt for it's size and actually closed for a few seasons in the 90's. Way to run a business!
*Anyone* that thinks they EARN an 8-digit salary is living in a dreamworld...or Cinderella's castle...and chances are *their* employees aren't living in the Happiest Place on Earth...
Friggin' hippies. ;)
I look at it almost exactly the other way. There are some of these types of jobs that aren't worth it no matter how much you pay the person.
I don't think a single person posting in this thread (myself included) would last a day in Snyder's shoes. Most would be pulling their hair out, having chest pains, huddled crying in a corner whining about having no free time for themselves.
I know I wouldn't want his job.
You are the one that the stock holders get upset at if everything goes badly. You also have to over see all the operations of the company.
Give me the keys to Danny-boy's office and I'll be there first thing Monday morning. Oh, and do remember to tell the pilot to go have the corporate jet washed while I'm in meetings, I've got to fly to Bimini on Thursday for a round of golf with Bill Gates and Malcolm Forbes...and I will NOT have them see me flying in my jet with dirty windows!
Seriously, people who are WAY worse off than me, living paycheck-to-paycheck working two jobs to support their family of four contribute *nothing*, while me and Bill and Malcom "provide jobs"? This baffles me to no end...
Yes, I *am* a hippie...reasonably proud of it ?!!?
Seriously, people who are WAY worse off than me, living paycheck-to-paycheck working two jobs to support their family of four contribute *nothing*, while me and Bill and Malcom "provide jobs"?
Not at all, but kids who can look bored while sitting at the control panel of Nitro are a dime a dozen (or twelve for ten cents where I come from) while the Bills and Malcoms of the world - people with vision to achieve greatness and drive a company to success are a little harder to find and even harder to keep.
That's not to say Steve the ride-op isn't doing a bang up job or trying his best or even working hard, but there's a hundred other kids who could fill his shoes without hesitation.
Only one in a million Steve's get to be Dick Kinzel. :)
And I guarantee Kinzel didn't get there by b!tching about being underpaid, questioning the abilities of those above him and resenting those who had achieved the same success he later found himself.
*** Edited 4/13/2006 8:18:35 PM UTC by Lord Gonchar***
I am forced to wonder, however, what part of Steve the ride-op, with his 1400 SAT scores and his 45-50 hour workweeks, makes him "unqualified" to sit in a bored room... :)
(OK, I'll give away the secret of psychoanalysis here, *I* am Steve)...LOL!
And you're not sitting behind the control panel of some arbitrary thirll ride for a livivng either.
In fact, you're exactly where any guy with your qualifications who has made your decisions in life would be. ;)
P.S. I *am* pulling my hair out (what's left of it), taking Mylanta intravenously, and oftentimes I'm huddled in a corner wondering WHAT the Feds or State will think of NEXT in order to confound parents of Developmentally Disabled kids from getting needed services...on the plus side, not too bad in terms of chest pains.
Forty million dollars of services annually, just got off a half-hour phone consult with Tally and a Center in Miami, to the tune of cost savings OF....14 CENTS!
Yes, I did end the call with "THIS is why toilets cost 100K apiece"...I'm evil like that! :)
*** Edited 4/13/2006 8:54:25 PM UTC by rollergator***
At the end of the year, we should have a good idea if the new regime at Six Flags has realized this or not.
If he were in it for the joy of satisfying guests, he'd have applied for an hourly position. :)
Anybody who runs a business of any kind is in it for the money - otherwise they run some sort of charitable organization or partake in a hobby.
And yes, even these smaller parks are in it for the money. They may love what they do and take great pride in it, but in the end they make their living from it.
(And where exactly did thing go so far wrong that the legitimate pursuit of financial success is seen as a bad thing? You know who pisses me off? Lottery players. Those people are just in it for the money!)
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