Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Big Mouth Part 2

          About ten minutes after the kid called his mom, I saw some wild driver come flying into the parking lot. This lady was yelling before she even stepped out of the car. As she walked towards the ticket booth she was screaming and cursing at me. When she was close enough for me to hear her clearly through the glass window separating us, she asked me why her son had been kicked out of the theater and why he couldn't get his money back. I didn't know why he had been kicked out, but I tried to politely explain why he didn't get his refund.
          Not satisfied with my answer she demanded to speak to my manager. So I got on the phone and asked him to come out and talk to her. He told me he would come out as soon as he finished what he was doing. I put down the phone and told her he would be out in a little bit. "No!" she yelled "I want to talk to him right now!" Not wanting her to get anymore hysterical than she was, I said that I would go into the back office to get him. I asked a friend to watch the ticket box for me, than made my way for the back.
          The mother than charged through the front door and started following me. I had to turn around and explain to her that that only employees were allowed in the back for safety reasons. She reluctantly stayed where she was, but continued yelling at me. As I neared the door I heard her yell, "Yea, not such a tough guy now are ya!" At that comment I nearly whirled around and gave her a piece of my mind. The only thing that stopped me was my fear of losing my job and possibly ending up in court for what I wanted to say to her.
          So I stepped through the door to find my manager at work on the computer. I asked him to come out and talk to the mother. He tried asking me to get her to wait longer, but I argued that she was getting hostel and was refusing to leave until she spoke to him. So he dragged himself away from the desk and followed me outside. I took my spot in the ticket booth, while he asked the mother what the problem was.
          When she started yelling about what was wrong, he asked her to step outside with him so she didn't disturb the other customers. He than gave her pretty much the same explanation I gave her about the refund. After basically telling him the reasoning was stupid and yelling at me again to validate her story about what happened, she asked why her son always seemed to be getting into trouble with us. When he tried to tell the mom her son had a history of causing trouble at our theater, she again flipped. Now I understood why I wasn't allowed to give the kid his refund.
          Deciding that there was nothing else he could do to calm this lady down, he told her he was done talking with her and tried to walk away. But she continued to press on with her argument. As a last resort he told her that if she didn't get off the property, he was going to call the police. As she walked off with her son, she gave us the middle finger and yelled "F-ck you and f-ck this whole place". What a wonderful role-modal for her son. After she left my manager apologized to me for having to deal with that. I told him it was alright.

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