Six Flags Parking Pass jacked up to $40.

You talkin' to me or 'phan?

Not you, Andy.

(maybe I needed to add ^^^^^^ ;) )

Hoffman;

So then, if I don't give my earned money to the company, then it's still mine. I'm not stealing it.

If you use a service or product, you owe money, it is a fact of life. You used the service of the parking lot, therefore you owe money. If you do not pay for that service, then you are stealing the service. In any event, what you did was wrong. Six Flags does not owe you anything. The price to park might seem ridiculous, but still that is the price you must pay when visiting.

Not anymore. I got the parking pass. And I got it for the $30 price, before Six Flags felt like sticking it to their trustworhty patrons, and raising it $10 dollars. *** Edited 4/20/2006 6:45:53 AM UTC by Coasterphan***

If you have so much money, then why on earth are you stealing?

You're not "stealing back your own money". SF charges you a fee, and you cheat to get out of paying that fee. That is stealing. Do you plan on complaining about your meal at a restaurant before you get your food so you can get out of paying for it? Do you do the same with haircuts? Do you do it EVERY TIME just so you can get it for free?

You might as well try to grab $10 from the gift shop's cash register while the casheer isn't looking every time you visit SF.

And, respectfully, are you trying to belittle casheers? Honesty is more important to me than how much money you have. It is not an opinion that what you are doing is stealing, it is a fact...and I think you know it is wrong. That's why you have to brag about how much money you have.

Clearly, coasterphan is simply rationalizing theft away so that he can not have to face up to the reality. This is, in a perverse way, a good thing, because it means he at least has a conscience.

---

Every Job interview and/or "honesty test" I have taken before getting a job has made it an issue.

---

When I was in college, I took a job that had me working from time to time as the sole employee in a golf course with a cash register and a pretty impressive cash flow---not that hard to skim the till, by simply not ringing up transactions. Since we're selling time on the course, there's no inventory control to catch the missing sales. Theft is trivial in this setting.

Part of the interview was a polygraph. The way this works is this: the interviewer asks you some questions, many of which are potentially embarrassing, without hooking you up to the machine. After you hear each question, he then hooks you up and does it again. The trick is: he needs to get you to lie about something the company doesn't care about early, so that he has a baseline to see if you are lying about something the company does care about later. So, the questions are designed to be embarrasing and personal, so that an ordinary person is going to lie about *something*.

Being that I was a college student, in Berkeley, and had been to a pretty rockin' party the night before, the answer to many "when was the last time..." questions was "last night." I figured I was screwed, and had no chance at the job, so I may as well just tell the truth and go home with a good story. So, that's exactly what I did. In the process, he also asked questions about whether I had ever stolen from an employer, etc. etc. etc, to which I was able to truthfully answer no.

After the first round of questions (with many "last night" answers and some "it *was* a really great party"s thrown in for good measure), he looked at me and said "there's no reason to use the machine. You're clearly being honest with me." I figured that was that---his report would clearly paint me as a deviant who couldn't be trusted, and I'd need to keep looking.

Got hired the next day. ;)

For what it's worth, I firmly believe that every kid, no matter how well-off, needs to work at least one lousy, low-paying service sector job, preferably with an exclusively wealthy clientele. Lord knows I worked at several of them. It helps keep you from becoming a total jerk when you become successful yourself, because you can remember the difference between guys with money *and* class, and guys who just had money.

*** Edited 4/20/2006 1:37:06 PM UTC by Brian Noble***

Well then congratulations to the most honest person on the planet.

Dex;

If the haircut is not what I asked for, I will 1st have them correct it, then if other action neeeds to be taken, it definitely will be.

If that dinner isn't what I asked for, they will fix it.

Nope, not trying to belittle cashiers at all. I worked in retail for 10 years, quite some time ago, and know how pathetic that line of work is 1st hand. Your the one who tried to associate my current working environment to the cash register with your analogy.

And, of course stealing is wrong, which is why I believe that the Q-Bot system should be removed from all parks.

I don't pay for haircuts either...I do it myself. :)

But it sound like to me that someone here needs to take a few ethics classes among other things.

And...it's also not very smart to go online and boast about it either.

Thriller, I completely agree with you. Whoever decided that it was of no consequence to those people who are having an additional $10 dollars taken out of there pockets, for a parking pass now, as opposed to what it cost on opening night, really should look into an ethics class, among other things.

BTW, what other things would you recommend for that person? Just curious. *** Edited 4/20/2006 2:54:53 PM UTC by Coasterphan***

Coasterphan, so you think that a company charging a price for a service is unethical, but stealing froma company is ethical?

I'm not sure I follow your line of logic, phan...since when is it wrong for companies to raise prices on a service or product? And from what everyone is saying here, they raised it $10! That is so miniscule I honestly can't even believe you're moaning about it. Like other people posted in this thread, there are many more parks with much higher parking pass prices. Six Flags charges $15 to park one day, I'd say $40 is a great deal for an all season parking pass. Hell, I'd say it was a good deal even if parking was $5!

I love the "enthusiast" mentality. Let's spend as little as possible at the parks that bring us the coasters we love so much. That makes about as much sense as some misfit coming on a coaster msg board telling people how to steal from an amusement park.

JC

While I often don't agree with Six Flags and the corporate park mentality, you missed the boat because my comments were aimed at you for stealing and cheating. You stole from the chain and cheated the other guests that paid to park. Just because you feel that Six Flags is outragious and unresonable (or however you want to call it) with parking and money gouging, it doesn't give you the right to cheat them back. Even if you intended on purchasing a parking pass that day. Two wrongs don't make it right.

I agree it's horrible to raise prices mid season, or even a week after the park opens. But it clearly states on park literature that they reserve the right to change prices (and hours) and that you should contact the park to confirm before your visit. Most parks operate this way corporate or not.

I don't know you Coasterphan, but you should know better.

edited because I misinterpreted your original post *** Edited 4/20/2006 3:25:16 PM UTC by Thrillerman***

Ah! But see, they do have a advertisement right in the tollbooth window stating that you can buy your 2006 parking pass right there. However, we needed 2 passes, and didn't have the cash on hand to at that moment to get them, so the toolbooth attendant told us that we could just go in and get the passes at guest relations.

So! By her own instructions, we actually didn't steal from the park, we were only doing what we were told to do.

As far as my free parking at MM during the West Coast Bash, that was a product of MM not doing their job properly. They knew that poeple were coming for an early morning ERT, but had nobody at the toolbooths. In this instance, anyone here who attended WCB stole from Magic Mountain.

So basically my, unethical, not wanting to ever work with me, should give into price gouging because I need to conform with the rest of the world, way of cheating only happened at SFA.

One time, in all of these years that I've been going to SF parks. If you don't count the times that I tried to use my Great Adventure parking pass at other parks.

Glad to know that this one time has me painted as the worst person since Manson.

It only takes one time of shoplifting to get thrown in jail.

So now I'm a shoplifter. Okay, anyone else need to label me? *** Edited 4/20/2006 4:16:40 PM UTC by Coasterphan***

I used to argue with my kids to try to get points across to them, and then realized there was no sense in arguing with children. No matter what you say, they believe they are right. Enough said :)

Cool! Another label. Thanks Coasting.

I did not label you. I never said you were a shoplifter. I said that it only takes one time to get thrown in jail. I could have used a different analogy (drunk driving), but I believe that drunk driving is more serious than stealing. The closest analogy I could come up with was shoplifting (which is stealing, so I suppose in essence you could be seen as a shoplifter) The convenience store will never miss this one package of gum. That statement sounds a lot like your arguments to justify wwhat you did.(Now I labeled you) BTW, Coastingthru did not label you. He was talking about his children. You labeled yourself in that case. *** Edited 4/20/2006 4:19:49 PM UTC by a_hoffman50***