How I Got My Job

Paul and I were friends since grade school. His parents were part owners of a chain of theaters that included the Neptune, so we'd bus down to the Neptune from our homes in Edmonds, hang out in the U-District, and watch the shows. I thought that was pretty cool.

One weekend Paul asked if I could count the number of people coming through the door. "Don't be too obvious about it" he told me.

I didn't think too much about it, saying "sure, I can do that." I sat up the ramp towards the balcony with my back to the wall and kept a tally as the doors opened and the customers trickled in. There weren't all that many, less than 50, but I don't remember the total after all this time.

I hadn't considered why I was asked to count, I just figured they were nice enough to let me see movies for free so I was happy to help out.

Once the show started I gave the tally to Paul, who handed it over to one of the owners. Shortly after that the assistant manager (who took tickets at the door) and the cashier (who sat in the box office selling tickets) were called into the office.

After a while they came out looking upset and left. It turns out the owners had been suspicious that the employees were stealing box office revenue, but every time they came and kept count the numbers matched. Yet if they weren't there the box office always dropped by 20 or so people, so they figured the employees were smart enough to stop stealing if the owners were there.

They didn't see me as a threat since Paul and I were there fairly often, so they went ahead and stole and got caught and were fired. The scam was pretty obvious. As the assistant manager stood at the door and took tickets she was supposed to tear them in half, giving half back to the customer. Many customers don't pay attention to this or don't want the stub, so she'd palm the un-torn ticket, wait for a pause in the flow of customers, and take the tickets out to be re-sold by the cashier.

Now the ticket numbers and the counter in the ticket machine would show fewer sales than they had actually made, and they would pocket the difference, splitting it between them, when they counted up the receipts.

I felt a little guilty about getting someone fired - I had been completely blank about why they asked me to count people. The owner then turned around and offered me a job on the spot, which made me feel a bit more guilty - but not so guilty that I didn't take the job.

Working at the theater seemed like a cool job - the work wasn't hard or boring the way the paper-boy job I had the prior summer or the lawn mowing I did on occasion were, and the perks were very nice. I could usually get into other theaters, as long as they weren't selling out, by having the manager call the manager of the other theater and ask them.

I saw quite a few movies as a teen, and I didn't pay for very many at all. Occasionally a movie I wanted to see like Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains the Same" would be "no passes" and I'd have to pay, but that was OK.

So I got my job by unknowingly getting someone else fired, probably a pretty apt metaphor for life in corporate America now that I think about it.