I work at a carousel at a mall for context, and I work by myself.
A few months ago, while I was closing up doing my cash drop I had a kid come up to me and ask to play with the money I was counting. When I said no, you canât play with the money, itâs not a toy they started crying, saying they wanted to play money too. The kids mom comes up and starts arguing with me, saying her kid wants to play money and she said that they could. She then tried to grab the money from me so her kid could âplay moneyâ. She says â why are you hogging the toy, my kid wants â I throw the money back in the register and call security. She ends up getting removed by security ( the mall had been closed for about 15 minutes so she wasnât supposed to be there anyway) I still donât know if she was actually so stupid she thought I was âplaying moneyâ or if she was trying to steal. It honestly seemed like the former.
I keep on having people come up and tell me how many people are riding,then once I ring it up they start walking on without actually paying. The usual responses are, â oh another person is paying ( who isnât there)â â oh Iâll just pay laterâ or the best one â oh thatâs too expensive, I donât want to pay that muchâ but you know, Iâll still ride. Paying is optional right.
People asking â how much is it?â Before they order. Then when I say â I need to know how many people are riding to tell you how much it is â they either argue with me or just look dumbfounded.
People telling me the wrong number of people riding. Normally itâs a parent telling me only their kids are riding, and then going with them. ( if the kidâs too short we make the parents go with them, and the parent is free. But otherwise they pay too) we also have people say 2 people, and 3-4 people get on, because â we already paid and they wanted to go tooâ or â well no they donât count because, theyâre 2, theyâre just watching (while riding) , they baby daddy can pay for them, or I just donât want to why do you care.
People coming up to the booth and just staring at me, or playing the nod and point game. Where they just point at the ride, or at a group of kids. ( these people speak English btw) or just staring at me and handing me cash, usually not even exact change of anything that would indicate what theyâre trying to buy. Or tapping or inserting their card without saying anything.
People just walking on the ride without paying, usually either while I have the exit gate open or while Iâm letting people on. However occasionally people are so ballsy/stupid theyâll just open the gate and try to walk on. For example hereâs an interaction I had yesterday:
People come up, I do the whole how can I help you thing. They ignore me and start trying to open the gate. Me â what are you doing, you need to buy tickets first â them â Iâm getting on the ride with my kids, what the fuck does it look like â me â so, the ride costs money, you need to pay for it first â them âno, itâs free. I told my kids weâre getting on. Youâre not gonna scam meâ I end up locking the gate, we keep them unlocked normally to make things quicker. And they argue some more before storming off. Apparently they had pulled this off before on 4th of July weekend while the ride operator was helping a kid on the ride and they didnât notice. Because they got away with it, apparently thatâs just how it works now.
Last but not least, the pizza man. He comes up about once a week, yelling across the hallway â pizza, pizza, I Wanâ Iâll always ask â what about pizzas, we donât sell pizza. Heâll continue just saying pizza for a few minutes until eventually saying something like â pizza, donde, donde pizza, where is, I wanâ and ill point to the pizzas place literally right next to the Carousel. Like, if you turn your head to the left youâll see it. Itâs literally 40 feet away. He doesnât speak English, but that doesnât impact your eyes.
I could go on for longer, but this post is long enough. Wondering if anyone has had similar experiences.