That time I worked at an amusement park…
It’s true, I worked at an amusement park. It was only for a day but that still counts, right? And NO I didn’t get fired. I’ll tell you what happened, but first, a little back story.
I’ve always been obsessed with amusement parks, and I remember thinking it would be fun to work at one. Membership has its privileges, and being an employee would mean free admission! Yeah, I was pretty naïve, but don’t we always think the grass is greener on the other side?
Fast forward to my one, actually TWO days of “amusement park” experience that I can proudly add to my resume.
I was in the Air Force, circa 1996-ish, stationed at McGuire Air Force Base, which is near Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey. There were times when our squadron (like a department within a company) didn’t have money to get what we needed. Enter the Six Flags’ Fundraising Program! “Volunteer for a few hours and raise money for your non-profit organization (we put the FUN in fundraising)!” With marketing like that, what could possibly go wrong?
I signed up at the very first opportunity to volunteer. When I asked what we’d be doing, I was told “you don’t find out until you get there.” And then, someone told me about the very best part of this experience. In exchange for volunteering, you get a free ticket to return to the park at your leisure. Sign. Me. Up.
I showed up at the park early, excited for whatever the experience had in store! We were greeted by a manager, who announced we’d be working food service, then we were chaperoned to an open air pavilion where we waited for a supervisor, who would give us further instruction. There were a few people who huddled together and started mumbling among themselves, so I started asking questions. “All I know,” I was told, “is what I’ve heard, and I’ve heard working food service is not fun.” Greeeaatttt. What in the heck had I gotten myself into?
As I recall, we waited quite a while for this mysterious ‘supervisor’ to appear. And may I remind you, we’re talking about a group of military folks. Our motto is if you show up on time, you’re late. Waiting for that person to show up felt like a lifetime, when in reality it was probably only fifteen or twenty minutes. And when our supervisor finally showed, it was a teenager who looked barely old enough to drive, let alone give us clear guidance about our task for the day.
He introduced himself then immediately split us up into teams. Then, he gave each team a task, with no instructions on how to carry out those tasks. Again, you’re talking about military people. We’re walking into this thinking we would receive clear and specific instructions, maybe even a checklist to follow. However, what we got was a high level, vague overview of what the final product should look like. And then, the kid disappeared. But don’t underestimate the military, if you don’t tell us how you want it to happen, we will find a way to make it happen. It wasn’t pretty, and hilarity ensued, but we made it happen. Our mission: set up for a catering event before noon for a large, private party.
My group of about five or six was put on nacho duty, meaning we were expected to set up the area where nachos and cheese would be served. The biggest part of this task included setting up the hot nacho cheese machines. Now would be a good time to explain that I’ve been working since I was fourteen and not nare one of my jobs ever involved preparing or serving food. And no one else in the group had any experience either. In fact, I think one girl had never even had a job before joining the Air Force. My rag-tag team of experience-less wonders was looking to me to lead the way, only because I was the most elder person in my group. Which isn’t saying much, I was barely in my mid twenties.
We walked over to the tables, covered in white linen table cloths, and I surveyed the area. The first thing that caught my eye were “cheese bladders” sitting in cardboard boxes. I got excited because they looked familiar to me. When I was in basic training, I had kitchen duty, and my only job (besides some general clean up) was to install the milk bladders in the milk dispensing machines, and I had gotten pretty good at doing that. Surely cheese bladders couldn’t be much different.
So while a few folks removed the cheese bladders from the boxes, I inspected the dispenser machines. And they weren’t clean.
DISCLAIMER: If you enjoy eating food at amusement parks, I’m going to warn you that you might want to stop reading right here. This story may make you think twice about what you’re shoveling into your pie hole while you’re enjoying these kinds of places.
While the outsides looked ok, the insides were caked with old cheese. Now, I have a little OCD when it comes to cleanliness and food handling (you’re safe eating anything I bring to a pot luck), so this wasn’t acceptable. I couldn’t in good conscience set the machines up without a good cleaning.
I looked for our Six Flags leader and he was still MIA. I checked the immediate area for supplies and found none, then someone pointed out a storage shed nearby. I opened the door and found cans and bags of non-perishable food, along with mouse (or rat) droppings, and a few items that had been gnawed on by said furry creatures. I also found cleaning wipes, so we cleaned the machines as best we could.
Once the machines were clean(er), it was time to install the bladders. With the milk machines, it was easy, as long as the bladder was inserted correctly. Once it was properly seated in the container, with the collar in the dispenser opening just right, you closed the machine, gave the dispenser a try, and voila, milk would dispense. Using that same logic, I installed the first cheese bladder. The key difference is, with the milk machine, you instantly know if the bladder is correctly installed. With the cheese bladders, you have to wait for the machine to heat up. So, we plugged in the machines and waited. I liken the events that followed to the Lucille Ball chocolate factory episode. You can YouTube it, but this gif should give you a good idea of how I felt:
As the machines started to heat up, cheese started oozing out, from places it shouldn’t ooze, without pressing the dispenser button. My first instinct was to catch the cheese with my hands (to keep it from staining the table cloths). Luckily, the cheese hadn’t reached scalding hot temperatures yet. So now, not only do we have orange stains all over the white linen table cloths, we also have messy machines again, and we have a time crunch to get set up before this large private party appeared. And, we still have a missing supervisor.
Finally, someone found another park employee, who found our supervisor, who helped us get the station set up correctly. We’d made such a mess that he had to grab new dispensers, which we also had to wipe clean before installing the now partially empty cheese bladders. I would just like to take the time to point out the supervisor had a hard time setting up the machines as well (which is probably why they were all nasty inside to begin with). I’m sure there was some super simple trick to it all that we just simply weren’t aware of. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. We repositioned the machines and bowls of chips to cover the cheese stains, which gave the table an odd appearance, but it was functional so we didn’t care.
After all was said and done, and all the stations were set up, along with tables and chairs to sit and eat at, we were dismissed and a catering crew came in to oversee the event…. Let me tell you, we earned those free tickets that day. And now, every time I see a nacho cheese dispenser my right eye twitches a little and my palm itches…
If you can believe it, after all that, I actually volunteered a second time. Click here to continue reading about that experience.
Proud former (temporary) Six Flags employee,
Angela