Leaderboard

There is no ground for the FTC to block the merger. There has to be a legal argument that the chain would be anti-competitive and there isn't one like there is with the big tech companies that the FTC is going after. Whether those arguments against the tech companies are strong enough to be legally valid is beyond the purview of a forum like this, but they are easy to understand and follow with a couple minutes research. What argument could they put forth about this being anti-competitive? There are the three well documented markets with arguable competitive crossover, but those markets are still saturated with other competitors. No argument there to block the whole merge. Maybe to divest one of the properties, but with all the other nearby competition that would be a tough argument to make. I think the "nightmare" scenario for the new chain is that they have to pick one each of SFMM/Knotts, SFA/KD, and SFGA/Dorney and sell off the other and I would call even that unlikely. There is nothing to work with in terms of blocking the whole merger.

Excelerator is back!!!

It really is all about leadership. I don't even think there is intent to treat employees like second class citizens, there just isn't anyone at our park to hold supervisors accountable and properly direct them. I'm guessing at SFFT where they have a President that borders on legendary the culture is totally different. I do hope this gets addressed with the merger.

The "kids these days are lazy" is such a nonsensical thing and it's nice to see it de-bunked here. That kind of talk is the excuse of a poorly run company. The whole "Six Flags is understaffed" seems like a relatively simple thing to me to diagnose. Maybe not fix, but diagnose. The company pays horrible and is horrible to work for. It's that simple. Also yeah, being out in Eureka does somewhat make it harder to find kids than say, somewhere in St. Louis county, so we can add bad location to to those other two, but I think that's a bit of a lesser thing. A company operating a theme park can probably get away with paying crap to bottom rung employees moreso than others because, at least in theory, it's a fun job that has cool perks.....if it treats its employees well. Six Flags, as noted in the example posted by Kim above, does not. I don't know what kind of culture Cedar Fair has at their company, but I'm hoping at the very least it's an improvement over Six Flags. That alone would help improve park operations here, though that kind of thing takes usually a couple years. Given how seasonal a theme park is though, if the right people are put in place in management a turn around on that front can be probably happen quicker than other types of businesses.

Every time we get the cliche "kidz jus don wanna wurk anymorr" argument, I'll always link the post I made a while back outlining all of the statistics about WHY kids aren't working anymore. From the article in the post: If anything, in the years since that post was made, it's only become MORE difficult for kids as the cost of college continues to skyrocket. There were lazy kids back then (I worked along side plenty of them), and there are lazy kids now. But you gotta look at the macro level and step away from the personal anecdotes when trying to assess contributing factors to large-scale issues.

Not only SeaWorld and Herschend but Disney, Universal, Palace, and the many many individually owned parks, whether it be a family owned park or one owned by a corporation like Hershey. The FTC is going to see that Disney still has more attendance and revenue than all the CF and SF parks together so I don't think they will consider it a monopoly. I mean if Ticketmaster is allowed to continue to exist then this isn't even close to a monopoly and look at how many airline mergers the government has allowed.

Have you considered that perhaps the problem isn't that "theme park ppl" are paid too much, but rather that entry level "corporate jobs" (along with everyone) aren't paid enough and CEOs and other executives are paid too much?

They aren't getting $20, pay is $14 - $15 for most positions, and that is on par with most part time jobs at fast food joints and retail establishments. For a couple years during the Pandemic it was raised to $18 but as I stated that was taken away. As a parent and retired teacher I think "kids nowadays are too lazy" is a vast oversimplification of the issue. Just like we have inflation because wages went up is too simple an explanation, inflation is due to a number of factors and isn't even close to what it was in the early 70's when the park opened. Since our park is in a generally more affluent area it isn't that kids are lazy it's more that they are being pushed by parents and schools to spend their summers and weekends devoting massive amounts of time to extra curriculars (sports and clubs) and/or classes and camps. This is under the mistaken belief that it pads a college resume. I cannot tell you how much I disagree with this thinking. If you talk to college recruiters it isn't as important as most people think, a job is just as meaningful to them and they are missing out on real world skills that cannot be learned in the shelter of school and subsequent school sponsored activities. Meanwhile, the district I taught in was just plain poor. Those kids would have loved more opportunities to work, especially over the summer, but they didn't have a lot of choices close enough to home that made it easy to get to. I mean it would have been an hour+ round trip without traffic issues to get to SFSTL. And as a postscript I really believe most of the employees are doing their best with what they have have to work with. I mean look at all the employees that stayed despite their pay going down.

Sorry that was brutal, but it felt good to get it off my chest because the whole thing has been bothering me for months AND I thought the story was pertinent to much of what is happening at the park right now!

Change makes me uncomfortable

There's a pretty simple explanation for the decline in foreign workers. You can not want to talk politics all you want, but there has been a well-documented decrease in work and student visa applications in the last year and a half ever since the White House and Congress begun initiating steps to make acquiring the visas more difficult. Additionally, various tech companies are starting to rely on the H1-B work visa program more and more, which is the program parks would use to hire temporary foreign workers in the past. This, coupled with the overall decrease in approved visas across the board, and that helps explain why theme parks may be struggling with staffing issues. You can have whatever opinion you'd like on the current state of politics and the administration, but those are facts. There are also some very interesting statistics on a variety of contributing factors to the decline of the "summer job", as it's not necessarily just an increase in laziness. From the article: Short answer: more and more teenagers are focusing on their education, including an overall increase in college enrollment and an increase in students taking summer classes. As someone previously stated, the days of a bachelor's degree being enough to stand out in a job market are long gone (hell, I'm kicking myself for going straight to grad school and getting a generic MBA instead of waiting and choosing a more specific masters degree in my field to help my resume stand out more). Are there lazy kids out there? Absolutely, but that’s no new thing - I worked with plenty of other teenagers growing up who had questionable work ethic. It’s important to avoid the rose-tinted glasses when discussing this subject. I myself am one of those middle-class adults who tends to wax nostalgic about my summer job experience and used to have pretty strong opinions on "making sure my kids grow up right, know the value of a dollar, understand the meaning of hard work, blah blah BS BS yadda yadda". However, facts and statistics don't lie, and, once my kids are old enough, I'll need to consider what the culture, education environment, and job markets are like in order to figure out what's really best for their future before I choose to “gift” them working papers on their 14th birthday like my mom did to me.

OK, my 2 cents and a story about the boy that used to work at the park as a cautionary tale about lack of management, sorry this is long so read at your own discretion: First I have said before and say again that staffing is one of the biggest improvements needed; across the board, to improve a lot of what you all are complaining about. Now I 100% know that this is easier said than done and agree with whomever stated up thread that the park's location is a great hindrance to this. In addition our park is VERY seasonal and has very few full time jobs so they rely almost entirely on students, retirees, and teachers looking for brief summer work. However, they also shoot themselves in the foot. For example when they reopened after the initial Pandemic shutdown ride op pay was increased, which was nice since after all they were all being required to wear masks outside in the summer heat AND were taking a lot of extra crap from guests over all the policies. Fast forward to the 2023 season and all the ride op pay was reduced back to pre-Pandemic levels. Seriously. Essentially demote those that stuck with you through a couple years of crap? I mean I could maybe see new hires starting out at the old pay. But reduce employees that had been faithful to the park? Second they have to get a proper park President. This whole "sharing" one with the Chicago park is bull. I also think the slashing of middle management that happened a couple years ago is taking a toll. I'll give you a real world example of the effects of this. My son started working at the park as a ride op just before his 16th birthday. He was thrilled. Stayed working there through the Pandemic and all it entailed. Stuck out the summer he was mostly on kid's rides which he did not like. Kept it up through a couple years of Community College (his choice, he just wasn't into a big 4 year school), planned on staying this season even after the pay cut. Even stuck it out when he was inexplicably moved from AT/Log Flume which he really liked to Batman which he was not happy about because he knew the ride crew was not great. No one asked for this move and the leads and supers had no idea why it happened. He was a good ride op. Knew more about how the rides operated than a lot of the supervisors. Worked a majority of the rides in the park. Cleaned up his share of barf without complaining. Never called in and worked every shift he was scheduled, did day off requests way ahead of time and as prescribed by policy. Had more than one incident where he noticed restraints had not been checked by someone else or there was a problem and kept an unsafe train from going out. Etc, etc, you get the picture. Well the policy had always been 3 safeties and then a ride op lost their ride badge, essentially a 3 strikes and you are out rule. Safeties are issued anytime a ride op basically does something unsafe, like cross in front of a train without permission for example. He had never received a safety after 4 full seasons. Early this summer he gets a safety for not looking long enough at the boats on the log flume at the bottom of the first lift hill before launching a new boat. For those that are unaware if they are allowed to stack at the first hill they fill up with water and sink. Yeah. He wasn't written up for not checking, the super just didn't think he looked long enough. Ok. You do get to write out your side of the story, which he did but basically laughed it off as the super having a bad day instead of fighting it. Fine. Then after he is moved to Batman they are loading a train, he is at the panel, ALL ride ops give their thumbs up that restraints are checked and they are in the safe zone and the way is clear. He launches the train, then one of the ops moves out of the safety box and he has to e-stop the train for the ops safety. Safety issued to each member of the crew. Reports written out. Super tells him standard procedure, don't worry it won't stand, only the op that moved where they shouldn't have will get the safety. Nope. Entire crew gets safety and oh yeah we reduced it from 3 to 2 so they pull his ride badge. Now it is what it is. Shit happens and we all get screwed sometimes and have to pay our dues. Hard lesson learned, he probably could have and should have gotten the first safety reversed. And to be totally fair he knew it was his last season. At this point there are 3 weeks of daily operations left. He cannot go on rides again until next season, which he knows he won't be coming back because he will need to move on and get a real full time adult job since he is finishing up school. But they tell him they need people to do fastpass and he can do that. He says fine, he had planned on the income for those weeks and will just stick it out. Ok, fast pass will call you. Several days go by and no call. After 3 weeks, several phone calls on his part and a physical visit to human resources...............they apologize with a so sorry Person A thought Person B had called and Person B thought Person A had called and no one seemed to notice you weren't being scheduled............! Why the long tale? This caused him to lose 3 weeks of expected pay, the park to be short in two departments while an employee was available and wanting to work, an unnecessary blow to a young man's self esteem, and an abrupt end to what had been a proud employee. IF there had been better management in place all of this could have been avoided. Without a dedicated park president and a team that is beholden to him or her on a daily basis things and people are falling through the cracks. I believe better management could have provided training to get him his ride badge back (I am NOT advocating that they skimp on safety issues but clearly there should be some nuance here by a higher up that can evaluate the situation, the whole ride crew did not deserve a safety) or at least get him moved over within a day to the other department, not just "oh didn't you get called, we had no idea" Clearly no one was checking their voicemail or email or getting messages from HR. Meanwhile, he was still getting emails asking him to take shifts on Batman despite his badge being pulled and they were advertising for employees needed at fastpass. And why is fastpass a whole separate crew? Ride ops can do it instead of paying someone to just stand at the fastpass entrance and do nothing else but scan people in. He wasn't fired, he wasn't scheduled, he was in a void for 3 weeks. I could go on but you get the idea. Management seems to be a total mess right now and that has got to get fixed in order to improve all the things that make a park a great park. I have no idea if they couldn't find a qualified park pres or if they just decided to do it on the cheap; but it is not working to share. We can go back and forth with whether or not the landscaping is up to par. Something I tend to notice. If the ride lineup is good. If the special events are done well. Yada, yada, yada.......but until they properly manage the park and employees none of that will show huge improvement. I agree that RR and the new flat for next year are positive improvements but they have to get the management situation fixed. I am VERY curious to see how this plays out with the new CF merger! As well as what it means for season passes. We have kept our DE VIP memberships not so much just for our park but because we travel to multiple parks every year. Currently this is one of the more active threads, not sure if it's because we are a bitchy bunch, passionate about our park, a little of both? In the end good or bad this park holds a lot of memories for me and I really really do want to see it succeed. So moving forward and fingers crossed. And just in case anyone is wondering. Joel is fine. He did work about a month's worth of weekends dong fastpass, after they realized oh yeah we should schedule you, just because it was convenient money while job hunting during the week. He finished some school, got some IT certifications and is now working, at age 20, his first full time adult job as a field technician for a big and well established tech company.