Everybody Has a David Brent Moment Now and Then

So I was at work the other day (of course, where else would I be?) and we were getting slammed. It was Tight-Arse Tuesday, and the managers had had the foresight to have me be the only person rostered on to floor when it's school holidays and tickets are only $9. Brilliant, huh?

Thankfully we had a multi-skill person on (someone who goes between areas to help out where needed) so I wasn't totally screwed. I managed podium while the multi-skiller and a manager cleaned the cinemas.


It was in the middle of one particularly hectic session - where we were waiting on two of the bigger cinemas to be cleaned and I was having to manage the giant crowd that was forming - that a woman came up to me. She was saying that people were sitting in her seats, and she demanded someone come and get them to move (for family members in Queensland; all cinemas in Melbourne have allocated seating).


Being that I had to stay on podium, I quickly grabbed the General Manager (who was in the middle of cleaning a cinema and informed him of the situation). He said he'd take care of it. He did that by deferring it to the Location Manager, who was also in the middle of cleaning a cinema. The Location Manager comes up to me and I tell him the situation. He takes care of it by deferring it to me.


So I head down to the cinema and go about getting people to move in the middle of the film. It ended up being that five kids were in the wrong spot. Don't ask me why they couldn't all have worked this out for themselves.


As I'm running back to podium, quite stressed by this stage, someone ducks out of the cinema I was just in. I notice it's one of the guys I work with, who I don't know that well but with whom I have a pretty good back-and-forth. He asks me what the problem was.


"Oh, nothing. Some woman was just being fucking pedantic."


Even as I said it, I knew what was coming.


"Yeah, uh ... that's my Aunty."

He didn't seem to have taken much - if any - offense, but still ... GAH!!

I've got half-an-hour until I need to start getting ready for work. To counter their rostering brilliance from yesterday, the managers have decided to have me close floor tonight (which is supposed to take until midnight, but if it's a repeat of last week will go over-time) before having me turn around and open ticket box tomorrow morning at 9.15. Factoring in travel time, that'll leave me with about SIX-AND-A-HALF HOURS between shifts. How considerate.