Summer Employment Part 3

My brother made the comment that I had said I was going to write about some of my summer employment jobs and only had two posts. So this is another post about my job at the amusement park.

One of the rides I ran was the child bumper cars. Unlike the adult bumper cars that have a pedal for power, the child bumper cars always move. As long as the child knows how to steer the car then they can cruise around the floor. The problem came when the kid didn't understand how the steering wheel worked. As the ride operator we had to keep our foot on a pedal to keep the ride going. Kids would drive their cars into a corner and then not figure out how to get out of it. The PA system rarely worked so we would stand there making hand gestures and yelling "Turn the wheel. If you want to move, turn the wheel." After parents came up and complained that their child needed another turn, without waiting in line, because their child's car didn't work. There were times I just wanted to tell them their child was too young and couldn't figure out the controls. Or maybe their kid was just to dense to figure it out.

The other event that often happened at the ride dealt with the children waiting in line. The line bordered the ride on two sides with a metal fence between the two. Some of the children really wanted to see how the ride was going and so stuck their head between the posts of the fence, and subsequently got stuck. I had to call the meds over on three different occasions for kids getting stuck. One kid screamed the whole time and his parents were mad at us. I was impressed that another kid who got stuck was pretty calm and his parents, also calm, told him not to do it again. When he finally got out he wasn't nearly as traumatized and he and his family laughed it off. I hope I am a parent that can keep everything in perspective.