mechanic

ride operator

lifeguard

food service associate

area supervisor

Californias Great America

Great America is a fun place to work at IF you have good management in your building, which is something this place lacks. 
My first couple weeks were fun and enjoyable but that started fading when i noticed that after awhile of being there Management could care less about you as a person, I thought Team Leads, Managers & Employees were suppose to work together as a team, help one another and overcome any challenges together, Well in my experience Team Leads & Manager would not do that, Often times they would make you do all the petty work that they do not wanna do themselves. They never helped unless it was super busy or higher up managers were in the building and even still then they would only do the easy work so it shows they’re “doing something”. Manager would also remove your shifts or shorten them from 8 hours to 4 hours, even after a higher up supervisor had set your schedule, Manager would change it if they didn’t like you. Team Leads would often talk bad about employees behind their backs aswell. you’re allowed to take your breaks/lunch up to 2 hours early if you want but they forgot to mention it’s mostly up to Team Leads/Managers if you do or not. there were so many days where once I knew what supervisor/team leads I had, I knew it was going to be a frustrating day. If it’s a slow day they will send you home really early so there’s no job security what’s so ever this is a bad place to work at if you have consistent bills you need to pay monthly. Anyways,  We all get a 15 minute break & a 30 minute lunch, but if any of the employees went over even just by ONE minute you would immediately get in trouble for “Time fraud” even if that one minute was you walking back to your building . Most of the times managers and team leads will just hang out in the kitchen just talking or on their phones, which i found extremely unfair because i saw one of my coworkers take out her phone to check the time in the kitchen after she was done washing her hands and she immediately got in trouble by a team lead, I understand not using your phone in the front where customers can see you but that was just ridiculous, i even overheard them tell her that she’s not allowed to use her phone AT ALL unless she’s on break and if she’s going to that she needs to ask for permission before doing so. But with them they can just use it whenever they please, i assume because they’re part of Management they think that the same rules that apply to employees do not apply to them. During closing times all the employees would be incredibly busy doing what they were told to do, Sometimes they would try and set time limits on us which i thought was insane because one person alone cannot wash every single dirty dish/trays/bins/buckets etc in 30 minutes. We are also not allowed to eat anything in our building unless a higher up manager gives us permission, On many different occasions i saw Team Leads eating ice cream and using their phone, sitting down or just talking to each other about random things while everybody else was trying to finish cleaning on time. One time i saw my coworker getting ready to leave because her shift was already over and as soon as she had grabbed all her belongings and closed her locker the manager walks over and looks around the floor and sees a spill that these other girls did while cleaning a machine and the manager immediately looked at her and told her to clean that mess up even though her shift was over and she was practically out the door already, The manager wasn’t even doing anything at that time either all she did was walk around and then come back into the kitchen and use her phone, when my coworker refused to clean up the mess she didn’t make and told her that her shift was over and she had to leave the manager got mad at her and said “If im telling you to clean something up then you need to clean it up you shouldn’t have to talk back and i shouldn’t have to clean this up because you didn’t want to” Even though she was a minor and she wasn’t even suppose to be in the building anymore hearing that made my jaw drop they would always do some petty stuff like that. This same coworker always looked like she was getting picked on by team leads and coworkers that one time she snapped and just went home early. When my shift was over and it was time for everybody to leave because team leads always leave last, i heard the team leads and managers say “They left so much work for us” on my way out. The following day when i had come into work it was 3:00pm and nobody was in the building even though i saw some of our team leads in Associate services when i had clocked in. When i turned on the lights 4 other coworkers had walked in but still no management. When me and my coworkers looked around we noticed that more than half of the dishes from last night were still in the sink dirty, the tables inside had a bunch of dirty trays on them because they didn’t fit in the sink with everything else, the trash cans were full and not taken out the night before, and the kitchen floor was extremely dirty & the front counters and floors were also dirty as well, there was only 4 of us and it was 3:30pm already mind you were suppose to open at 4pm, at around 3:45pm two team leads had finally shown up, Late and with drinks in their hand. when i saw the employee sheet they actually started at 2:30pm but where nowhere to be found until almost 4pm. Oh yeah and did i mention that Team Leads never locked away all the Alcohol they had in the walk in fridge and left it unlocked on many different occasions that i actually saw other UNDERAGE employees who were sent there to put sodas/waters away taking shots of what looked like to be a Tequila bottle? One of them even took a white claw or truly can i didn’t see exactly what they had taken, but they were also underage  I thought minors were not allowed to touch alcohol. Good job Great America. 

**The following review states my personal experiences with the company over many years, and may differ from others'. These are my own accounts of actual instances I have experienced first hand as well as experiences I have witnessed happen to my colleagues.**

I have worked here for a seriously extensive amount of time. To maintain anonymity, I will not disclose the exact length; but trust me.. a LONG time. 

I have learned alot, and I absolutely love the creative aspect and the "all in this together" attitude. 

However, the management is completely disorganized and lacks initiative. Our salaried manager works 8 hour days or less even when we are rebuilding sets, trusses and theaters. They have missed crane calls. They are not available by phone when they aren't in. They tend to be controlling in a distinctly condescending way. They contradicts the supervisors in front of line level employees, and they impulsively come up with their own solutions without communicating or listening to any input from the team that started or is deeply experienced in the project. Often, they will say something and then famously claim "i never said that" to discredit us, I dont know that is intentional as I believe at heart They are a good person. 
Corporate knows all of this and does nothing to discipline it, despite many employee complaints. 
When we take initiative and use our skills and down time to fix anything that needs fixing, management is distrusting and will usually get upset and explain things as if we aren't educated on the skill we just displayed, even when all previous showcasings if this skill have been positively met by higher management and corporate. 

Most of the skills we have are self taught and coming from high school theater technicians, because there is absolutely no training whatsoever. We all train eachother on different skillsets we are familiar with and the team works really hard despite feeling that management is against us. 

Due to lack of communication and initiative from supervisors, technicians have been put in incredibly uncomfortable positions with corporate visits; corporate understandably assumes that the technician failed to communicate issues to the supervisor, when realistically the supervisor has been unavailable and unresponsive during these corporate previews. Situations like these make the team look incompetant despite their extremely loyal and driven attitude and complete dedication to their shows. 

Employees I know have received retaliation and been targeted by supervisors when speaking up for themselves or trying to escalate these issues. HR has been as helpful as possible but there hasn't been any concrete changes.

The people that knew how to run the department and the ones that were knowledgeable enough and driven enough to train the team have left due to disorganization, poor communication, poor pay, lack of employee recognition, and drama. The people who are still here that have the capabilities to run, train and help fix the department are unable to commit full time to the job because the lack of pay and benefits is forcing them out of the park. We are below the 10th percentile in pay for the type of work we do.  The team is dismally small, and they still can't pay us a decent wage. 

Management knows this and had promised us raises with placement brackets. They had us take those placement tests over a year ago, yet they never gave us the raises they promised. The techs here are young and passionate, and they live paycheck to paycheck, it's my belief that they won't ever unionize for those reasons. Some are content with how things are, but I see the crew's potential and have seen the work they put in — they deserve more than the sad compensations and lack of recognition that they get for dealing with everything they have dealt with. 

As far as the techs that have stayed for years and years, the company has nothing to thank them for and their specific park knowledge and greater ability to understand and delegate tasking and maintain theaters and systems is not met with the compensation it is worth whatsoever, so sadly those experienced, knowledgeable and  most passionate great america on site techs eventually are forced to take the higher paying jobs that do care if they stay and do reward them and recognize them for their work. That will be the cycle forever until they decide to pay competitively and make the job a liveable one that you can support yourself with. If that were the case now, the job being liveable with benefits and pay, even with all the other stuff we deal with, I would most likely work at this park for the rest of my life. This job is infectiously fun and challenging, but sadly I just can't afford to do it anymore.

This team is a family, and small but absolutely mighty. I absolutely love the crew and our ability to lift eachother up.

If you work here as a tech, you will love it, and despise it all at the same time.

If anybody in corporate has read this, even upper management, please know that, coming from someone who has seen what happens down here; any employer would be beyond lucky to have such a dedicated and patient crew. They deserve care, fair compensation, and acknowledgment for their unwavering commitment.
Please, take care of them.

I worked at Great America as a Ride Operator when I was 15, and I stayed at the company for two years. For a starting job, I'd say it's pretty good. The starting wage is great, especially for people in high school, and it comes with good benefits, like access to free tickets through working a certain number of hours. Additionally, they're pretty good when it comes to compensating you for work days, allowing you to schedule yourself on days you're available. However, for the Ride Operator position in general, it can be both physically and mentally draining. Sitting around might sound easy, but when you have to do so in the hot summer weather while also constantly having to work in the heat, without any access to air conditioning, it can really get to you. The guests are a mixed bag. A good majority of the time (in my experience, anyways), the guests will usually be pretty friendly. However, you will run across guests who will try to pick fights with you, guests who will break rules with no regards to their surroundings, and guests who will be rude to you. Even if you're someone with a lot of patience, getting berated by strangers all because you're just trying to do your job can wear your mental health down quick. In terms of promotions, they offer Trainers, where you train new employees at rides, and Supervisors, which are basically just a step above. From the time I worked there, they offered these positions pretty frequently, and they do give pay increases, so if that's something you're interested in, you can go for that. All in all, Great America in my opinion is a good choice for a starting job if you're looking for one, as they're very open to all kinds of employees and will actively hire those with no experience. However, the job can be both physically and mentally draining, and in my opinion, I couldn't see myself staying there for more than a year or two. If you're looking for a secure job with a pretty good starting pay, though, Great America might be for you.

It could be better and it could be worse. The hours are good ONLY during the summer as the park is open the full week. I do not recommend the job until the summer seeing as you will only get weekends until then. If that is something, you'd like then work your way to the week, go right ahead. The job work is fairly easy. This is from someone that worked there for 2 seasons. Most of the time, it will feel kind of like you are being under appreciated. I say this and emphasize this from personal experience and from what co workers say. That is a huge factor in why I did not return to Great America. I could have been promoted, but I was at the wrong place and at the wrong time. (Of course, many would think of this as blaming the circumstances, but this is my honest review) 
There are decent supervisors but will occasionally forget to their own work. I have seen them just sitting around and talking with co workers while the rest work. That is a huge bother to me. 
Also the time of which you work is important. If you are placed to work after 12, you are out of luck as you will have the most work and most pressure. Those that are close to their supervisors will try to edge their way into getting the morning shift as it is very easy and laid back. I admit I did this a couple of times. I have also noticed how much co workers will suck up to supervisors inhales for good hours or good locations. (You will understand what locations means when you work there)
Pay was 8.00 in 2013, then 9.00 in 2014, then in the middle of 2015, July, will it raise to 10.00 but will stay at that price for a while.
The environment is fun, I must admit. I met so many awesome people and was the primary reason to return for the second season. 
Sorry for the long report but I had to share this.

Working at Great America is interesting because the amusement park is so large, the experience has a lot of dimensions to it. There's the general park management experience and the experience one has in their own department.
When it comes to general park management, things tend to get disorganized and complicated. Expect HR to be kind of slow and at times difficult to work with. I think the most complicated part of working at Great America is having to deal with the HR department. When I started my first season, they failed to send me an official job offer from Cedar Fair. My start date was delayed by two weeks because of this, but we managed to work it out. Overall, if you're willing to be proactive and make sure nobody messes up your stuff, it should be okay. And during the 2016 season, the people working in Associate Services are really really really rude about sizing and uniform (they would refuse to give associates proper-fitting uniforms because of their own personal judgement and not by actual clothing sizes. My pants were always about 2 sizes too big. My manager once took me to associate services to get a belt WHILE I WAS ON THE CLOCK because it was so bad.)
In my own department (Park Services), I had a lot of fun. Park Services is basically being a janitor, but the associates are usually really fun to work with and I've made a lot of friends from there. Management within the department varies each season, as people are in and out of here within months, so there's no way to predict who's going to be running the place. 
In general, I really liked working here but was annoyed with all of the completely preventable inconveniences created by the more corporate side of management.

We would go to work clock-in and be briefed about the daily actiivities that were going on for the day. We would get info how busy the park was and what incidents have occured that day. Then we would receive our assignments and go to our destinated posts. Two officers manned Post 4, 3-5 officers would head over to the front gate and the rest were in park patrol about 6-10 officers patroling in their assigned beat areas. I learned how to scan and be on the look for anybody suspcious or suspcious vehilcle who didn't belong in our employee parking lot. I learned how to approach customers talk and deal with them by watching the other officers and supervisors how they handled customers with complaints or asking for directions. I learned how to handle missing kids in the park. I learned all the codes that needed to be memorized and how to be able to tell which code I was calling in. I learned how to call in codes fast and efficiently. I learned alot about how to patrol in a vehicle though I never drove any of the vehicles while I was employed at Great America. Management was alright I liked most of my supervisors and managers. Co-workers I had my likes and dislikes about them but overall I got along them great and they got along with me great too. doing building checks in a timely manner I that was challengening for me and getting other stuff done that needed to get done rightaway. I always screwed up on calls and screwed up at Post 4 alot and at Front Gate a couple of times. Overall I mostly enjoyed days when we didn't have alot of work to do and we would order pizza and talk during graveyard shifts cuz there wasn't much to do at times. On days when the park was closed was the most chilled and relaxed swing shifts I have ever experienced. Those days were easy money.

Worked as a Merchandise supervisor in a theme park which has enhanced my interpersonal skills when dealing with clients and associates. As a supervisor I was responsible for running multiple stores in a designated area of the park, making the shifts for my employees, training new hires, training current associates for lead positions, planning out and giving breaks schedules for associates breaks and lunches every day, merchandising and stocking, filling out order forms, filling out cash change order forms, responsible for +$8,000 every day, cash handling accuracy, and fixing, organizing, and redesigning displays on walls. I also presented monthly reports to the merchandise directors of the park. I became employee of the month out of every merchandise and game employee from the park for excellent job performance and customer service. Hardest part of the job was time management, but after a couple of weeks, it got easier with practice. Also, the park was basically ran by teenagers and young adults . I was a 16year old supervisor running a section of the merchandise park. If anything went wrong the blame would be on me. This job taught me at a young age about responsibility, management, leadership, and communication skills. Most enjoyable part of the job was connecting with my fellow co-supervisors and associates. They became part of my family and were the reason that made my job fun, memorable, and worth the low pay.

A typical day at work is first getting on the floor and clocking in, then report to supervisor who came in. Then sending people on their lunches before they violate, after they come back from lunch at whichever game you are at i would take care of last breaks. meanwhile help guests, explain the rules for the game, and assist in any way that i could. I would also make sure i'm advertising for the game and keeping my work area clean. I would then talk to supervisors and make sure co workers with mid shifts got their last breaks. Then when it came around time for closers last breaks, i would start them and make sure everyone had one. Second to last thing id so if fix any display that is needed, close down games and take the mics down to tech services and make sure they were plugged in then clock out when my shift is over. I learned a lot working at great america, like advertising for my game, time management, and cash handling. In great america all co workers are relatively close and make sure everyone is okay throughout the day. Management is very good and will make sure you have everything you need and will go beyond expectation to make sure you are having a good day. The hardest part of the job is staying in the sun for hours when its hot. The most enjoyable part of the job is getting to work with my coworkers and interacting with guests.

The job as a ride operator is quite heavy on guest interaction which wasn't too bad overall, depending on where you were assigned.

I typically enjoyed my job and responsibilities, when I'm assigned to stay in my area.

Most of my colleagues treated me with respect and is one of the top reasons why I currently enjoy my position.

Some downsides to working at CGA are the benefits employees receive. No health insurance and that jazz at this position (and most I would assume), no free food (it is very cheap however). The only real benefit that employees receive are free tickets, 8 for first-years, and 16 for consecutive returners.

Times for breaks and lunches were relatively strict. The timing system would be strict about clocking in from breaks, but the supervisors were not too hard on times, just show up on time to shifts and return from lunch and rest breaks on-time in a reasonable manner.

Most people say they did not enjoy their job at CGA, but I would say that if you aren't a degenerate/completely lazy, able to stand in the heat for 2-4 hours at a time, and can deal with guests, then being a ride operator should be a fun job for people.

For this job, I have signed up to be a talent, and also a blackout. A "talent" is responsible for scaring the audience and is also responsible for keeping them safe with a fun and safe environment. A "blackout" is responsible for those who are a trouble for the maze. They are to call the supervisor for report if there are any of the audience's are disrespecting others, and also ruining the maze. Learning about the people that are around you is important because it is a necessity to have some sort of communication with each other. My co-workers were able to communicate with me and we were able to perform a skill that we wanted to do. Also the other co-workers that were in the maze were fun and put a smile on my face because of how funny they were scaring people. They were able to stand up for each other whenever someone tried to disrespect others. The hardest part of the job is when I make mistakes. Sometimes making a mistake, big or small, can make a huge impact on others and also the environment. However, I never made those mistakes twice. The most enjoyable part of the job is the job itself. Whether I'm scaring the audience, or watching the audience get scared, it was enjoyable.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Mechanic 16 salaries reported	$37.72 per hour
Ride operator 3 salaries reported	$20.33 per hour
Lifeguard 4 salaries reported	$21.25 per hour
Food service associate 5 salaries reported	$20.20 per hour
Area supervisor 2 salaries reported	$24.00 per hour

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