staff associate

ticket sales representative

assistant manager

MJR DIGITAL CINEMAS

I worked for MJR for about 7 years, and it was not hard to move up in the company. I really enjoyed the people I worked with and there was no shortage of fun to be had on a daily basis. It was a blast to act as sort of a mentor for younger people, especially those who came to the theater as their first job like me. I became a manager and got to see how things were run from the corporate level down. From a payment standpoint, you would never really make the money you deserve based on your work unless you became a GM or make it to the corporate level, and even then maybe not. There's a lot of good people in the company, but there are definitely some politics and gossip that I do believe make some aspects of the company a tad rotten. I personally was not a fan of most of the people in higher up positions. There were those who were quiet and kept to themselves mostly, but other voices in the company were just not like that. Business levels at theaters varies a lot, and maybe there were just too many slow days or something, because hearsay and gossip were prevalent. That type of thing is obviously not very professional and even individuals who were supposedly above that still contributed to it. If you ever become unfavorable to your peers in the company it might not go well for you (turnover at the higher levels was really low). I don't have a ton of experience with other companies, so I don't have a frame of reference for anything. I imagine similar things happen at other companies. My time ended there because I made a few mistakes and they were not very forgiving or understanding. Ultimately, my mistakes were my fault, but I think the environment did not help. I say all this to make the point that a level headed professional individual could really excel at MJR if they are willing to wait a long time for opportunities to advance and they are okay with navigating some office politics here and there as well as some inconsistent expectations. The movie industry is very fun to a part of and I will miss it.

A typical day consists of standing at a cash register for 6-9 hours selling tickets or food to patrons, or ripping tickets/cleaning auditoriums. Hours are flexible and good for students, but there are no full time positions aside from upper management. Expect 20-30 hours per week. Shift times are different every week and schedules are sent out weekly. No limit on taking days off, but there is no guarantee of having any day or time off of work until the schedule is released that week. Sometimes you can't make personal plans until 3 days in advance. Management varies a lot depending on the person, I'd say it's 50/50 between strict and kind managers. Generally an easy job, but almost no opportunity for advancement or pay increase unless you are promoted, which usually takes at least 2 years. Pay increase for a supervisor is an additional $1/hr, and management makes slightly more if you are lucky enough to be promoted again but it may take 4 years or more. Be aware that most people are required to stand for their full 8-hour shift aside from a 30 minute break. Employees are sometimes not able to clock in until several minutes after they start working, and may still have things to do after clocking out, so you miss out on 5-10 minutes' pay each shift. Pay is bi-weekly and direct deposit is available, generally takes about a week for a pay period to process before you receive the deposit. Most patrons and coworkers are generally pleasant, but some patrons can become angry very easily and it can quickly drive you insane having to answer the same stupid questions for every person who walks up to you, like explaining that the screen is at the front of the auditorium when they want try to pick their seats. Some patrons are pretty rude, too, throwing money across the counter at you and interrupting you when you try to answer their questions.

This employment is mostly designed for busy college and high school students. I started at 16 and it was a dream. I made 7.25 an hour and I got free movies on my off days. Management when i started was fairly good. They were understanding with you about schedules and shifts. The environment was fairly welcoming and it overall was not too bad. Upon being their about 6 months, the management got a new GM and several lower managers had quit or been transferred. The hours started to decrease; being moved/ advancement in the company was still little to none; and they started to hire people who didn't want to do the job correctly. You would get rude customers, rude workers and long hours for the little pay. Soon I saw 7.25 was not worth it to drive 45 minutes for a job I was slowly dreading. I took multiple shifts on my off days or days I had to change; but no one was ever willing to help out even in the event of my grandfather's death or my sickness that lead to me losing my voice and being bed ridden for a week. It was always one-sided when it came to taking or relieving others of their shifts. It was good when I first started and in summer, though I did not have a social life because of my varying and long schedule, the money was good. The great things about this job were the on time schedules so you would know almost instantly on Tuesdays about what you may need to change or work out and also in the summer, the free movies were pretty cool as well (though you could get em year round). The hardest part about the job was being able to handle being their almost a year and not get even trained in another position; as well as dealing with employees that saw their job as simply a paycheck, instead of a quality service as well. I did meet some great people, though they eventually forgot about you and turned their backs when you tried to talk to them.

Being my first job, I had no real expectations coming into this place. However, working here gave me a horrible impression of management for future jobs. The managers were either cool people but horrible at their job, or they had a really big ego...and also were horrible at their job. It was also very clear that they showed some favoritism for certain workers over others. The GM was okay at dealing with customers, but he never worked as a general employee before, and thus he had no idea how the job was done. Expectations were higher than a hippie on April 20th. There were often too many problems for too few employees. Another major problem was that if somebody else did something wrong, you had just as much of a risk of getting written up as they did. The coworkers were just about the only thing that made it bearable, but even then it was very gossipy and there was always someone talking about another employee behind their back. I figured after quitting I'd realize that working there had made me a better person, however that is not the case. The employees that do a poor job are often recognized as better than the actual good workers by management. Why? Because they're more charismatic. Is that fair? Absolutely not. At some point I must have picked up on that, and I became lazy but talkative. Working here was a big detriment to my motivation and attitude.

But I got free drinks while I was on the clock, so that's pretty cool, and they are good at working with your schedule. Unless you tell them a few seconds after they take the book away that you need a day off, then they just say "we'll think about it" and not give it to you.

A typical day at work in the Concession stand would usually consist of arriving at work at 8:30 in the morning to start the preparations for the day. This would include making the popcorn, pretzels, making sure the soda towers are functioning properly and to set up the front counter according to how busy we assumed it would be that day. After we had opened, depending on the day of the week and whether it was a holiday or not, customers would flood box office with ticket purchases and then proceed to come up to the concession stand. As a supervisor, it was my job to stay in the back of the stand and make sure the warmers stayed full of the popcorn and that I had all of the bags open and ready to go. As far as my co-workers go, I enjoyed working with all of them. There were five supervisors in total and we had about 30 employees in the stand. Not everyone was in the stand at one time, but there were times that we had quite a handful on our plate. The hardest part of the job was maintaining a steady head during the really busy times. I would not only have to handle making the popcorn and maintain all of the other machines in the back, but occasionally I would have to go up front to handle a customer dispute or make change for an employee. Outside of the busy times, however, I did really enjoy the job. I enjoyed working with all of my managers and fellow supervisors. I took away many friendships and memories from working here. It was, overall, a fantastic experience.

I worked at mjr over the course of three years and I never once felt appreciated for the work I did. It was pretty clear from the beginning that management picked favorite employees, and if you didn’t buy them their Starbucks or get food for them, then you were basically useless in their eyes. In order for managment to feel important and high and mighty, they would just give out random write-ups, probably to help boost their ego and make them feel special in front of the GM. While I was there, it was mostly meeting new people and getting to know them that got me through my ten hour shifts. That was really the only positive part of my mjr experience. And god forbid when the boss of the GM shows up, because that’s when management panics and they actually have to do something, other than hanging out at the bar watching Family Feud and talking innapropriately about their fellow employees to the bartenders. Also, certain members of management are quite young, and the only reason they were promoted was because they were managements best friend or they were related to another manager. Basically this place is just unprofessional and management has absolutely no respect for anyone else other than themselves.

When I worked there about a year ago it was a ok job. It was my first job and I was really excited because I finally had one but overall when I look back at it it was a decent job. The pay was really low though like I was a minor and under 18 so I got paid around 7.67/hr which absolute sucked because I would do the same amount of work if not more than my co-worker at some times who got payed more because they were 18. If you do decide to work there though you'll probably meet a bunch of cool and nice people. The reason why I stayed so long at the company is because I really like most of my co-workers and at the time most of were all in high school or college and could relate to each other with that. Downsides were low pay, your always on your feet for hours in 1 spot, really busy which can be stressful, erratic/rude customers, and being overworked sometimes. Management overall was ok and I never really had any problems with them. Also if you do get hired there make sure your on your A-game and doing your best because you can get promoted to supervisor reallyyyyy easy. We had multiple supervisors in each department and 9/10 they always need one.

The concession stand area was perpetually grimy, unkempt, and discombobulated. Food-making facilities such as the pizza oven or automatic fryer would constantly break down or burn food, causing us to remake almost half of our orders. Management was disorganized and made it difficult to get time off, including for school/extracurricular activities or family emergencies. There was a ridiculous policy of employees not being allowed to accept tips, even when customers requested to. When we did receive tips, management would just pocket the money and exchange it to us for "employee points." We were constantly understaffed and overworked for each shift, and many times were not allowed to go to our lunch break until the line in front of our register was gone. (One night I was not allowed to have my lunch break until over 4 hours after it was scheduled.) At a wage of only $9.45 per hour,  it is not worth the amount of stress and responsibility each shift entails. You're better off working at Emagine Theaters or anywhere else that treats their employees reasonably.  

~Management is absolutely horrible. They just stand around and do nothing. The only time they do something is when the GM's boss comes in so they all have to spread out and act like they're doing something.
~Before i started this job i didn't know how to make a mop, or apparently how to mop.
~Everyone besides like 3 people that work with me are young. So you meet some cool people but the gossip is out of control. 
~The hardest part about this job is cleaning the theaters on time on a busy day.
~The most enjoyable part is meeting new people and learning new things that you can use outside of work.
~Supervisors think they're so highly of themselves even though they're only about 3 years older than everyone else. They yell at us when something doesn't get done yet they lie and tell management they did what's expected to be done.
~Be prepared for the random write-ups. One of the reasons we get them is for doing what the managers do everyday, stand there and talk to our colleagues.

I've worked here for a long time. It definitely has its pros and cons. It's a great place to work when it comes to flexibility, location and simplicity. Seriously, it's a common sense job for everyone. The unfortunate thing is that there is almost no opportunities for full time employment or raises. The only people who are full time are upper management (GM and a couple full time managers), while there are also part time assistant managers like me. Everything else is minimum wage unless you're a department supervisor for a dollar more than minimum wage. Great place to work for when you're in school (college too) and need flexibility. The company was also bought by a European theatre company last year which has been an interesting change; constantly getting new, random procedures thrown at us out of no where. Still in that transition period, but not a huge deal. Overall, good place to work that just has its moments.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Staff associate 2 salaries reported	$12.50 per hour
Ticket sales representative 1 salary reported	$38,000 per year
Assistant manager 1 salary reported	$14.00 per hour

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