Hey friends! Long time no see. I had intended to post this on Monday… but I’m awful with time management (🤷🏻♀️ what can you do?).
For those who may not know, I work at an indoor amusement park. Last week was Spring Break for my kid’s school, along with a lot of other area schools. (And by area, I mean the state.) As the only indoor amusement park in the state, we naturally get flooded over school breaks. This past week was no different.
Our park has been open for only about two years, and I’ve worked there for most of that time. This gives me a certain amount of freedom with the bosses. Like choosing the ride that I run for the day. We have a section of the park we call “The Square,” which is a collection of rides in the same general area. It used to be only four of them… but thanks to a lack of staffing, we tend to just lump most of that side of the park into The Square.
I’ve done my time being the single operator for six rides, and these days I stick to the roller coaster. I love my little roller coaster! Everyone at work calls her my baby.
Now remember, this is an indoor park, so she’s (the roller coaster) not that big. Her track is a figure 8, and her train has four double-sided cars that each spin. When I say “double-sided,” I mean that there are two seats on one side and two on the other. So, on a good day when she’s in full operational order, I can seat 16!
Well, over spring break, I was not so lucky to have her in full operational order. My last car was completely out of order, as were the first two seats on the first car… dropping me down to 10 available seats.
I spent the week trying to explain, with rapidly thinning patience, that those seats were out of order. It didn’t seem to matter that they’d just ridden not ten minutes ago… I had to tell them every time. By the time Friday rolled around, my attitude was in full swing. They asked stupid questions, I gave them snarky answers. Then when they got on, I smiled and joked with them, and they forgot all about bitchy me!
It was a delicate balance to maintain, and I was so glad to have the weekend to reset. But, it’s time to start all over because we are still running on Spring Break hours this week. Hopefully, it’s not too bad.