Six Flags Worlds of Pain

Yesterday it rained so bad that Six Flags closed early. This is a once-a-year event, so it was a pretty cool thing. Too bad it cuts into my pay though. I had to work the oldies during the second rain storm. That ride almost never shuts down. So I started to think as I worked, wishing I were dead instead of getting a crappy 6.50/hr to get SARS from the rain. I was thinking about how much I despise that awful, terrible ride. Most of the rides at the park are not awesomely fun to operate, but the Oldies have to be the worst. Either You are getting really really sunburned because there is no roof or shade, or else you are getting rained on. There's not much else. I'm going to be very straight-forward with the rest of this rant.

Why I hate my rides:

Case 1: Merry Oldies

This ride sucks because all the parents have some sentimental value attached to it. They remember riding it as kids because all the rides back then sucked ass. These dumbasses bring their 2 month-old, barely concious infants onto my ride. These kids can't even open their eyes yet, so they aren't going to be able to have fun. Still, the parents think they are doing the right thing as responsible adults to bring them onto the smelly overgrown lawnmowers I drive all day long. About 1 in every 20 people can actually figure out how to drive the cars, too. There is the obvious gas pedal inside the car, and the brake we use to stop the cars when the guests are being dumb. The brake is all the way outside of the car. yet still half of the idiots, i mean guests, try to stretch their legs as far as they can and push the pedal down, not realizing that they are just making it stopped harder. In the morning, when I'm still in a good mood I'll be nice, but later on I'll tell it like it is "The gas pedal is inside the car, genius". They still don't get it. The first thing you learn at a job like this is that the guests don't actually listen to you. I usually resort to using simple hand motions to indicate stop, go that way, and get smacked. They love it though. Making my job harder is why they paid $40 per person to get in. There are so many of them at the oldies. It draws more people than the Serial Thriller. I can't keep up with them most of the time. The thing about people is that, when they are in a large group, they are only as smart as the dumbest person. To let them onto the ride, we send out five groups at a time to wait behind the gates for the cars to be parked. Once they are parked, you let them in, it's pretty simple. So I'll let the 5 groups out, and I'll say "wait here" to the group of people who didn't make it to the gates yet. I'll watch them as I walk to one of the cars, and they won't move. But the second I start moving the car up, they all run out into the gate platform. They fucking wait for me to stop watching! Then they realize that there's nowhere to go, but the next 20 people have already come behind them, and they are all realizing this too. I come running up yelling for them to go back to the turnstile to wait, and they don't want to get yelled at, so they try and hide. They are so dumb! Because I can see them. I'm not an idiot, but still. In a group like this you have to control certain individuals because once again, no one listens to you, but they will follow certain types of their own kind. Usually, these people you must control are in the front of the line, they usually set the example for all the other noobs to follow, but not always. The danger lies in groups that are split up into multiple cars. They will wait for everyone in their group to get a car, then they will decide that they don't have to wait behind gates and they will be in the car and driving off before you can run over there. You can yell all you want, but they don't care. They think you're complimenting them or something. Like I said, people are idiots. They are idiots. Idiots. When I'm separating the groups, I ask them "how many?" and they look at me like I'm speaking Martian or something, so I say "how many people are riding in your car". They usually can figure out that I'm speaking some sort of dialect of ghetto called "English", but they can't get it, so they usually say something like "Three".

"Okay, can you all go to the third gate by the blue car?"
"Oh, we're all going in our own cars"
"Well, there's a minimum of two people per car"
"Ok, well me and [second person] then"
"Well, who's [third person] going to go with?"
"She can go with [second person]"
"So, three people, right?"
"No, I'm by myself"
And at this point the conversation repeats until I want to kill myself, which doesn;t take long.

The Oldies Spiel, if I wrote it:
"Ok, idiots, Push the fucking gas pedal down to the fucking floor. It's the circle pedal right next to your fucking foot. Don't fucking bitch at me when the car doesn't move because you need to fucking push it harder. It's not a real car, it takes some fucking effort, you wimp. I do it all day, so you can fucking do it for 2 minutes, and don;t come back complaining because every single car is like this and I don't fucking care. It's ok if I bump the oldies because there's no one inside the cars to get hurt. It's not the fucking bumper cars, so if I see you do it, I'm going to cuss you out. No getting out of the car, because the bags of chips you see aren't real. It's just a bag of air. Now hurry up and go.

Case 2: Ice Mountain Splash (Log Ride)
Wear your god damn shirt. No one wants to see that shit. You came to the park on a hot, bright day and now your skin is crusty red and peeling away. You have to wear your shirt on every single ride outside of the water park. It says so out front, in the map, and...and..no one wants to see that shit! Seriously, you'd think you'd see more hot chicks riding the rides, but mostly you see old, fat, disgusting old women with layers upon layers of fat coming out. It's hard enough to look in their general direction, much less help them out of the boat. When there is a hot girl, she's always with some stupid guy (who is never with a shirt, and probably doesn't know what a shirt is). The last option you get is the 14-15 year old girls who are smartmouths and pretend you are their best friend because they can read your nametag. They are all pricks and you just want to shove a rocket launcher down their throats. Once again, all the people in line want to run onto the platform, which is strictly forbidden. They think they are so much closer to getting to ride if they are on the platform. Well, there's still the same number of people in front of you no matter where you are, dumbass. Luckily, in this ride we have a chain to keep people off the platform. It's pretty cool, because I've seen people walk full speed into the chain and almost fall over. God damn, they are so dumb! The best part is that the chain is right at crotch level for all the damn 15 year olds. That's some funny shit. The little kids usually just go right under the chain. I had this one kid that did that and fucking ran full speed towards the water, completely suicidal. I had to fucking catch him in mid air. I should have let him go. People lose all sorts of shit in the water. I think it's funny. Usually it's their hat when they go down the hill. The hats will float on by later and we grab them. If they are nice, we take them :D People lose sunglasses a lot because they are clipped to their shirt's neckhole. They bend over to get in and bloop! There they go. Still, the best is when people lose their shoes. Mostly sandals, they get so mad, and it's understandable, but I can never stop laughing. They bitch and bitch and eventually go away. This one 5 year old didn't want to go on the ride on morning and started screaming and kicking, and when his dad picked him up and carried him to the boat, he kicked so hard his shoe went flying into the water and I couldn't let him ride. That was the smartest kid I've ever seen. People beat their kids in the park all the time. It's pretty scary. I've seen one lady take off her belt and start whipping the poor kid senseless. It was scary as hell, but, granted, the kid was being a dumbass. I wanted to do something, but what could I do?

The Log Ride Spiel, if I wrote it:
You there, put your fucking shirt on. Don't fucking bitch when you get wet because you know its a god damn water ride. I said put your shirt on. Stay seated until we tell you to get up, because you always get up all at once, on one side, and tip the boat over, dumbasses. Sit two people up front, and don't move. We can see you. The ride may freeze cause it's fucking 30 years old, but don't get up cause it'll tip over. Keep your hands inside the boat, and don't fucking say "my butt's wet" when you get out because everyone says that and its fucking ANNOYING!

Case 3: Serial Thriller
This is the only ride I could work all day. Still, we get some pretty big dumbasses here too. My favorite are the ones who take forever to sit down, and when they try, the seat has already been locked down and they cant get in. Not wanting to cause any trouble, they of course hide from me until I get to the back row where they explain the mystery of the locking chair and I have to unlock every single seat on the train and recheck all the bars again. Once you unlock them, even if you announce it over the intercom, everyone freaks out when the bars unlock. They scream...in bloody terror. It's funny at first, but when they all ask you separately what happened you just want to choke them. Listen to the damn intercom! Because their feet are suspended in air on this coaster, they always swing their legs and I get kicked 500 times a day. Sometimes I get kicked hard. The next time I see them at their job, I'm going to walk up and kick them in the shins. Yeah, you like that idiot. You know you're too fucking fat when you can't sit in a roller coaster seat. I've put some fatass people in there, but sometimes it just won't work. I never know what to say to these people. So I say very little. If you can't fit here, you should buy some diet pills, not a Six flags ticket. I've seen some people too fat fo the oldies. That's scary. When I'm driving the coaster, it's bad too. People never listen to what you say, so you can take advantage of that. But it's hard when you are yelling at them to go through the exit or get off the railings. Tinisha resorts to screaming through the microphone, which is funny, but would get her in trouble if she was caught. I do more of a casual demeaning like "If you are carrying a giant pair of red dice, and are leaning against the enterance gates, please look straight down at your toes. If you see that you are leaning on the gate, please take two steps back". Then I usually tell the guest next to me "Don't lean on the gates, pass it down". Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The thriller has broken down so many times with me at the controls, I don't know why. It's bad luck, but I think they won;t let me do it anymore. I'm hardly ever at the Thriller.

The Serial Thriller Spiel, if I wrote it:
Hurry up and get on the damn ride. When the person comes by to check your safety harness, don't fucking kick him. Don't ask him if the ride is safe. Don't ask him to hold your damn cell phone either. If you get stuck, you have to pull back on the restraint, like we told you to, a million times. Don't scream before the ride leaves the station and try not to puke, because its fucking nasty.

About 60% of the money I make at the Park goes to 1)Taxes and 2)Food. Its amazing how much we get ripped off and taken advantage of. I work for 15 hours a day and get payed for 12, if I'm lucky. After expenses, I get payed for about 8. The working world is fun, ain't it?

Can't wait for school to start, I've got so much to do. Leave a comment with a work story like this to cheer me up or something. :D