PLK: Bullying little kids is fun!
Archive - Andrew's JunkAuthor: Andrew Traweek
In the last article, I went over the bases. Set up the location, and all the back-story of how a park actually came around to hiring a walking lawsuit like me. This one is going into the worst ’security’ incident I ever had at “Happy Ancient Egypt Land.”
When you become a Lead at this park, you essentially take on every position imaginable, yet still get paid minimum wage. As you can imagine, there’s not much incentive to actually do your job, other than the ability to boss people around, kick people you don’t like out of the park, and take really long, frequent breaks.
Now, scheduling around this park was non-existent. For some reason, there was a four-hour overlap in Lead shifts. This, of course, fell into play since I was really good friends with the other Lead, who, if he was a ride operator, I would have fired him on the spot. But since he was a Lead, his actions combined with mine made for some rather insane situations.
Our day started the same way that it ended. Well. actually, it started that way, went that way the whole day, then ended that way. I guess it was some strange talent, but we were able to run the entire park all day from a bench, in the shade, next to the C.P. Huntington Train. Why work hard in 110-degree heat when you don’t have to? That’s what the peons are for!
Anyway, there were very few times we ever had to get off our butts to at least pretend we were working:
- The eventual Supervisor sighting. We had an intricate network of sentries set up to warn us when they were coming around.
- Fights. These were the most enjoyable reason to get up. A certain amount of restrain able force is allowed when you have an all-out brawl going on.
- Ride Breakdowns. The second most unpleasant reason to get up. This means two things. 1. You’re gonna get yelled at because the ride broke down. 2. You’re gonna get yelled at because Maintenance won’t fix it because they’re not done with their bottle of whiskey.
- Accidents. The worst reason to get up off your butt and fain concern. Truth is, accidents were commonplace. If your head wasn’t severed, and you somehow retained feeling in your index finger, then you were okay.
My first fight call was an interesting one. There had been this ongoing drama between two girls who were regulars at the park. I knew both of them. I also knew that one day, things would flare up into an altercation. It was a true-life soap opera!
Well, one of these girls was a whiner. The type that picks a fight, then runs and tells on you. Every fifteen minutes, she’d walk up, say something like, “She threatened to cut my head off and eat my brains! I want her kicked out RIGHT NOW!”
I just blew her off and told her I wasn’t allowed to do anything until I had actually witnessed these actions. (This is true.) At this point, I knew things were going to go down soon, so I began [GULP!] WORKING! I walked around the park, keeping an eye on people; kicking kids off the Ferris wheel that decided to whip out ‘Little Johnny’ and either play with their 12-year old girlfriends, or urinate on the ride operator below.
Anyway, things did get bad just as soon as I was 10-6 (unavailable) in the Security office waiting for Ricky Rent-a-Cop to stop hitting on the 13-year olds in the water park, and do his job. One of my operators came into the office bleeding from the mouth, telling me that there was a catfight out on the northern end of the Midway.
I ran out there, only to see these two chicks ripping each other’s clothes off in a fit of rage. (They weren’t hot, so calm down.) I immediately jumped into the middle of the fight and shouted a blur of some really big words mixed in with my patented Kung Fu sounds. I would have called it out on the radio, but the park was retarded and never recharged the batteries right.
Well, the kicks, punches, nails and hair ripping turned on me, until two HUGE brothas’ (God bless you guys!) basically went into a three-point-stance and tackled the girls.
After the dust subsided, I was left with two good Samaritans, two royally funked-up girls, and a whole gaggle of people collecting the bets they had been taking. FINALLY, our lonely security guard comes out and takes charge of the situation like the big-bad-man he is. Ugh, at this point, I would have rather had our Rambo security lady. she was strapped, camouflaged, and came with an arsenal of butt-kicking Judo moves. One swift crack from her MAG-Light would have busted that fight up PDQ.
The last I heard, neither girl was reprimanded. They didn’t get their season passes revoked, didn’t have charges pressed against them. nothing. I was LIVID.
Luckily, I never had to deal with anything that harsh again. My biggest worry was what ride was going to kill next, how to ignore thirteen-year old girls that had mad crushes on me without completely killing their self-esteem for the next 20 years, and how not to get caught making out with the super-hot Laser Tag chick upstairs.
But that’s a whole other article!
- The Monkey