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After working there for 3 years the Alamo drafthouse's particular brand of performative wokeness on social media drives me fucking bonkers. I used to love the experience and that company but working there gave me alcoholism and nightmares.
We were open for 3 days straight (72 hours!) when TFA came out and the staff kept the ship running with 6pm to 6am shifts, operating at a max capacity of 2k people, while running out of glassware and silverware, with no breaks or ac in server stations...
Your lunch break was 10 minutes long. Hauling carts of waters to and from theaters just to handle the initial rush. We were dying on the floor when we broke record sales and the managers disappeared to open a bottle of champagne in the office.
Rampant sexism in the manager group. Managers that wouldn't support the staff on company policy. Favoritism from the managers would take the form of giving their favorites quick money making shifts and sticking the ones they don't like in 10 hour shifts where you make $13 TOTAL.
6 people working in a closet sized space trying to field the sodas, mixed drinks, beers, and milkshakes for 1000s of people at once. You could only make 3 milkshakes at once and God help you if the soft serve you just put in the machine doesn't get cold.
I worked a weekend when beauty and the beast came out where most of the servers were scheduled in 3 different theaters, one on the opposite side of the BUILDING, and the timing had me needing to be in 3 places at once.
I had 72 people in one theater that I couldn't even run food to because I had 30+ people in another theater that were seating. I had another 30 people in another theater that I couldn't get their checks to. I asked my manager for help multiple times and he ignored me.
We had just opened a new theater, the biggest one seating 200+ people, that absolutely set the staff up for failure just purely by infrastructure. 7 servers and 6 food runners standing in a boiling hot, closet sized space, clamoring to get drinks and food out to a theater where..
The seating was so low that there was no way to not annoy the guests while running food. The same time we opened that theater most of the kitchen staff had quit for better benefits+pay across the street. Food came out slow and wrong. $4k in comps that day. Just from me.
You did really well there if you: A) were seasonal (aka had the money to go to college, didn't have to afford to live), B) cute enough with the managers, or C) fine with being ran ragged and gossiped about by the managers.
I have friends that gave YEARS of their life to that company and dreamed of climbing the ladder. Not just gave their time, but true dedication. They were kept from certain positions because they were women, or they left because manager favorites were stealing from them.
These were the people making plans to move to other states to work at other locations. Planning their lives around this place because they love movies, they love to love movies. You occasionally got to meet celebrities, or rock out at special showings of the classics.
The people I met there literally changed my life. The trauma bond was fucking real. Management was infamously incompetent and malicious.
It's cool that they're requiring masks. It's literally the least we can all do right now. Are they gonna pay their staff more baseline when they come back to work in a field where you already get sick constantly? Are there going to be enough butts in seats for servers to profit?
Who is cleaning? Are the servers now required to extra deep clean the theaters between showings for free?
Apparently the relief fund doles out differently to corporate or franchise employees. As in, franchise employees were being encouraged to seek unemployment. Lots of puff pieces about the heroism in SAVING MOVIE THEATERS 
but very little coverage of labor.
but very little coverage of labor.
And just to add, God this restaurant specifically is so poorly set up for a pandemic opening, too. Do you know how hard it is to get customers to use order cards when you don't have a face mask on? Getting in close to communicate while the sound system explodes is part of the job
Employees who went on unemployment are now being forced off of unemployment and back to work while covid cases are spiking in their area, or face the nightmare that is the job market for service workers.
And what of this well timed PR move that's going to get as many of the riskiest butts in seats as possible. It could be as busy as any other normal exhausting opening night weekend there except now you could die for pennies. To save movie theaters!
Unrelated, but the solidarity I'm feeling from other former and current employees is exactly why I'm so critical of this company. They should do better for the the people who bust their asses to make the experience awesome.
