Cedar Point mistreating its employees?

I just read a shocking expose on working conditions at Cedar Point, and I was appalled. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3427866&us...genumber=1

I wish I found this surprising.

Expose? Hardly. We all know working at parks is a tough gig, pretty much across the board.

If you want to see some real exploitation of foreign workers, ride a cruise ship. :)

My last year there was 2006. This is my experience there, with exception to the part about no locks on the doors in the Dorms or at Cedars. I think that the writer is mistaken about that, but everything else is spot on.

I feel worse for the foreigners who work there than anyone else.

When someone uses the word 'retarded' easily in something to be read by lots of folks... I mean, how... 'lame'. Might as well say the Cedar is 'such a gay place' to live (had to; I didn't read the whole thing, wouldn't be surprised.)

It was hard working there. But I was 17 through 20, and I thought I had it made. We had fans in the rooms and a park at our front door. We had great employee ride nights, parties, movie nights, etc.

I'm sure stuff could be updated, perhaps some new stuff put in. But I sure didn't think it was that bad when I was there; it was kinda like being in a dorm.

Meh, sounds like my college dorm, and I'm paying a lot more for that.
The medical incidents are just oddball ones.
Sheesh.

After letting it stew, some pretty bad memories are coming up :) Mainly from an overzealous manager who was a total ass to me when I didn't 'get to know him better'. I was 19, he was 40 something and he wanted me to come hang out in his office. It was highly uncomfortable and I did not have any sort of coping skills for that sort of thing.

The time I worked and O/C with no brake and he finally came at me, yelling "go get a pop and a candy bar" while he grabbed the Blue Streak break from me (which, amusingly, he didn't work very well).

I couldn't read through it. I stopped reading at "I worked there five years." if you're the kind of schmuck who can't master your own destiny, I have no sympathy for you. Ditto if you sign up here just to bitch and moan as your first post.

Grow up. Working 60 hours a week is what you do, what you voluntarily do. If you think it sucks, you can walk away.

This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for last year. The post focuses almost entirely on the "bad" parts of the job, so I'll stick it out and hope to see some balance.

I seem to recall a similar article about kings island a couple seasons ago. Not to sound desensitized.

There's not too much in that article I'd disagree with (dorms actually do lock and max at $35 not $45). That being said, nobody forced me (or anyone) to work there so many years of my life. I had a blast working and living at the park and this guys post doesn't even go into how fun and exciting it can be. If the point of the rant is to "expose" the crappy part if the job, then well done. I hardly see it as a fair representation of working at Cedar Point though.

My reaction; meh...

Don't get me wrong, there are some issues to be addressed at the Point on the employee end of things (the prevailing attitude from the top half being foremost). Several of the complaints from the write-up have their merits, but there were certainly some over-blown things. One thing I will say, is that when you have a PD composed almost entirely of law enforcement students and city PD rejects, there is a lack of understanding of responsibility over your authority. There are a few genuinely good guys on the CPPD, but they comprise maybe 5-10% of the force. Sitting near several of them in the employee cafe, it was clear from their conversations that the students in particular were enjoying their new-found power way too much (particularly over fellow employees).

My personal experience, however - no matter how much I may decry it and moan - was a generally acceptable experience. Certainly not exceptional, and just short of good, but not necessarily negative. I think being in Rides, you get a little more isolation from the rest of what goes on in the park, so if there were egregious things going on elsewhere (I heard bits and pieces of such, but never a "whole," if you will, especially in the resorts area), you'll likely not be too wise to things unless you have many good friends outside of Rides.

On the housing, yeah, outside of Bayside and the 15000 building in Commons, it needs to go or be intensely renovated. The 1400 building is in horrid shape, and the mold will eventually force them to gut the building.

Again, a lot of that write-up linked was some exaggeration and story telling, but there were some valid complaints and bad truths scattered around. That is the nature of working at a park, though. While my cushy office job where I get paid (several dollars more per hour than I earned in Operations) to browse the web and play with Facebook and Twitter in air conditioning is certainly an "upgrade" from working in the parks, I genuinely miss the operations as my regular job.

CP employees gotta stop complaining SFGADV doesn't even provide hotel rooms for their guests and they are whining about having to sleep in dorm rooms?

67440Dodge said:
CP employees gotta stop complaining SFGADV doesn't even provide hotel rooms for their guests and they are whining about having to sleep in dorm rooms?

+1!

I do think a lot of what was said has merit. It's no secret Cedar Point is a harsh place to work and has been accused of treating their emloyees bad. However, this is not unique to Cedar point by any means. I worked there even longer than this individual did, but ultimately decided not to return for many of these reasons given, among others. However, I feel people should expect these kind of conditions going into it, as it's been stated, it's no secret this stuff happens. I also don't feel the park is completely at fault because in my experience recently, the employees attitudes have been increasingly worse. I felt more and more, people were more selfish and unwilling to do much work and to work together. This is what was the most important reason for I chose not to return as the working conditions personally didn't bother me as much.

I bet working at CP is a day at the park (metaphorically, as well as literally) compared to working at a slaughterhouse.

Or a tomato-picking crew.

I think that my biggest problem with working there was the attitudes of the CP Police and of anyone higher in the chain of command then say a Zone Manager. They pretend to want to help, with some kind of employee committee pretending to resolve problems, but it's all talk in the end, and nothing ever gets done.

I remember a time when my friend (who was male) and I were exiting the park from the Marina gate late one night. The guard at the gate said, "You ladies have a good night." The next day, I went to the Police Department to fill out a complaint form, and got to speak directly to the Chief, in his office. Our conversation was going nowhere fast. The officer at the gate denied it, and the Chief didn't believe me. I was immediately dismissed as soon as I answered his question if I was gay or not.

That is just one story of many that I could tell about how terrible the people in charge were. It was a common belief that seasonal staff were not important enough to show any respect to.

However, I wouldn't trade my experiences working there for anything. It was a really good time. If I could have somehow got my foot in the door as one of the favorites (which is very competitive), and I could have seen some kind of future working there, I might still be there. At that time in my life, I thought that I wanted to be an amusement park employee for the rest of my life.

I'm friends with the Wicked Twister seizure guy. He was kind of surprised people were talking about him on the internet.

maXairMike said:
While my cushy office job where I get paid (several dollars more per hour than I earned in Operations) to browse the web and play with Facebook and Twitter in air conditioning is certainly an "upgrade" from working in the parks, I genuinely miss the operations as my regular job.

Ditto :)

I stopped reading when they started complaining about the kids music on a 90 minute loop and the buzzers on the rides. Really? When I was in high school, I worked at a local discount grocery store (Marcs), and they played some sort of canned music that was always repeating. I can't tell you how many time I heard 'Wichita Lineman', I can still recite most of the lyrics.

And complaining that you are expected to be cleaning if their are no riders is also pointless. At my current job, we ask our employee's to clean their area when they aren't running any jobs.