Eight years gone...

The movie theater in LaGrange where I’ve worked since my freshman year of college closed down for good two Thursdays ago. Honestly, it was about time, and a new one is currently being built (though it won’t be done till about November). I’d been planning to hang on till I was done with school, going over to the new theater and continuing to work there (I was going to get to learn digital projection and was looking forward to it, but oh well). I was pretty much just working one night a week, Saturday, since I was already in LaGrange for karate demo practice and church every weekend anyway. Plus, I really kind of liked being there. The people (with a few exceptions, most of them doofy managers) have always been really great, and it’s been nice to spend some time around normal people. No offense to any academic reading this, but hanging out with non-academics on occasion is really healthy. Plus, I think the separation from the real world that seems to come with academia has also been staved off by my continuing to work there. It was good for me to spend time being a normal person who isn’t too good to do things like sweep floors and carry boxes up and down stairs. I’ve enjoyed the opportunity it afforded me to stay somewhat normal.

But, as I said, it closed. The lease ended at the end of April, the landlord wanted to raise the rent for the remainder of the company’s stay, and the company refused to pay (in their defense, the rent was really ridiculous even before he raised it). I’m sad that my tenure there is over, but will not cry about the fact that I now have Saturday nights and all holidays off.



I learned a lot of things from that job. One of the people I worked with there is probably one of the people I have disliked the most, but dealing with him for a few years made me develop the confrontational skills I had been lacking my whole life. By the time he got fired, I was to the point where I pretty much stood up to him any time I felt he was out of line, and have carried that ability with me in my dealings with others. As difficult as working with him was, it’s ultimately had a positive effect on me. As further evidence, an old LJ entry regarding me deal with a different but probably even more difficult manager.

And though I would not have thought myself at the lower end of the maturity spectrum for college students, I still did a lot of growing up on that job. When I started in March of 1998, I had just turned eighteen. Two months later, mostly because I was actually old enough for the promotion, I was made a relief manager. The manager who hired and promoted me left to work in a different theater, the new manager was a bozo and a thief, so in another month, I was co-managing the theater with another eighteen year old for the rest of the summer until they could find a manager to replace the one they had to fire. That was one crazy stressful summer, but I think I officially became a grownup during that few months.

I’ve made lots of great friends working at the theater, too. Summer and Christmas breaks were tons of fun. And, of course, our combined creative energies led to the masterpiece that is Carmike Jackass.

I could probably go on for a while about other great things about that job. But this is already a pretty long entry as it is. So I’ll just go on content that I’m still an unofficial/honorary employee at the Auburn movie theater.