MSNBC Article - Six jeers for Six Flags

[Medusa1861]

^ I don't know anything about you, But i gather that you work for Six Flags?

 

I feel that if i were hired to work at Six Flags, My job would be to.. operate the rides? That would be all I am required to do. Can you honestly say that everytime you go to your job, You are in a cheery mood?

 

And i will admit, i was wrong about the garbage policy. But I really don't feel the need to g o out of my way and complain that "employees aren't doing their job correctly". Because there are some (probably including you) that do do their job very well. I'm sure the same goes for cedar Fair parks, I'm SURE they have some lousy employees. I don't feel it's right for anyone to be like "Six Flags employees don't do their job right"

 

I don't know if i am just more accepting of these operations; but I still feel the same, If you don't like the park operations, guests, cleanliness of Six Flags parks... Don't go there then. And like he said, "Please don't get me wrong, we did have a good time and we will likely go back." That sentence alone gives the message.. "if he's coming back.. why should we do anything differently?"

 

As with the security guard, I'm not one, So i have no idea of the policy, But as just a customer at Six Flags, I'm not complaining.

 

Your whole "there is always someone willing to do the job." Once again, I'm not an expert on any of this, But i recall that every year, there would be an article in the Asbury Park press that Six Flags is underemployed and cannot get enough help. I am also pretty sure that it's difficult and expensive to replace employees mid-season. Once again, I am not an expert, but I believe that the amount of training to operate a single ride is many hours, My guess at least 16 hours. Also mid-season i'd say most people have their summer job already so finding someone is even more difficult. So is it really worth it to fire a mediocre employee because they aren't "smiling enough" or that they aren't fast enough.

 

Aside from all of that, I would agree, Yes Six Flags is a poorly run company. But there are also some very good employees, And i feel it is unfair to bash Six Flags because "it's employees aren't happy enough"

I've gone to SFgadv quite a lot during the spring and I didn't see anything wrong, i began to recognize some of the employees and they would have their good days and bad days.

[disneyfan1313]

Now why does he have to go and extrapolate from his experiences that a lesser-known, inferior Six Flags park is on par with, and indicative of the caliber of the whole chain? I'm not trying to deprecate the park. I really like it, but I think everyone agrees it's not the best park in the chain.

 

Because that is how the vast majority of people see it. People who live in that area don't say "Let's go to Six Flags America!" They say "Let's go to Six Flags!" All enthusiasts may agree that it isn't the best park in the chain, but the average person doesn't know that at all. Many likely think Six Flags parks are almost the same, and some probably aren't even aware there is another Six Flags park aside from the one they live near.

 

I agree 100%.

Each Six Flags park is the face of their whole corporation - the average person who goes to Six Flags America does not know or care that they have one of the worst in the chain - they just know they got bad service and food and they associate that with the Six Flags brand. The reasons who it is being compared to Disney is Shapiro is trying to make it more family friendly, increase the mix of rides geared to all ages and be more like a Disney park. The issue is they are not willing to invest the time or money to fix the customer service issues. You should not get worse service in the hospitality industry than you do in a Wal-Mart - but unfortunately that is the rep six flags has to contend with.

[disneyfan1313]

I feel that if i were hired to work at Six Flags, My job would be to.. operate the rides? That would be all I am required to do. Can you honestly say that everytime you go to your job, You are in a cheery mood?

 

Wow. I sure hope you don't work in the hospitality industry.

 

That is NOT all you are required to do. I'm sure someone who works for Six Flags can chime in but I am sure you are required to greet the guests, thank them, assist them on and off the attraction, provide directions, etc.

 

If you are not in a cheery mood everytime you go to your job - you at least need to fake it.. the customers/guests do not need to know nor do they care about your personal life and if you are happy or not. All they need to know is that they paid a lot of money to have a good time in a safe park with fun rides and you should deliver on that promise.

[carolinacaniac]

One thing I will say is that yes, most theme park jobs pay little, and yes the heat can suck, but I think working at Cedar Point made for some of the best times I had. Now I know that it may not be the same since I am talking about cedar point as opposed to six flags, but really, they are the same industry with mostly the same goals for customer service. We were expected to be friendly and helpful for guests, and we also were supposed to pick up any trash we saw. Now I know some people may have had some reservations about picking up trash, but I had a little pride in working at Cedar Point and when I saw trash on the ground, it was kind of like finding trash on my front yard.

 

Like Disneyfan said, you can never make it in hospitality without being at least friendly. You don't have to be all "OMG, I am so wonderfully happy to see you!" like a valley girl off of the movie "Clueless", but you at least have to be a little personable with other people. This is true with anything in customer service.

[almightyfire]

All I can say is that an amusement park job is most of peoples first job experience. Most dont have work ethics and its understandable. That is why an older figure should be paid more an hour to oversee each operation in the park with experience in work period. That person that said if they were hired to just operate rides that is all they would do, is probably young and doesnt realize that you do have a job description but people move up in any industry by going above and beyond that so called job description. When I worked at Six flags 25 years ago I didnt see it either. An undercover supervisor asked me to pick up a piece of paper and I said that he needed to get a grounds person and let them know. I thought that it wasnt my responsibility either and guess what when I got back to my ride I got a call from the operations office telling me to come back immediatly. When I got back there they told me that I was setup to see my reaction and I got a CI which stands for corrective interview. If you got 3 of them then you were terminated. Now I thought that was unfair because I wasnt hired to pick up trash but as I have matured and gotten into the work industry, I see that a corporation expects you to do whatever it takes to make the WHOLE company run. This apparently isnt still a policy at SF because of the attitudes of the employees now. I was at SFGAdventure last year and there was a lost child crying and we told an employee and they just stood there and looked at us as if we were stupid. Now that response deserved a CI. It wasnt his fault that he responded that way, It is the fault of the establishment because that child hasnt been taught. Training consists of way more than checking a lapbar.

[Guest]

I feel that if i were hired to work at Six Flags, My job would be to.. operate the rides? That would be all I am required to do. Can you honestly say that everytime you go to your job, You are in a cheery mood?

No, it is Six Flags policy that ALL park employees pick up trash if they see/walk by it. This includes ride operators, security people, GM of the park, Mark Shapiro, god, or whoever.

 

Over here at SFGAm if there is a large mess that you cannot clean up yourself, your required to call for "The Clean Team" which is an additional force setup just for large messes, completely seperate from the regular park services cleaning people. They normally come right away and take care of that. Also at some rides we have 15 year old employees who are on a queue cleaning rotation type setup so if there are not enough ride operators to do cleaning throughout the day they are there to clean the queues.

 

You guys dont realize how much work goes into running a theme park. I can tell you first hand since Shapiro has taken over a TON of work/reserach/adjusting training has been done to make the parks better run. Granted, each park still does trainings a bit differently, but heres some examples of what i've seen at SFGAm this year: Park orientations have been made longer and more extensive on guest service, for example, now there is a whole list of "guest service vocabulary" you have to learn before stepping foot onstage which wasnt in the handbook last year, each employee (including all of management) is REQUIRED to carry a "Sidekick" that has all information regarding the park offerings including park hours for the whole season, location of food etc, all ride height requirements, and a park entertainment guide.

 

In terms of rides training, all of manamgent must be "ROTC certified" (Ride Operator Training Certification) which is new for this year before training anybody to operate a ride, as well as being "train the trainer" certified like its always been. To get "Train the Trainer" Certified you must take an all day classroom and pass a 60 question management based test, to get ROTC certified you have to read through a thick packet and take a test on that as well as being video-taped training and evaluated.

 

To make sure the training gets followed up on, audits are done every day on random park employees to make sure they are meeting expectations much more this year compared to previous years. These include video audits and paper audits.

 

In general, LOTS of things have been done at SF parks to increase guest service since Shapiro took over, ive seen it first hand. Ill get some pics up soon.

 

All I have to say about SFA is that I really hope the place gets sold.

[kraxleRIDAH]

^ There's a good reason why Great America is regarded as one of the best parks in the chain.

 

That entire regime you mentioned in your post? Not applicable to Magic Mountain AT ALL.

 

It's odd how some parks like Fiesta Texas and Great America can do a better job at shaping up quickly and staying that way while a good number of others just still stay in the gutter no matter what "improvements" are thrown at them.

[Guest]

Heres some of what I was talking about in the previous post

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lapseofreason]

^Actually, I've seen SFMM employees with those lately. I was wondering what the heck they were...

[Little Coaster Girl]

At Great Adventure in NJ i have seen those on quite a few employees also.

[gnewton34]

MSN is pretty much the armpit of Interweb news. This article is typical of the lazy journalism featured on MSN.

 

I was going to say the exact same thing.

[dougr]

How about paying employees a decent wage, maybe even unionizing?

If you're going to charge near Disney prices, why not pay Disney wages? I know no one gets rich on Disney wages, but I believe at least people can live off them.

[almightyfire]

No one didnt say that Six Flags didnt have rules. It doesnt matter if they arent enforced.

[larrygator]

^^no one gets rich off McDonalds wages either.

 

for the record Six Flags stock at under $4 is a buy in my book. I need to make some money for the next TPR Trip.

[conpfreak]

That article was filled with overexaggerations and a BS comparison to Disney. SFA isn't the best park in the chain but it has potential to be if Six Flags would take the time to FIX the issues at the park. If I recall, SFA was the best performing park over the memorial day weekend this year and the park always has a good crowd. People always say how SFA is one of the worst parks in the SF chain but if you look it's actually one of the best performing parks in the chain and is often shot down and generalized by Coaster Elitist because of a couple of bad experiences with SFA. The park has an amazing location(Right near D.C.) and it could be seen as a must-do when visiting D.C. as isn't more than a 30 minute drive from DC. SFA has gotten way better over the years but is still suffering because 3 things aren't happening.

 

1.They can't seem to keep the Rides fixed properly(Which can easily be fixed if they actually tried to fix them to make sure it doesn't happen again).

 

2. Not enough "New" coming to the park. With Kings Dominion no more than a 1 1/2 drive from DC, and considering SFA size as of now against KD they BETTER have alot of NEW attractions coming to the park in the next few years.

 

3. The other 2 don't even matter when I say this. SFA NEEDS TO BE INVESTED IN MORE. WAY MORE.

[kewlcoasterdude]

I totally agree. I have never wondered why Six Flags doesn't invest more money in the more beautiful parks. They spend all that money in places like SFMM where "many" people do not respect what they have. I know SFMM is supposed to be getting better but many people around there don't really give a darn about throwing trash away or waiting their turn in line. Its like they dont get the Amusement Park Idea. Places like SFGA or SFA are in friendly settings with people that like to take care of their surroundings. How about maybe not giving SFMM or SFGAD a new gigantic coaster all the time and give one of these pretty parks one?

[BrownStreak]

I'm not even half way into the article and already I have found an error- One-day at a WDW park is currently $71 not $67. Also nearly every "regional" park that I know of has discount tickets at the local super market and/or discounts with soda cans. Regardless just a knee jerk reaction to the fact that I am less than 1/2 way in and found an error like that- consider the source I guess.

 

Also the comment about waiting 20 minutes for lunch at 12 noon?! That will happen almost anywhere you go. Heck, I've waited 20 minutes at the Burger King in Valley View, OH for 20 minutes at lunch time.

 

PS: Could someone in OH explain Valley View to me...it is in a valley so how can you view the valley that you are currently in?

[ginzo]

I'm not even half way into the article and already I have found an error- One-day at a WDW park is currently $71 not $67. Also nearly every "regional" park that I know of has discount tickets at the local super market and/or discounts with soda cans. Regardless just a knee jerk reaction to the fact that I am less than 1/2 way in and found an error like that- consider the source I guess.

 

I'm pretty sure this article was put up before Disney announced the price hike. The comparison is pretty dumb though because Six Flags basically gives away the gate, assuming that you buy a season pass early enough.

 

Also the comment about waiting 20 minutes for lunch at 12 noon?! That will happen almost anywhere you go. Heck, I've waited 20 minutes at the Burger King in Valley View, OH for 20 minutes at lunch time.

 

Yeah, I remember waiting like 30-40 minutes on a crowded day at Animal Kingdom just to get McDonalds. And it was like 2 PM, not noon.

[FlyingScooter]

 

Also the comment about waiting 20 minutes for lunch at 12 noon?! That will happen almost anywhere you go. Heck, I've waited 20 minutes at the Burger King in Valley View, OH for 20 minutes at lunch time.

 

PS: Could someone in OH explain Valley View to me...it is in a valley so how can you view the valley that you are currently in?

 

I've been to that BK and you'll wait there longer when it isn't lunchtime. Hate that place.

 

I think VAlley View got its name when they viewed it from the hills around it. (just like many Ohio cities, it makes no sense. )