April 12th

Since it seems to becoming a trend for me, I feel like I need to tell you I have no idea what to write about. It has recently come to my attention that I am participating in BEDA (Blog Every Day in April). The person who pointed this out to me doesn't actually read this blog (because who does?) but when I told them about it they reminded me that this was already kinda a thing. So...now I feel wholly original and stuff. Still I think that this blogging every day has been good for me, and should be interesting to read in future days. Just to see what I did with my life (which is mostly work and watch Hulu).

One of my favorite parts of work is watching people at Unload. When you work at a theme park it's almost like not existing. People will say things around you they wouldn't normally say around other humans, and that is very interesting. Unload gets a little more recognition, cause you actually speak to the guests, but not much. Still, I think it's fascinating listening to and watching people. I've made a lot of observations about the social behavior of different groups. Plus I've grown a knack for recognizing country or region of origin based on the clothes they wear. For example the British wear very different shoes than most Americans, and a lot of the central/south Americans like to wear USA shirts (not sure why).

The other thing that I notice is that people who get off the ride fall into three categories. First, there are the people who got on the ride knowing it was a roller coaster, like roller coasters, and get off satisfied and willing to ride again. Then there are those who get on perhaps knowing perhaps not knowing it's a roller coaster, are a little nervous or scared, and get off incredibly pumped and rush to ride again. The final group gets on with no idea that they're riding a roller coaster and get off shocked and upset. Usually people in the third category are tricked on by a family member or friend.

Today I had a category three that I thought was incredibly funny. The car pulled into unload and when the lap bars came up one man continued to sit and stare. This is a sure sign of a category three. He was surrounded by a group of children (his kids it seemed). The eventually coaxed him off the car, but when they went to comfort him from the obvious trauma he'd experienced he said "Don't touch me. Y'all are sleeping the garage tonight!" I watched as they all tried to look appropriately ashamed and giggled behind their hands. I couldn't blame them, I wanted to laugh as well. Something about category threes always makes me smile. Maybe it's the look they give me at unload, or the way their family smiles and laughs, or that they almost always exclaim loudly about the evil people who put them on this roller coaster. And before you ask, yes there are signs and video everywhere that say it's a roller coaster, but you'd be surprised what people can miss.

Talking about people who miss signs reminds me of something else I want to do. I want to create a Theme Park Ed course (similar to drivers ed) specific to Universal. It would include lists of things to bring and not to bring, rundowns of what can go on what rides, locker rental training, a crash course on different lines, diagrams of the locations of important things like height check sticks and restriction signs, a list of tricks and tips for making your day easier, and pocket guides for where to find lost and found, first aid, and other important things. I would also want to lay out something reminding them that it is NOT the fault of any of the workers when a ride doesn't function. That way guests and workers would be happier overall. Can you tell I've thought about this before?

The only other thing I've been thinking about lately is how if I was hotter I'd have more YouTube subscribers. Seriously, I watched a 20 second video of rain today to that had like 2,000 views. Now granted, me watching it almost cancels out my objection, but it's not the fact that it has that many views that I object to. I think that's fantastic. What bothers me is that I can put hours of effort into a funny skit and someone else can just throw up 20 seconds of rain fall and get 200 times more views. The internet is weird.