In an odd twist, we found this SPOTD at the same cinemas that we found the last stupid woman I wrote about. With one difference - he was a staff member selling tickets, not a general public member buying tickets.

This fool, who we shall call “Dale” (for that was his name) was the only person on duty selling tickets at 10:40pm last night when we lined up to see a movie at 11:00pm, and at the time we joined the line, there were 15 people in front of us. After a few minutes, the person buying tickets at the counter was the same person that had been buying them when we arrived, and we commented to one another that it was foolish of the cinema to put only one person on duty at any time during a Saturday night because there is always a high demand for tickets to even the later shows on Friday and Saturday nights.

After 10 minutes, we began to edge closer to the head of the queue and were able to see what was taking so long. Dale was operating a machine that had broken down, and rather than move the queue across to a machine that was working, he was trying to do the math in his head and sell people the tickets that way, rather than just punching keys on the computer which could do it a lot faster than him. Now, of course, there are people out there that can add just as fast as a computer, especially when it is something simple like “2 adult tickets please“. Realistically, $12 + $12 is not that tricky as a mathematical feat, but Dale seemed to be as sharp as a bowling ball in that respect. The problem was made even worse when he was given two $20 notes to pay for the $24 tickets, and had to work out the change. He could not do this in his head, and was resorting to scribbling on a Post-It notepad in order to work out the exact change required. And was still getting it wrong…

We got to the third position in the queue and watched in disbelief as Dale tried to work out how to give change for $23 from a $50 note (the customer had a $1-off offer). First he gave back $20 and thought that was correct. The person buying the tickets pointed out that he was entitled to more change than that, and he should have received $27. Dale then said “okay, so let’s see now, I’ve given you $20 and you need $27 so, I’ll just work out the difference” and began to do his math on the notepad again. As a quick test for yourself, do this sum:

$20 + ??? = $27

After the customer had repeatedly pointed out that he was entitled to another $7, Dale finally got the numbers to work for him, and handed over the $7 due, and that customer went on their way shaking their head.

The next people to buy tickets were a group of three guys that were off to see a movie together. Once more, Dale got stumped with the math as he desperately tried to work out $12 x 3. After about forty seconds, he came up with $36 (hurrah). However, the guys wanted to pay separately, which was fair enough, and Dale then did the math backward to work out $36 divided by 3… After another minute, he came back to $12 each, and each guy then paid for the tickets with a $20 note. The first guy paid with a $20 note and, after twenty seconds mental deliberation, got $8 in change. The second guy paid with a $20 note and, after ten seconds mental deliberation, got $8 in change. The third guy offered a $20 note and had to wait while Dale got the notepad out and did the sums to see what the change should be…

At the end of this math, he handed the guy $8 change, and then asked for us to step forward. The first two guys did not have tickets, and assumed that the third guy was going to receive them, but when they did not, they had to come back to Dale and ask for them. Dale told them that the machines were down, and he could not issue tickets, but he ripped a corner off the notepad and began to write out “The General’s Daughter x3” on the scrap of pink paper, which he told them to take to the person ripping tickets at the theatre door and tell them the main desk was out of tickets and they would let them through. We wondered if it would work, but our transaction took so long, we never did find out how they fared at the theatre door.

By this time, we had begun chatting with the fellow behind us in line because there was ample time for conversation, and we noted that the line had swelled out to approximately 70 people, all trying to get to an 11:00pm session of a movie (there were six to choose from), with only Dale at the counter, no other staff coming to sell tickets, and it was 10:58pm.

Unfortunately, we decided to go to this cinema because we had a “buy one get one free” offer, and with Dale at the helm, and the only note I had in my wallet was a $50 note, we knew this was going to be trouble. Trying to avoid further delays, I decided to pay cash instead of use a credit card, and asked for the tickets as follows :

“Two student tickets to the 11:00pm session of “The Sixth Sense” please. We have this “buy one get one free” voucher too, so it will be $10 total, with $40 change.”

After a little blank look, Dale then ignored our figures, and did the math on the notepad, just in case we were wrong about the $50 - $10 = $40 calculations. Di and I looked at each other in amazement as he then got out the change :

* one $20 note
* one $10 note
* one $5 note
* one $2 coin
* one $1 coin

We had to explain that a student ticket was $10, not $12 and so we were entitled to $40 change, and not $38, and so we needed another $2 coin. Slowly, he handed over the coin, and glad to be free of Dale, we fled the line and headed for the theatre. It was only after we’d walked 30 feet away that we realised - we had no tickets.

I had to go back to the line and ask the people in the front of the queue if I could just grab my tickets from the counter, which they were okay with. However, Dale told me that it would be okay without tickets and just to go to the theatre ticket-ripping person and tell them we’d paid and we did not have tickets and they would let us in without problems. I was extremely dubious of this, but thought it was probably easier to try and convince another staff member that we had paid and had no proof than it would be to deal with Dale any longer.

Naturally, when we made it to the ticket-ripper, they did not believe our story and told us to go back and speak to the manager and tell her that we had bought tickets from Dale and she would give us tickets from a different machine that worked and we could gain entry. As we tried to re-explain the story about Dale, the lack of tickets, and the previous people that had been given a piece of scrap paper as tickets, we were assisted by the person who had been standing behind us in line. While we had been dealing with Dale, the manager had come and opened up another line, figuring that since it was 11:02pm, and there were now over 100 people in the line, it was time to come and sell some tickets because Dale was obviously not going fast enough. The bloke behind us had managed to get to the front of that line as it opened, and so he had been able to buy his tickets quickly and without fuss from the working computer with the working ticket printer.

Thus, he was able to vouch for our story that we were just ahead of him in the line and had bought tickets and Dale was the person we’d been dealing with. This was enough for the ticket-ripper, who probably decided it was just as easy to let us in to the movie rather than deal with it, and so we managed to get into the cinema at long last to see our movie.

So, if you ever wonder what organisation might use those performance reviews you see every so often in your email box (eg : “this man is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot“), that organisation (ironically) might be Hoyts, and the employee is probably Dale…

Categories: SPOTD