Lagoon #1: The Teenage Employee

Oh, I think that I will start with an employee encounter from our lovely visit to Lagoon. I'm pretty sure that they require an IQ test before hiring anyone; the criteria must be: no one is allowed to score higher on the IQ test than their age.

With this first story I feel a little bad for the employees because of the training given to them by their employer or the lack thereof. It still left me wanting to bang my head against the wall. First, we stood in line for what seemed like half the morning to buy our tickets to get into the park. We actually had to get two types of tickets. We paid a gazillion fifty for those wanting tickets that allowed them to ride on rides, and then we paid nothing (whahoo!!) for those who couldn't afford a gazillion, and therefore, were relegated to only being able to smell the aroma of popcorn/hormones/puke combo-atmosphere, while siting and watching everyone else turn green with motion sickness. Jenny got to get one of those babies. Next we had to move to the next line, which was the line to get your card scanned, hand stamped, and entrance into the park. I think this line is mainly to slow your excitement down for the day. I think that they found that that early adrenalin rush that you have in anticipation of having a fun day must be squelched or you will forget that you still have credit cards in your pocket. You need these to stock up on funnel cakes and corn dogs to survive all the other wait-in-lines that you will be spending 98% of your day doing. They just hate it when some unsuspecting novice is able to slip through the entrance line too fast and rushes off to ride Wicked and perishes in the hot sun before they can even get to height requirement sign.

When we got to the front of this line we all got through, except for Jenny who was bringing up the rear with the stroller loaded with all the gear needed for a week's stay. When Jenny had finished handing out all of the 'real' passes, we realized that we had misplaced the 'free' entrance pass for her. Well, you would think that this was the first time that this poor little sixteen year old employee had ever encountered this situation. She was paralyzed and didn't know what to do, other than hold up the line of which it seemed like she had plenty of experience doing. She finally said, "let me get my supervisor". Eventually, the 'supervisor' came over to help resolve the situation. From my estimation, the reason why this girl was the 'supervisor' was solely based on her being, maybe, six months older than the girl at the gate.

Jenny quickly explained the situation. The 'supervisor' seemed quite skeptical of the situation and I think was on the verge of calling security on us. Jenny flashed her all of the extra 'free' coupons that we had from the stack of extra Stake pamphlets that we had with the attached 'free' coupons (why you would need a 'free' coupon for something that was all ready free kind of escapes me, but I'm getting away from the story). The 'supervisor' didn't buy any of this and said that we needed to stand in the ticket line to get us a 'free' entrance pass. This is where I jumped in and said that we had already stood in that line and purchased our tickets, along with getting our 'free' entrance ticket, but had misplaced it. I know this sounded like stating the obvious because we had all of the tickets that cost us a gazillion fifty, but were lacking the most important one that didn't cost us a dime. Apparently, though, these people were not hired to observe the obvious, but to exert authority which all good, reasonable adults do; and these kids so much want to seem like adults.

Well, I could see where this was going, so I continued to look frantically for the missing ticket while the 'supervisor' continued to lecture Jenny on why it was so important for her to stand in the line to get her 'free' ticket like everyone else had to. Even all of the 'white trash' hoochie women with halter tops where beginning to look at us like we were the scum of the earth trying to get a free ride (all the pun intended) in life. I eventually found the ticket mixed in with all the other worthless trash they spew back at you when you buy the tickets. So at last, the 'free' ticket was found and Jenny got her hand stamped. Interestingly enough, they stamped her hand with the same stamp that they stamped all the paying customers with (go figure).

As we walked dejectedly away, the 'supervisor' continued to glare at us as if to say, "you might have gotten away with this one, this time, but don't expect to get away with free stuff for free next time. How do you expect us to survive financially if we continue to give free stuff away for free?"

Amazingly enough, I was thinking the same thing...at least the part about surviving.

This may be a dumb story, but I have a few more that are dumber.