I worked at a movie theatre, not some dork store one either. Worked box, door, projection, whichever. You have to start in concessions and if you gots what it takes you get to move up/out although the pay was always the same ($5.50 I think?). The owner was super cool, would only hire from the "cool kids." There wasn't an unattractive girl there. Every once in a while he'd pull you aside and give you $50 or something, for no reason. When you were running projectors you never stayed up there. Just go up, get your movie running, and then come out and hang out. We wouldn't know movies were over until people started walking out. I can only think of one or two times where something broke or something and we had to do something. Pretty reliable projects I guess based on how hot they get and how often they run. I never achieved elite projectionist status by getting to be the one that spliced new films together. Had sex in the projection room a couple times, also on the roof. Also one time I was sick and passed out in there and my boss sent me home. Almost got in a wreck driving home, too. If you were working box you were responsible for running the numbers for how many tickets sold and money and all that (we were all cash). After you had your numbers at the end of the night you had to call some number and give them your reports for how many tickets you sold. This is how they generate the reports you hear about on TV. I think it eventually moved to fax machine? The amount of money that went to the studios decreased each week (90% first week, 80% second week, and so on until it stayed at 40% or something). Sometimes the boss would have us sell tickets on movie A even though the people bought tickets for movie B, because then we could keep more money. He would get super paranoid about the studios sending in "checkers" who count how many people are actually in the theatre. On those nights he'd have us sell extra on the movie being checked. I just looked up the obit for the manager. What a shitty obit for such a great guy.
