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Roller Coaster of Emotions: The Time I Worked at an Amusement Park for a Day

The title of this blog post was going to be"Roller Coaster from Hell: The Time I Sold My Soul to the Devil," but when you make a deal with the devil, I think you at least get something positive out of it at first. So I settled for the above title. Let me preface this post by saying I am not a quitter!!!! If anything I stick things out for too long. Similar to Jack Nasty in the movie "Brokeback Mountain" I'm usually left saying "I wish, I knew how to quit you." That thought pops into my head on various occasions; friendships that have soured, eating cheese when I'm pretty sure I'm lactose intolerant, texting losers, conversing with long winded strangers and a lot more. The biggest probably being STILL LIVING AT HOME, I should have quit that years ago. That predicament led me to desperate times.

I needed a job and I needed it fast. While looking online at a job board I saw a job for a performer at an amusement park. I thought "oh how fun, I used to go to this park all the time for Halloween nights." I figured dressing up with special effects(fx) makeup and scaring people would be a blast. I swiftly applied and was scheduled for an interview that week. I was excited for the interview because I knew I would nail it. I even brought in pictures of myself dressed up and wearing special fx makeup along with my resume.

When I sat down with the interviewer I was overjoyed. He asked me "so, what brings you here to our park?" I responded "well I love dressing up and while in school I learned how to do special fx, so this job would be a perfect fit." My smile was huge dimples in full effect. He sharply shot that down by saying "this interview is for the sports bar." My cheeks instantly deflated. When I realized he was still watching me and I quickly gritted my teeth and said "oh the sports bar, fun." I reached to grab my pictures and said "I guess you don't need to see these," he replied "I'll still look at them." Then he preceded to pick them up and look them over, a little too closely. He gave me a sly smile then said "wow, very nice." When he handed them back to me I quickly flipped them over and shuddered. The interview continued and by the end somehow I was shaking his hand and agreeing to work at the sports bar. After I set up my next appointment, I left dazed and confused.

My logic for accepting the job was, why not all comedians at some point have worked at a shitty restaurant. Over the next two weeks I attended two days of informative training sessions about the amusement park. On the second day we received our uniforms. My uniform was different from the rest of the trainees, their uniforms were bright blue polo shirts and stiff khakis. The sports bar uniform was a black polo and black pants. I felt like I had dodged a bullet. One other girl said she was hired for the sports bar as well. She was pretty, very thin, big beautiful curly hair, false eyelashes, she wore jeans and a long sleeved crop top. A long sleeved crop top is an oxymoron if you ask me, nevertheless she was shy and sweet. At some point she mentioned that she was still in high school. I thought to myself "whoa your parents must be really chill to let you dress like that for work." I guess times had really changed in the ten years after I graduated high school.

During the training I got my schedule for work, nowhere on it did it say sports bar. I asked to see the other girl's schedule, it only had sports bar. I was shook, so I spoke to the asst. manager, the guy who hired me and asked him "what the fuck buddy," no I kid I kid, but I did ask in my most sugary voice what the deal was. He told me he remembered me and blamed the scheduler for the mistake, reassuring me it'll be fixed. At the end of the training session I went to the scheduling office to see if the problem was addressed. They told me I was not on the list for the sports bar and that the guy went home. They then informed me that they couldn't change it until he comes back on Friday, my first day of work. I was livid, by this point I knew they were totally giving me the run around. However, I played it cool and went home.

On Friday as I was driving in for my first shift, the scheduler called me and said "there must have been a miscommunication the asst. manger always meant for you to just be a normal food service team member, so you'll have to come in and switch your uniform." I replied "no no he wrote sports bar on my paperwork," the scheduler responded with a dismissive "nope." I swear I almost veered off the freeway from shock. Being that I wasn't a quitter I told him "okay," and continued driving to work. I now think back on that moment and wonder if driving off a cliff would have been a better fate. As I pulled into the amusement park I couldn't stop thinking "wow was I replaced by a younger and hotter model? Was the sweet shy girl actually my competition?" I felt defeated. I didn't think the upgrade thing happened until your first marriage!!

If you would like to find out how my "The Simple Life" like escapade turned out, come back to my blog next week and I'll give you all the juicy details. Trust me I still had a GOOD TIME!


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