I consider myself to be a pretty reasonable guy. It's one of the things, I think, that has served me well in working at the theatre, in a position where tensions sometimes run high. In situations where some people might let their own aggravation further heighten said tension, my calm demeanor tends to bring boils to simmers. There are exceptions. To paraphrase Cool Hand Luke, some people you just can't reach. I've been threatened with physical violence before. That sad fucker was playing a game of chicken with me, and I won. This weekend, however, was the coup de grace. I was accused of racism.
I still won, though. This is what unreasonable people never realize, is the more unreasonable you are, the less likely you are to get what you want. You may think that getting your money back means something other than it does. Me giving you your money back is me getting you out of my theatre, which is exactly what I want.
It was the Sunday matinee. The show had just started, but we were about to have an unusually large influx of very late people. We don't start shows at the published time; we start 8 minutes after the published time to allow for people who are running a few minutes late. So if you get there and we've already started, you're pretty significantly behind schedule. That said, we do what we can to get you in as soon as possible, at a point in time and a location in the theatre that will be the least disruptive to the audience and the actors. You don't get to go to the seat you purchased, and you don't get to go in whenever you want. You go where we say, when we say, and that's part of the contract you agree to whenever you purchase a ticket: "Late seating is done at the discretion of management." Consider yourself lucky; there are plenty of theatres that won't even let you in if you're late. The "discretion of the management" is to tell you to turn around and head home. Remember that scene in Spider-Man 2 where Peter Parker shows up late to see Mary Jane's play and the usher won't let him in? That's the reality in plenty of places, and you don't get your money back, and a lot of places won't even try to find you an alternate performance. We're quite accommodating, really.
This past Sunday, we had a total of 15 people show up late. This is not only a huge number (the theatre only holds about 200), it's far more than we really have a contingency to handle. But I got a full dozen of them into the theatre, most into seats, and I would have gotten all 15 in. I would have, had three of them not been unreasonable fuckups.
Immediately after the lights went down, I turned to leave the house. As I was walking out, the door opened, and I was met with six people who had walked through two closed doors directly into the theater. My first thought was that the other House Manager had sent them in for me to late seat but had failed to notify me on my headset. "Did someone send you in here?" I whispered. No one had. I motioned for everyone to head back out the door. I needed to find out if they were all together, and where they were supposed to be sitting, plus I needed to set up late seats for some of them.
Now, a group of people all walking in at once, late and simultaneously, suggests that they all arrived together. So my first question was, "Are you all together?" They weren't. There was a group of three, a pair, and a single. I only had three late seats immediately available, one pair, one single. They weren't together. In order to get a group of three, I was going to need to set up chairs for the trio. I grabbed the pair and the single, took them in, and told the trio I'd be back for them in a minute. I sat down these first three, went to the other side to set up chairs, and came back out to get the trio.
Here's the kicker: if they'd kept their mouths shut, they'd have been in seats and watching the show within 30 seconds after that point. Instead, the moment I came back out, one woman, the youngest of the three, began dressing me down for taking the other people in despite the fact that they'd been the first ones through the door. I tried to explain that I was trying to get seats together for them, that I had three seats to start with, but they weren't together, and that I was simply doing my best to get them the best seating situation possible. I never got very far with any of these statements, because every time I did, she began talking over me. At this point I heard over the headset that we had more latecomers arriving. I again tried to calm them and told them I could take them to seats right now, but she insisted on continuing to yell at me.
I walked away. If she didn't want seats, there were other people now arriving who'd be happy to take them. I told her I'd find her a manager, which I did, and left them to talk to him while I took the others in. Others who, upon walking past this crazy screaming woman, looked at me and said, "I don't want any trouble, I know I'm late, I just want to get in." Ah, blissful reasonableness. They got what they wanted, and they got it quickly. Funny how that works.
I took care of the last of the latecomers, and finally emerged to find the crazy lady still yelling at Andrew. Complaining about my "attitude", about how she'd never been treated in such an appalling manner in a theatre before, and she goes to LOTS of theatres, and she's going to be telling ALL her friends about the poor treatment she received. I've been working customer service for nearly two decades. You think I haven't heard this rant before? This is the last ditch attempt at manipulation that every unhappy customer falls back on. It doesn't work, because we're only too happy to have you never come back, and if your friends are assholes like you, they're welcome to stay away as well. So go right ahead.
I again tried to explain to them exactly what happened. She continued talking over me. It's difficult to have a conversation when only one side is permitted floor time. I don't get into shouting matches though. If someone wants to talk over me, I simply stop talking. They run out of steam pretty quickly without a second side shouting back to fuel their fire. This is what happened to her, and after a last ditch effort at accusing me of lying (she claimed that I only made them retreat back out to the lobby, and not the entire group of six), she slumped angrily on a seat in the lobby.
At this point, the older woman of the group stepped up. She, up to this point, hadn't said a lot, and while it seemed that she was missing my points, she was also not yelling, so I took her to be the more reasonable force. If I could talk to her without the younger woman shouting me down, perhaps I could make her understand. So I began explaining that I was trying to find the best seating arrangement possible to accommodate the simultaneous arrival of six latecomers.
"There were only three of us, and we were there first," she replied.
Yes, but I had all six of you to deal with, and I already had a pair and a single for the others. I could have sat you first, but then you wouldn't have been together.
"Just because we all look the same to you doesn’t mean that you can treat us all as one group."
Really. She actually took us there. She took my very first question, "Are you all here together," which is what I would (and have) asked any group of six people all walking in together, late, and made the leap to "You see six African Americans walking in and assume they must be together."
I told her, quite calmly, but firmly, that there was definitely, definitely no need to go there. Then I reiterated the fact that I was not treating them as a group, I was trying to find the fastest and best late seating options for everyone. Apparently the younger one had found more fuel for her fire though, and she stood up and began telling me how it wasn't my place to dictate what her friend could or couldn't say. At this point, Andrew and I were both sick of dealing with them. It was obvious they were not going to relent on their insistence that they'd been treated worse than any human being in the history of theater, and they certainly didn't want to see the show anymore, so we told them we'd get them a refund and get them on their way. Which I did, despite a little pushback from the box office, who managed to piss them off more while giving their usual, "We normally don't do this..." spiel.
The racist bullshit pissed me off, but the thing is, we'd have never gotten to that ugly point if they'd just come with me when I came out to bring them to their seats. If you're late to the theatre, shut the fuck up and do as you're told, and provided they actually do late seating, you'll get to a seat as quickly and efficiently as possible. Act apologetic about your lateness, and we'll probably be even nicer to you. Take out your frustrations over being late on us, as if it's our fault? You can fuck off back home, thank you very much.
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