game master

general manager

assistant manager

director of marketing

associate manager

Breakout Operations LLC

Starting out, you are basically on call. Your hours are based on whether or not there is a booking for your scheduled game for the day. You only get an hour warning before you need to be there. You could have only one game scheduled an entire day, getting paid for only the duration of the game (1 hr) and the extra 30 minutes you're allowed to be on the clock. 

Some days you'll have 3 games, one at 10 am, one at 4 pm, and one at midnight. You are not allowed to be on the clock for more than 1.5 hours if there are no other games immediately following, meaning if you live more than 10 minutes away, your gas costs come close to what you make. I lived 20 minutes away at the time, so my commute for a single same was half of the duration of being on the clock. 

A busy day consists of full bookings, meaning you'll be running the same game every 2 hours, resetting the same room the same way saying the same thing to basically only the same 7 types of people (you see how eerily similar every human being is by watching them problem solve in a group for an hour) and saying the same thing over and over all day every single day, even if you learn and run every different game. 

The ONLY way to make consistent or even bill-paying money is to be promoted to something other than a Game Master. Then you get lobby host shifts, meaning you sit at the front desk, answer phones/take bookings and sign people in. Since you are the only employee required to be in the building when there are no bookings, you can depend on consistent hours there. Plus, they usually give you a pay raise when promoting you as well, which is nice. 

The problems there are that it's a hot commodity, everyone will be gunning for the shifts which means they are spread thin. In addition to that, every day you are scheduled on lobby for the entire day, you are basically sitting on your bum for up to 13 hours doing basically nothing. 

The corporate aspects of the company are frustrating. It's nice on paper, the investors will come and give you "we care about you first" pep-talks, with powerpoints and pretty diagrams with no actual point. In actuality, all they care about is spreading their seed and opening as many stores as possible while neglecting the stores they've already opened. We rarely, if ever got reimbursements for buying necessities we needed in the moment. We were paying out of pocket for toilet paper, lock replacements, props, etc. We also had several leaks, pipes burst, and a broken toilet. All of which we never even got a RESPONSE from corporate.

I know it sounds like I'm pooping all over this place. But I will say this is a good fit for those who live in close proximity to the location and really just need some extra side cash (i.e. students, retirees). Though it is boring, it is relaxed and pretty chill. If you like your coworkers, and they don"t smell like stale cigarettes and BO, then it's not so bad being stuck in a tiny room with them for hours at a time.

The Good:
- Best manager I have ever worked for. After four years we have really come to care for each other and are invested in each other's lives. 
- Most coworkers are pleasant to be around and engage with. Breakout's structure allows plenty of time for conversing during shifts, and the day/night flies by when you're actually friends with your coworkers.
- Shifts are easy to get covered if you end up not wanting to come in for a game. 
- Systems/processes/games are easy to learn. Once you get the hang of it, learn everything there is to know about the company, and become comfortable talking to guests, it's the easiest job in the world. 
- Frequent raises. Typically every six months, but I was often able to asked and receive raises in between the six months as well.

The Bad:
- Hours are scarce during the week. Typically corporate team building groups are the best way to get a few hours during the week. Weekends can be hit or miss, especially during the school year, but typically are booked pretty solid. 
- No holidays off, unless you request off in advance. Breakout only closes for Easter, Christmas, and either Christmas Eve or Thanksgiving. If you work Christmas Eve or Thanksgiving, you do receive holiday pay, but that is the only holiday that allows holiday pay.
- Monotonous.
- Hospitality/corporate booking agents routinely mess up bookings and misinform guests, which in turn can really derail the schedule for the day. We were often putting out fires/dealing with issues that weren't caused by us, but that we were forced to assume responsibility for due to the ineptness of other's outside of our location.
- Hours are scarce. Repeating because it truly is a difficult workplace to get hours. You have to strategize in order to work enough to scrape by. As one of the "full time" employees, I was scheduled 80+ hours every week and on a good week would work about 25, a poor week work 15, and on a great week work 40+. Some really terrible weeks I worked fewer than 10. I wouldn't recommend this as your only job if you are looking for full time work.

Breakout changed a lot in my time with the company. I found that corporate increasingly prioritized the satisfaction of guests over that of employees. I wouldn't say that corporate values its employees, perhaps with the exception of its General Mangers, although I'm sure that is on a case-by-case basis. The majority of complaints that came from my coworkers is that they are bored all the time at work. The experience simply ceases to be exciting after so many weeks. Far and away though, Breakout has been the most fun place I've ever worked thanks to the employee dynamic we have cultivated at this location. All in all, it is a good place to work for part time hours/during school. I have made many lifelong friends at this job that I'm very grateful for. I now view Breakout as a job for socializing, not for money. If that's something you're interested in, definitely apply.

Typically, when scheduled, one must look on "Resova" to see if they need to come in. If you are scheduled on a game, there are some days where none book so you don't come in at all, leading to a lack of guaranteed hours, and therefore, money.

I do believe that I came out with a greater understanding of how workplaces and managing work, seeing as this was the first and only job that I've had. Other than that, I have also learned that on-call schedules are not for me.

Management, recently, has been changing a lot. Changes have been made to corporate, district management, general managers, and assistant managers, leading to an unstable understanding of how the company should be run due to many ideas all changing at once.

The workplace culture (not including management and corporate) is pretty great. I did enjoy my team as a whole and loved working alongside them. Management and corporate, however, made the culture more stressed and negative due to ongoing secretive changes being made.

The hardest part of the job is keeping up with the ongoing changes being constantly made by and to management. There are many sudden changes to what is and what is not a part of someone's job, leading to inevitable overstepping of job requirements.

The most enjoyable part of the job, I would say, again would be my peers that I worked alongside. Again, I loved my team and would've loved to continue working alongside them.

There's a lot of good and a lot of bad from my time at Breakout.

Overall, the people were the best part of the job. Everyone was pretty laid-back, and the assistant managers were genuinely kind people who were very patient whenever they were training anyone. Everyone was pretty easy to work with and talk to.

The worst part of the job, by far, was the inconsistent hours. I asked for around 20 hours a week when I was first hired on, and the general manager said he'd try to get me 25. At Breakout, however, you're put on the schedule for 50-70 hours per week, but only come in and get paid for whenever one of your games booked. This meant that you spend a huge amount of time on-call, completely unpaid. You might be scheduled for 11 hours, but wind up working none of it if you've been given an unpopular room on a quiet day. Therefore, I was lucky to get 15 hours a week, nevertheless 20-25.

The job itself wasn't difficult. Training tended to be pretty thorough, and managers were willing to give you extra time to learn a room if you thought you needed it. Customers were usually easy to work with, and it is genuinely fun watching the groups and giving clues.

Overall, I can not recommend working at Breakout to anyone who relies on having a steady stream of income. It's a job much better suited to high school or college kids during the summer looking for something fun to do to make a little cash. It's an upbeat and unusual environment, but the randomness of hours makes it too much of a pain.

You NEVER know what hours your going to get. You only get paid if games book and games can book up to 2 hours before so sometimes you don't know if you're going to have to work until an hour before you have to leave (because you have to be there a half hour before the game). also you can be scheduled from 8am to 1am and get no games and no pay, or you could end up working the entire time from 8am to 2am and there's nothing you can do to even know if that's going to happen. Also, I got fired because someone told my manager that I was planing to quit because I wasn't making enough money, even though I had been working there for over a year, was scheduled 5-6 days a week for 5-17 hour shifts, and I made less than $9,000. AND THAT'S EVEN THOUGH I WAS BEING PAID $10 AN HOUR SO THE HOURLY WAGE MAKES NO DIFFERENCE. Also, the air conditioner wouldn't work in our lobby during the summer and they wouldn't even let us put a fan in there, much less get one for us, and when the heat didn't work in the winter, my manager put a tiny space heater that would toast your feet and nothing else. Management doesn't care about employees at all. Also my manager fired me on a day that it was icy, dangerous, and snowing, so I drove for an hour to get to work (the trip was usually half an hour) then an hour back almost immediately because I got fired as soon as I got there.

I really enjoyed most of my years at breakout but the past year it went really downhill. The rooms always have something broken or a work around implemented in the games. The upper management is nonexistent and the two assistant managers are in control of everything. They also make themselves like friends and clearly have their favorites among the staff so it’s nearly impossible to have professional conversations. The staff were friendly and for the most part the work environment was very inclusive. If you are in college and can only work weekends this job is great. If you are full time then know that with the on-call schedule you will be off the clock most days just waiting on something to book on your schedule. Some days you might be scheduled to work all day but make nothing because your games don’t book. If you work there long enough to become a lobby host there is potential to get 40+ hours a week but that is the only advancement you can make and it doesn’t happen often. I recommend this Part Time Job to students who want a relaxing job, but if you are trying to pay rent then go somewhere else. 

I fell in love with this job because of my coworkers. I worked here through school and even moved up to be a part of management, but this job is not for the weak. There is extreme favoritism, the ASMS are forced to do the GM's job with no extra pay. Speaking of pay, an ASM there won't even get a pay raise and will be expected to have more jobs than game masters, but have the same pay. There is no way to guarantee hours. You will either get none or too much in a week. There are built-in breaks, if there is the staff for it, but if there isn't expect to work 8-12 hours straight on the weekends. The higher-ups do not care about conflict inside individual stores but only about sales. Your GM will say you're expendable and you are only seen as a worker and not a person. You will be expected to meet expectations that not everyone is held so be prepared for that. Lastly, be prepared for NO communication from management and for the horrible on call aspect with not a high enough pay for it. 

I worked in the Lexington store as a Gamemaster which was the first Breakout location, it is supposed to be the best of the best. And as far as I could tell, it was. It was such a fun work environment and there was a culture of sorts between all of the co-workers, we could fully trust one another to help out and take the job seriously. But, seriousness aside, it was also just super fun to watch people try to escape the rooms, boy do I have some great stories from working here! Management was fantastic, I genuinely felt seen and appreciated and we rarely had problems because, as I said, most everyone who worked there cared about the job.
However, it was very difficult to get enough hours. Not to mention that the nature of the job requires you to be on call which can make it so difficult to plan your day. I recommend this job to anyone who wants to be in a fun environment, but only if you plan to get a second job or you're younger and are just looking for some spending money.

I have watched so many people come and go from this company in a matter of a few years. The turn around is so fast when people realize they get next to no hours because it is on-call. The culture stinks, you have a lot of people with giant egos making you feel awful about yourself and the guests can be really really rude. It is NOT like any retail job, you are with these people for up to an hour and a half and there is no escape. There isn't built in breaks because the corporate office wont schedule it into our game system so people will go 8 hour shifts on a Saturday with nothing. Given, our job isn't the hardest, but it would be nice to not have to rush around or have time to breathe. The many managers we have had all don't care or want to participate in the activity of the store. The Assistant Manager's take on everything by themselves and aren't paid to do so. There are no benefits because we don't work enough even though everyone wants to work. 

I loved working at breakout games. It was a fun and enjoyable experience. The employees I worked with and management was a blast and loved going to work, but there is a few things you should know if you're thinking about applying.

1)The pay is horrible as you only get paid for the games you receive. Meaning if people aren't booking games during your shift. You won't get paid at all. The pro side  is if you don't have a game book. You don't have to show up to work.

2) The company itself only cares about popular locations. Also they care about google reviews. The will push you to push people to leave a review. They use it as a metric to see which locations are doing well. Not enough google reviews. They will make sure they give the most hours to those people.


Overall the job is fun as a side gig, Something to do as an easy secondary job. Just know that this will never sustain you financially.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Game master 100 salaries reported	$12.96 per hour
General manager 4 salaries reported	$51,250 per year
Assistant manager 1 salary reported	$11.00 per hour
Director of marketing 5 salaries reported	$25.00 per hour
Associate manager 1 salary reported	$35,000 per year

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