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Non-projectionists wandering in.

Changing trailers and ads.

Slide projectors.

Moving prints between same-size auditoriums for no reason whatsoever other than management stupidity.

Not getting a much needed part.

People who do things the wrong way just because that's the way it was done in the "union days".

Management who keep on asking when I am going to start the Thursday night screening of any given movie.

Management who make me move prints around just so they can watch their Thursday night screening earlier in the big auditorium only to have me move it back to where it belongs after the show is done.

Management who don't care as much about the theater as I do.

People named "John Doyle".

Moving prints between same-size auditoriums for no reason whatsoever other than management stupidity.
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Joe, all I can say is AMEN!!!!!

From me:

A poorly lit dirty booth that looks and smells like a port-a-potty.

Pure junk house equipped with landfill qualified equipment where nothing works properly!

Super Glue re-enforced with bubble gum to hold the equipment together.

10. Water stained ceiling tiles traded from the lobby for my good ones.

9. Promised wall paint that . . . never showed up.

8. Accumulated junk equipment the ownership believes is worth way more than it is, thus refusing to sell.

7. Parts?

6. Mud on the bottom of unwelcomed guests shoes.

5. Employee and (his) girlfriend making out behind the soundrack of #6.

4. Parts?

3. Manager and employee running through the booth throwing things at each other and slaming the firedoors between the rooms. (Believe it!)

2. Idiots who think they know how to do your job even when they ask you to "Pause the tape".

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Boogey men (or maniac clowns) that like to hang out in the Booth after midnight.

Technicolor wanting a print from a sneak broken down and ready to go fifteen minutes after it drops for "security reasons", but two days later returns the same print for another sneak three days early and stating that they will have it picked up the day after the showing.

Small greasy palm prints and gummy bears stuck to the portholes.

-Managers that believe that to save a few nickels in electricity, ALL the booth lighting should be left off, leaving the booth dangerously dark.

-Fire marshalls that decide that your sprinkler system in the booth isn't adequate and have the booth looking like a jungle gym by the time they are appeased.

-Know-it-all 'projectionists' that monkey with amp rack controls because some paton complains the subwoofer is too loud, or because their 'golden ears' say that this-or-that needed tweeking

-Union projectionist with over 40 years of projection experience who admits that he doesn't know how to remove the gate from a Simplex XL

-Senior projectionist with over 15 years experience in booths who builds up a print half-backwards and upside-down and forgets to add the last two reels that are still sitting in the can (print arrived on 6000' reels and was 8 reels long)

-Projection booth used as main thoroughfare for all the floor staff

-Booth that doubles as a stockroom

-Booths designed with sealed portglass that the only way to pass cables thru it is to remove the glass....with a hammer.

-Booths designed where two projectors are literally back-to-back, making getting inbetween the two consoles a reeeally tight squeeze.

I can go on...

People who come into the booth when I'm making up a last-minute-delivered print and start to ask questions about how the equipment works.

-Managers who can't decide whether or not they want to interlock a movie and change their minds every 30 seconds until show time.

-"Projectionists" who are allergic to leader and rarely put enough on films they make up.

-"Projectionists" who throw leader all over the floor when they thread.

-Shoepolish

-Slides

-Slide projectors mounted on the viewing port, instead of having a separate port.

-Technicolor ads

-Technicolor reels

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-Shoepolish (What the hell... really! Are you really that blind? Can't you feel the splice as you break down?)

-Projectionists who thread with the leader hitting the floor (again, what the hell? I used to do this, but I changed my ways. I never could quite get the hang of "threading up" which would be the quickest and easiest method possible. But I still don't let the leader hit the floor.)

-People continuously calling up informing me of a problem I am already working on. They keep asking when it will be fixed even though I tell them "a few minutes". I also tell them that the more they call up, the longer it takes to fix since I have to answer the damn walkie!

-Changeovers

-Managers who know absolutely nothing about projection, but think the job MUST be easy.

-Projectionists set in their ways.

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1. People who don't clean their projectors or platters. Whether they're MY projectors, or their own... just drives me batty.

2. People who do things 'the way I've always done it.' - Of course I do things the way I've always done it -- so I'm bound to have a double-standard on this one.

3. Having to turn the fader down 3 notches because the tech is half-deaf and can't hear when he EQ's the house. (Thank goodness for Equalization software.)

4. Union Projectionists who only know how to cue a Xetron Maxi-8 even after you've shown him twice, made a diagram, a sample piece of cued film of how to cue for a Component Engineering FM-35 failsafe.

5. Anybody who can manage to brain-wrap an AW3

6. Managers or Projectionists who are too afraid of the equipment to figure out how to reattach the center roller of an AW3 cluster if it falls off.

7. Managers who refuse to even TOUCH a projector, yet still feel as though they can manage the entire theatre well.

8. Projectionists who refuse to even TOUCH a cash drawer, handle a customer complaint, or make a deposit, yet still feel as though they can manage the theatre themselves.

9. Mis-matched equipment.

10. And I'm probably alone on this one -- but I hate it when people 'customize' equipment and change it from the way it was designed. A: Super Platter build-up tables CAN build to the top and bottom platter IF you leave the arm on them; why limit yourself to the middle platter all the time? B: A Super Platter was meant to have Super Platter rings - NOT Christie rings and vice-versa - DO NOT DRILL CUSTOM HOLES it's annoying.

I think I'm done -- if I think of anything else that Aaron does to annoy me... I'll be sure to post it... (just kidding of course)

I will show people people that cleaning a (Christie) projector every show only takes 90 seconds and tell them to do it every show. As soon as I turn my back they are threading without cleaning. The next week I get calls from them telling me that the projector is noisy and "doesn't work right".

I spend all this time to use RP-40 and make the turrets "just right" so the picture doesn't go off the screen. I turn around and find kids slamming the turrets open or changing lenses by grabbing the lens barrel instead of the turret frame. Then they call me and tell me that the picture is going off the masking.

I get a call because the projector is "making loud noises". When I ask them if there is oil in it they can't tell me when the last time they checked it was.

I spend all morning doing PMs and set all the framing knobs to the exactly correct posisions using RP-40. I go to lunch and come back to find EVERY STINKIN' framing knob cranked every which way. To add insult to injury, the kid in the booth DENIES that it was him who turned them. I point out to him that I had just set them and he's the only one in the booth. He denies that anybody showed him how to thread in frame. (That's a bunch of because it's POLICY that I KNOW they have been taught.)

Walking into the booth unnanounced (as is my habit) and finding some obvious problem like an impending brain wrap only to find the Usher-B sitting at the work bench at the other end of the booth drinking a Coke and making doodles in the Log Book.

Asking a simple question such as, "What's the VERY FIRST thing you should do when you start a projector and you don't hear any sound?", and having the kid answer back, "Turn all these knobs over here until something happens."
(Correct answer: Check to see of your exciter/LED came on.)