Idiot Ride Ops.

[jason10]

The worst ride opp I have seen was on Nemesis Inferno at Thorpe Park. It wasn't that bad but when he checked everyones belt and restraints, all he did was touch the belt and didn't pull it at all.

[BMPP]

You know I have been a ride op for more then 5 years in the UK and worked at various locations. Although safety is important and you do get bad staff who just don't care, some of us do care.

 

Of course being one of the lowest paid jobs, you get that attidue of lets just get through the day. If the wages were higher you might get better staff instead of the ones who can't even get a job in retail on the high street.

You see we all have are good days and bad days and guests in general create bad days. Staff having cell phones is not an issue and can be used on sly out of guests eyes and why not. Yeah I know rules state otherwise but when your on less the Mc Donalds wages for 10-12 hours of the day with 2 breaks thats easier said then done. Of course managment can do lots to improve the current trend from making the staff enviroment fun to music on rides ect.

Guests come to the park to have fun and often abuse rules, staff and commen sesne. You know it sounds twisted but I know how much satisfaction I get out of pinning someone to the seat or making them walk round the queue. It's a perk of the job I need to fill my head with a power trip because I would make more flipping burgers.

Still how a guest greets me within less the 10 seconds will set there fate of smiles or misery. You know we don't all have the privilage of having fun all the time because the cheese of fake smiles and screams begins to fade into nothing. You go in, greet guest, slam bar down(small smile on inside) send train...repeat, repeat and so on.

 

Of course the flip side is a great chat a personalised service and a laugh and joke. In some cases a sense of pride which is always nice.

As a coaster freak myself I see the staff in other parks and some you can tell just don't care, others are having a bad day and some are quite happy although there the hardest to find it's always nice when you do.

Somtimes at work it may look like i'm not paying attention and often your thinking about other matters but when you work in the industry for a while it becomes easy to read guests from just looking.

 

One day I was sat in an enclosed coaster booth behind pretty much sound proof glass, thinking about what I was doing the after work. You see it was my job to watch CCTV camaras which after a month get a glance or so, but gone are the days of having your eyes fixed to the camaras looking for the crash or major incident that could happen which was rammed down your throat in training.

Anyway a large group of kids boarded the train and one caught my eye, he looked like the rest but I got this feeling to watch him like a hawk, so I did. He went rould the slow part of the ride and went into a camara blackspot. As the train approched the top of the lift hill I noticed he had gone. Since he was sitting at the back the train had just strated to go over the edge of the lift, I pressed the E stop the train carried on becuase of the weight. I knew somthing was wrong I got all other staff to prepare for the worst on the platfom and clear the station. I locked out the ride which would I knew would have stopped on the lift 2, and ran down to lift.

 

The kid had climbed out of his lap bar and decided to lie down on the floor of the train, between the stage of Lift 1 and 2 the kid had got up off the floor and decided to try and re sit down. If the ride hadn't stopped on the second lift hill which is short the kid would have been thrown from the train and slammed into a tunnel wall at the bottom of the drop.

I delt with the situation and the kid was sent back to school with parents informed.

My point is although somtimes it appears staff don't care most do and would never like to see anybody hurt or die. Although I can't speak for every ride op in world the above pretty much sums it up and I hate to think because you catch a staff member on the cell or other they appear here in a topic of hate when we are human too.

[Calaway Park]

My worst was with a carney.

 

My cousin and I were at a carnival in our little town here in Alberta, only having $20. We were walking around, we went on a couple rides and then a carney walked up to us asking if we wanted to buy 80 tickets for ten bucks. By then, we'd only had 8 dollars, but he accepted it anyway. The tickets were crumpled and already torn apart, and he told us to say we'd gotten them the night before and left them in the wash. [He was pretty grundgey, I think he was going to buy some alchohol or drugs and needed some extra cash.] So we ride the Zipper like twelve times in a row, and then my cousin decides we should go on the worlds most boring fair ride - Loop-O-Plane. I really didn't want to, but they don't accept singles on most rides and I didn't want to go with a stranger so I reluctantly went with him. We give the ride op our tickets and then he stops us and tells us to get out of the ride. My cousin tends to panic in these situations, and when the ride op asked him when we got them, he said "We got them today." The ride op then asked: "Why are they so crumpled then?" My cousin began to stumble on his words and then finally came up with what we were supposed to say in the first place, that we had gotten them the night before and left them in the wash. The carney said: "But I thought you got them today." Then, my idiot cousin said "We did!"

 

Then, the idiot carney part comes in: He decides to go let the other kids in, and then decides that we stole the tickets. We tried to tell him our side of the story but he claimed he'd call the police, although it was more like: "You's better get autta he-ya or i'd call thems cops!"

 

Can someone explain to me how the hell we could steal tickets?

[Steffen_Dk]

The worst ride op I've ever experienced was at Tivoli Friheden.s Crazy Tiger.

 

1. He didn't check nothing

 

2. I'm sure he was blind Well not 100% blind, but at least extremely weak-sighted. When he controlled the ride, he didn't looked at it at all. Ok... I must admit, that this was a good thing, cause it was the weirdest and most insane ride ever

[viking86]

My worst experience was at Liseberg. The ride-ops for the S&S "drop" tower were busier walking around slowly, chatting around instead of doing all the stuff a ride-op should do. The line wasnt that long, but still we waited probably 30-45 mins...

[Inferno Insane]

I think this picture explains quite well this Idiot Ride Op jumping across the track of Shockwave. Me and some friends I was with at the time was so hopein he would trip or something. Saw it countless number of times that day bak in October.

Lets Jump Across!

[CommanderLock]

^

 

My trip to Cedar Point in August was well-fortuned.

[BarryH]

This is not idiotic, but humorous.

 

As I was exiting the Tomorrowland Transit Authority at the Magic Kingdom, I saw a Cast Member reading a brochure for USF! I would have thought his Supervisor would have ripped it out of his hands and said, "Don't read that trash!"

[chmilo24]

I have 2:

 

First at Drop Zone in PGA, they had rude ops. While he was texting, another op went and got him food. Once he got it he screamed, swore, yelled and once he was done throwing a tantrum, he actully throw the food at the other op.

 

Then at 6FMW, an op working at VODOO got distracted with his iPod and failed to stop the ride, the ride went 2 circuts insread of 1. And since the restraints press on your legs with about 20 pounds of force, there was a lot of pain.

[xascher]

I got one...

 

Ok, so I was riding Puff The Magic Fire Dragon at Lagoon... cause I'm a credit whore, but anyway. So there was this little 3 year old on the ride, and she was so tiny the lapbar couldn't go down enough. Well, the ride op started everything up, and on one of those tiny kiddie ride ejector airtime mini hills of death, the poor little girl almost flew out. So now she's crying her head off trying to stay in her seat, but the lapbar was in the way.

Now for the, "I'm going to piss you off" part. The ride op was jammin to his iPod, closing his eyes and doing some sort of mayan war dance to his music. Everyone was yelling at him to stop the ride, which is possible, Ive seen the control panel, but he was too preoccupied with his metalica. When the train finally stopped, the poor girl's been bashed around so much, she limped out of the station.

[WildStangAlex]

Yeah so when I was at Indiana Beach....

 

I rode double shot and the ride ops were discussing illegal drug materials that they used when off. Of course this discussion was in the presence of me (the rider)

[WildStangAlex]

What exactly happened at SRM2003 that would make ride ops extra careful?

 

A women fell out of Raven and was killed. I think she was trying to one-click it but Im not sure. She did have her seatbaelt unbuckled though.

 

That death was reported to me by a friend, who read it in his new "Darwin Awards."

[Dorneypark_fan]

I saw a ride op at Six Flags peeing into the log flume.

 

At the waterpark in Ocean City Maryland its the big one next to Jolly Rogers we were going on the toilet bowl slide just as the park was closing, When we were told to go they announced the park is closing, At that time we were just about to go down the drop when the ride op grabs our tube which almost made me fall down the drop. Where he told us park is close and told us to leave.

[hobbit]

i think it is so important that the ride operator or atendant are working fast, and relaxed. friendly staff is also very good!

but some operators are very slow.......

[PKI Jizzman]

I think this picture explains quite well this Idiot Ride Op jumping across the track of Shockwave. Me and some friends I was with at the time was so hopein he would trip or something. Saw it countless number of times that day bak in October.

 

Holiday World ride ops walk across the track all the time!

 

Granted it was for one train op rides, but I found it funny!

[HCLcoasters]

Two ride ops on Demon Drop were arguing. One was saying how her shift was over a couple hours ago and complaining that she really needed to take a "pee". My dad practically had to tell them to shut up because they weren't taking us out of the cars. (the restraints are locked and opened by the ride ops)

[Kennyweird]

I thought the ride ops at Lakemont park seemed like they weren't paying much attention, but then again, I might be mistaking boredom for inattentiveness.

[Josh Linn]

Only bad experience was at the Bloomsburg Fair when I was younger. I was on a ride and the restraint was pretty much unlocked, and I kept yelling to the people to stop the ride, and they just looked at me and kept it going. Never been so scared in my life.

[cal1br3tto]

This wasn't "bad", but very surprising.

On Quicksilver Express at Gilroy Gardens, I was sitting in the very back. I know the ops knew I was there because they were discussing with each other whether to dispatch the train with just me in it, until some other people came up and joined the train. What I find confusing is that they never once checked my restraints.

After the ride, one op asked me if I want to go again without getting out, further proving his awareness of my presence. The other people had gotten off, and soon a new group of people got on. Again, nobody checked my restraints.

I know I wasn't in danger, but is this ever acceptable or understandable? Or were they hoping to kill me?

Like I said, it didn't seem "bad" to me, but I've always had the understanding that restraints are always checked, no matter what.

Was I wrong?

[steel]

All of the ride ops at Adventureland (IA). That's why I quit.

When I worked Tornado, I was instructed to make guests take loose articles with them. They aren't allowed to even leave their jackets and cameras and things in the station. I once saw an onride video of Tornado in which the first thing you hear is the ride op saying, "Don't drop that camera!" as if it were a joke.

Also, they receive little to no training. My training was to read a book about the different rides Adventureland has, then listen to a supervisor tell me where the break room was. That was it. No safety courses, no supervision at the rides. I was working Infant Ocean alone one day. At about 7:00 pm, I realized that nobody told me how to close it.

The staff at Adventureland is very friendly, but I haven't been back since I quit, and I'm not sure I ever will visit again.

 

My other complaint is with bored ride ops who think they are being very expressive (or are just bored). At SFSL, the Boss op was saying, "Sit upright, hold on tight, because The Boss is about to strike." Clearly, he had been to WoF sometime in the past ten years, because that's Mamba's catchphrase, word for word.

More seriously, at WoF last week, the Monsoon operator was insufferable. Unfortunately, I can't demonstrate inflection with simple text, so I can't really show you how awful it was. But I'll try.

"Ooooncomiiiing rideeeeers! Welcoooome to the Mooooooooooooooooooooooonsoon!"

No exaggeration. It was ridiculous.

I also heard this at a couple rides:

"WELCOMEBACKRIDERSHOWWASTHERIDE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! AWESOME!!!! Pleaseexittoyourleft - not your right, your left - andhaveagreatdayhereatWorldsofFunrideon!!!!!!!!"

They speed through their spiels so quickly that they are totally unintelligible. This is where the problem is. This is information that guests need to know to keep themselves safe. When they overemphasize syllables or rush through the spiel, thinking they are being entertaining and expressive, all they are doing is limiting the amount of that vital information their guest can get.

That could be dangerous, IMO.

 

[/$.02]

[Capitalize]

Doing the spiel is the only thing that made my job when i was an op at all amusing and not horrifically boring, so I can totally see where the ops come from with that. I refused to do the auto spiel and was probably annoying some people...

[Jds03]

At Hershey a few years ago, we rode Storm Runner once and as soon as we arrive back in the station it breaks. One of the ride op. women told everyone on our train to get back in the line even though we rode already. Then a different op. woman came on the other side and stated flipping out at everyone who was on our train because she thought we were trying to cheat our way onto a second ride. Both of them yelled too much.

[coasterdude28]

Coney Island Cyclone Ops...if you can even call them ops. Entertainingly nontraditional Ops there.

[atem122]

Batman at SFMM had about a 7 minute dispatch on Sunday, that was fun

[paintballer]

Lakeside Park, Denver

 

On Cyclone the E-Stoped the ride and when returned to the station I got a 10 minute lecture of how I dropped something on the tracks and how this was illegal, I did no such thing and I explained this to them. Being the teenager I am they assumed I was lying andkicked me out of the park.

Never Coming Back.