Oh boy, have I got a story to tell. So I work for the university that I go to, and a big part of my job is working the front of house on various events. Tonight, my university ran a showing of the musical Heathers, and it SOLD OUT. I've never seen the theatre that packed with people, it was entirely sold out. So, with the knowledge of the status of the show being sold out, I foolishly believed I had prepared myself to deal with guests showing up without tickets, expecting to be able to buy them on the spot. Sure enough, at least 20 people showed up throughtout the evening trying to get their way in, only to be turned away. But I couldn't have prepared for the pure entitlement of a couple that decided that they HAD to see this show.
Let me set the sage for you. Its a little after 8 PM. The show has been on for a some time now, about halfway through the first act, when suddenly a man appears. He's about 6'5, a pretty tall dude, with the kind of lanky build that brought images of Slenderman to the forefront of my mind. I was a little intimidated, I'm not gonna lie. So he does as every guest had and shows me his ticket to scan, and I scan it, but the signature red X screamed at me, along with the text "INVALID: Ticket not for show". I figured that he had mistakenly ordered the wrong tickets, so I asked him if he had accidentally ordered a ticket for a weekend showing of the play, and sure enough, he had. Any normal person would understand that they had bought the wrong ticket, and that since the show was sold out, they should just leave and comeback tomorrow, the day they had a ticket for. But our plucky young Slenderman was not dissuaded in the slightest, as he spent a solid 20 minutes trying to explain to us how he could just sneak in and watch, and it would be fine. Eventually, he left, and came back with friends, a new ticket in hand. But before we address the perplexing nature of him finding ANOTHER TICKET TO A SOLD OUT SHOW, his friends needed their tickets scanned. First was another large man, also over 6 foot, but this guy was BUFF. He had the build of a linebacker. For context, I'm not a short girl, I'm about 5'9, but this guy just towered over me. To say I was scared by him would be an understatement. His ticket goes through fine, all is well. One small problem, he has a girl wearing a bright red hoodie crop top with him, who instead of presenting me a ticket, tells me she had a ticket, but that she "lost it". Interesting. For context, these tickets are not physical tickets, they're digital. Just a QR code that my university emails you after you order tickets. So she lost a digital ticket she had to have been emailed if she had indeed purchased a ticket. I politely explain that she can find a link to her ticket in her email, and mention the keywords she could use to search through her email to find the ticket. She feigns looking through her phone, before asking if she could "just go in anyway" as she swears she bought tickets. Ah, no worries! You see, we front of house are prepared for such an event! In the event that some boomer guest didn't know how to use their phone in order to track down their tickets, we keep a massive list of all tickets purchased for every event happening at the university, a master list. So, my coworker pulled up the Heathers event for 4/14, and looked up the guest, and nothing. She kept insisting, so to humor her, we combed through every single person's name who ordered a ticket, and there was not a single name even close to hers. She didn't have a ticket, if she had, her name would have been on the list. This was not a satisfying answer for her, so she proceeded to make a big stink about it for another 20 minutes. Eventually the linebacker walks into the theatre, and then comes back out and says there are a few open seats, and that they could just go sit at those. There's a problem with that logic, however, as the SHOW IS SOLD OUT! This means that someone else had already paid for those seats, and they may still show up for the show, and as such we couldn't just give the seats away, because then a paying guest would be left without anywhere to sit, while this random who didn't pay shit gets their seat. So I politely explain this, and yet again, she is just not having it. So she starts face timing her friend, bad mouthing us to our face. I keep cool, I keep polite, but inside I'm freaking. I'm both scared, because of the massive linebacker looking dude who could easily fold me in half between his fingers, and his bitchy girlfriend who wouldn't leave well enough alone. But I'm good at customer service, I pride myself with being kind and respectful to every guest, regardless of how they treat me (and oh boy do I get mistreated in this job by guests). Eventually she leaves, and her boyfriend goes into the show. After she left, Slenderman presents his ticket, which once again presents an error, but this time that it had already been scanned. So he leaves, 10 minutes go by, and then he comes back with YET ANOTHER TICKET. This time it goes through, by some grace from God I suppose.
Of course, I'm sure you think the story is over, right? Well, if you did indeed think that, you're dead wrong. Intermission happens, I get the word from one of the ushers on the inside that some guests were complaining about some guests who were talking through the whole show, while playing on their phone at full brightness (in a dark, packed theatre, mind you). So, I check inside to see who was being disruptive, and WHAT DO YOU KNOW, ITS THE POWER COUPLE THEMSELVES. The linebacker is on his phone, the girl seems like she was just getting done face timing DURING THE SHOW. So that means the girl snuck in, which meant she had to have used the fire escape, as its the only exit/entrance that doesn't require you to pass me. I'm just done at this point. We tell her to be quiet and get off her phone. I wanted to kick her out, but the show was starting, and we were given explicit instructions not to make a big stink during the show or while it was starting, so we let her stay in.
I love my job, don't get me wrong, but nights like these, I just can't deal
I'm home now though, ready to collapse, happy to be done with that shift from hell. Regardless of my shift though, I hope you, whoever you might be, are having an amazing morning, afternoon, evening, or night. I hope wherever or whenever you are, you're happy :)
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