There were countless faces in the mob: every ethnicity and age, angry and shouting. They were all pointed in my general direction and only held back by propriety. Never would I have thought that my summer job would have so much in common with Kofi Annan’s.
I was working as a Guest and Information Services Coordinator at Canada’s Wonderland. I saw the dark side of your summer fun.
After the initial glow of the new job, I experienced the ugly side of humanity. People have a strong sense of entitlement, especially when they’ve paid the price for admission into a theme park. They want their happy and they want it now!
It is easy to dehumanize your customers after being verbally abused despite your best attempts to pacify their requests. But annoyances like people smoking in front of the “no smoking” signs when you tell them not to, or holding maps in their hands and asking where the maps are, eventually dwindle into insignificance. There are other things to worry about.
I can only hope they put enough chlorine into the water park, considering the tales I’ve heard. Or the many parents that will argue that their children are several inches taller than their actual height. Why? Apparently so their kiddies can go onto the bigger rides where the tots might be bruised or hurled to a grisly death.
I eventually found a new target for my contempt. I realized customer service is designed so that only the biggest complainers reap the greatest benefits. I felt trapped by clumsy policies that impeded my efforts to actually help people resolve their issues. Meanwhile, the majority of theme park staff suffer from their youth and seasonal status; they are poorly trained and poorly managed.
The biggest fiasco occurs when it rains at the park and the angry crowd comes rolling in, deprived of their summer fun. I was fascinated by this study in mob mentality. As the anger builds, previously mild-mannered individuals transform into the Leviathan. I witnessed the emergence of temporary demagogues and the organization of angry chants of “We want to see a manager!”
The managers cower in a back room, and when they do pop out they try to convince the hordes that the park never gives out rain refunds and never will-until they do, of course. I’m no radical, but the sheer incompetence and irresponsibility of the administration almost forced me to become an anarchist. Especially when they messed around with my paycheque.
Fortunately, later that summer I found another job at a downtown charity. In the end, I did gain skills that I was able to parley into better things-this year, I was a summer student with the Ministry of the Attorney General. The nightmare faded away into a nice addition to my résumé. But sometimes, I can still hear the mob…
