Wow frontier city new owners are great

[Jesseda]

i dont ride rides, but my 4 year old will love it, i will probably get the family a season pass, we need to support what we have here in okc

[Taggart]

Keep in mind, this is only the new owner's 2nd full season of ownership. I work in theme park design for a living and get the fortune of seeing the multitude of local parks the country has to offer. Frontier City really isn't that bad, and after working with their parent company, PARC, I'm convinced that they are committed to making this little property a gem.

Frontier City is one of the only parks its size to pay attention to atmosphere and theme. Sure it's not the best, but at least it's not a steel jungle of rides thrown onto a parking lot like Six Flags' properties. Remember that the theme park came from the idea of the city park, a place where trees and space allowed people to relax in leisure. Frontier City delivers that for me.

The teenagers in the park is inevitable. Go to Disneyland and witness the scores of youth with their $140+ annual passes. All Frontier City can do is watch them and try to dissuade them by making the park more attractive to families. I find it funny that in the same breath, people complain about the teenagers and then wonder why Frontier City opens up smaller, family friendly coasters instead of steel monsters.

From my experience, I find that many in Oklahoma don't appreciate what they do have and instead envy the amenities of other cities. This mentality uproots the base for improvement and leaves the city with nothing at all. Your support in what you currently have will help them make the decisions to build it bigger.

Disneyland has the same problems you guys bitch about: high prices, teen overrun, falling standards. Yet the SoCal public chooses to support it. If Disney is too hard to swallow as an example, look at Knotts Berry Farm.

If your standards are really that high, visit Tokyo Disneyland and Disneysea. There the teenagers will probably be picking up YOUR trash.

...

[jawgie]

The last time I went only a couple of concession stands were open and the kids working them were so busy jabbing, pinching and punching one another they had to be called on to wait on us.
The guy working one of the rides was so hateful to all the kids that I said something to him about it. Not the best experience.
I would love to see it come back to the way I remember as a kid.

[Thunder]

Taggart, long time no see. You have a way of knowing inside info on FC? Furture rides, specifically.

[SoonerDave]

A new ownership group dedicated to overhauling FC deserves a chance. In other, older threads about FC, I admit I've been pretty rough on that park, but if the new guys are really working to rehab the place, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Two years is barely enough time to get started and get the basic things fixed, let alone get a plan for a longer-term overhaul in place on top of a lousy economy.

about Disney as a comparison....AFAIK, Disneyland continues to be a bit of a Disney albatross because they can't seem to attract the longer-term visitor from outside of California, which makes the mistake of the Disney California Adventure "companion" park all the more stupefying. And Disney is already, as I understand it, to "retheme" DCA rather substantially over the next few years...so no one is immune from having to keep parks current and costs attractive...esp in the current economy..heck even DisneyWorld is giving away three nights if you book four at DW for the summer....

[Jesseda]

i was at disney california lat summer, the only thing good about it was the back lot studios, great little area, they are suppose to build cars land, from what i was told, that disney california is going to be mainly pixar stuff, toy story theme, cars, bugs life, wall-e, monters inc, etc. the only thing extra so far on the rehab list is a little mermaid dark ride, plus they already have the ariel grotto..

[scootinger]

I worked at Frontier City while it was owned by both Six Flags and PARC, and in my opinion customer service (like Jawgie mentioned) is the biggest problem with the park. While PARC has definitely done a lot more for the park as far as new rides/attractions go than Six Flags did, it was sad to see little improvement in treatment of employees/customers under new ownership and management.

If you pay employees pennies above minimum wage for a job in the hot summer heat and treat them like crap, then you aren't going to get many people that care about their jobs. This leads to apathetic and uncaring employees, and other problems like rides having to be closed due to lack of employees...even with them having temp agency workers come in to operate rides. There are plenty of other little things that showed an apathy towards customer service (on part of management) as well.

I hope they'll realize the value of a customer and adopt a better attitude towards customer service at the park...towards both employees and park guests alike. It's not only a necessity for them to stay afloat, but it's also the right thing to do. (Sadly, corporate America doesn't really care about the latter.) I really would like to see a park like Frontier City do well in Oklahoma, but I don't foresee myself visiting the park again until some of these things change.

[oneforone]

I worked at Frontier City while it was owned by both Six Flags and PARC, and in my opinion customer service (like Jawgie mentioned) is the biggest problem with the park. While PARC has definitely done a lot more for the park as far as new rides/attractions go than Six Flags did, it was sad to see little improvement in treatment of employees/customers under new ownership and management.

If you pay employees pennies above minimum wage for a job in the hot summer heat and treat them like crap, then you aren't going to get many people that care about their jobs. This leads to apathetic and uncaring employees, and other problems like rides having to be closed due to lack of employees...even with them having temp agency workers come in to operate rides. There are plenty of other little things that showed an apathy towards customer service (on part of management) as well.

I hope they'll realize the value of a customer and adopt a better attitude towards customer service at the park...towards both employees and park guests alike. It's not only a necessity for them to stay afloat, but it's also the right thing to do. (Sadly, corporate America doesn't really care about the latter.) I really would like to see a park like Frontier City do well in Oklahoma, but I don't foresee myself visiting the park again until some of these things change.

I beg to differ on the argument of pay. Amusement park jobs have never been intended to pave a path to financial stability. I have never known anyone to make more than a buck or two over minimum wage. The ground level jobs are do nothing non skill jobs that almost anyone can do. For every person that turns their nose up at a low wage there are ten people behind him who will. Besides a persons work ethic should not be based on their level of pay. What few people realize is that you have to start somewhere. Your not going to land a $18 an hour job without work experience and/or training. My first job paid $4.25 an hour. 8 months later I moved on. The key is not to stay in a low paying job. Stay for 6 months to a year (or in this case the season) and move on to something that pays better. Stay there for a little while if that job does not pay what you want. You move on and keep repeating the cycle until you make the big bucks.

Amusement parks are seasonal jobs and they always have been always will be. You rarely see the same people come back year after year. I never known anyone to have a career in ride operations, games or concessions. Most of the people I know that worked at Frontier City and/or White Water Bay worked there as teenagers. It was a great way to get a few phone numbers and earn a little spending money over the Summer.

The only people who make good money in the Amusement Industry are the people who are on the operations side of the house. These people tare employed 365 days out of the year like the mechanics, bean counters, planners, promoters and executives.

The only places I know of that pay well would be Sea World, Universal Studios, and Disney. Then again it cost a small fortune for most families to get in the park.

BTW You are right to blame Corporate America for the demise of customer service. It is Corporate America's fault for not enforcing customer service standards. If they did believe you me there would be more companies in the black then red today. Bottom line when you have great customer service the customers will always come back regardless of the price of your goods or services.

[SoonerDave]

BTW You are right to blame Corporate America for the demise of customer service. It is Corporate America's fault for not enforcing customer service standards

I'd love to know exactly when customer service died. No, a survey that "tracks" my "level of customer satisfaction" is not what I'm talking about.

There used to be a time when the customer truly was king. You ordered something at a restaurant that wasn't prepared the way you asked, you got an apology and a fixed meal. These days, you complain and you're likely to get your food spat on.

I've heard arguments like the one earlier here that say, basically, "well they don't pay enough for me to care," but that's a horrendous cop-out. It used to be that, regardless of how much you made, or how relatively "important" a job was perceived to be, there was a sense of personal pride that compelled performance even if no one else cared. Putting *your name* on something mattered. Not anymore, and I can't blame that entirely on "corporate America."

Sorry, this is getting off-topic, but this whole issue about "customer service" is one that kinda sticks in my craw, because (and especially these days) it seems there's very little of it.

[bombermwc]

Actually I would agree with Scootinger. I had a similar experience when I worked at K-Mart. They treated their employees so poorly to the point that no one was interested in helping customers because it didn't matter. The 40 something year old managers that had worked at K-Mart for 20 years wanted a power trip. I kid you not that one day a manager called all the employees to the front of the store in the middle of the day to tell us all that we were expendable and could be replaced in 24 hours, so we were to shut our traps and do as we were told.

Now you tell me if that would make you want to have a happy work environment no matter what the pay is. You can pay someone minimum wage and still have a happy work place. My first job was at a packing/shipping place similar to Mailboxes Etc. It was minimum wage but we all got along, had fun, and did a good job. I made more at K-Mart but it wasn't worth the crappy management.

Employers tend to think that just because they are hiring teenagers or college kids that it means they don't have to treat them with respect. That very crappy attitude is why the turnaround is so high in that age group. I'm not talking about petting them and giving them awards for doing their job, I'm talking about treating them as human beings and not treating them like crap. I guarantee I worked harder than my department manager at K-Mart but made a lot less.

Frontier City can go a long way to the same philosophy. Yes the place operates on a seasonal basis. HOWEVER, if you treat your employees well, you will probably get more of them back next season which means less training time, which means cost savings. It's more beneficial to have happy employees. They are more likely to show up on time, with a good attitude, and be absent less. Unhappy employees cause the downfall of a company. Those employees are the face the public interact with, and if they aren't happy, then why would they care how the public sees the place? From the kid's POV, so they give an attitude to someone and get fired....ok, so they lost a low wage job that they had to drive a good distance to, where they were treated poorly. Firing was probably the better situation for them. Now they'll get a higher paying job closer to home that pays year round.

[OKCMallen]

I beg to differ on the argument of pay. Amusement park jobs have never been intended to pave a path to financial stability. I have never known anyone to make more than a buck or two over minimum wage. The ground level jobs are do nothing non skill jobs that almost anyone can do. For every person that turns their nose up at a low wage there are ten people behind him who will. Besides a persons work ethic should not be based on their level of pay. What few people realize is that you have to start somewhere. Your not going to land a $18 an hour job without work experience and/or training. My first job paid $4.25 an hour. 8 months later I moved on. The key is not to stay in a low paying job. Stay for 6 months to a year (or in this case the season) and move on to something that pays better. Stay there for a little while if that job does not pay what you want. You move on and keep repeating the cycle until you make the big bucks.

Well bully for you. You've clearly never worked at Frontier City as a teen. When you ask a kid to work 12.5 hour days (14.5 on Friday and Saturday) with only 1.5 days off a week and NO overtime, you're going to get a LOT of turnover unless you make it worth these kids' time.

[Jesseda]

okay, iworked at a sno-cone stand in highschool, it was minimum wage job, the hours sucked it was weekends and friday and saturday night, which was the time to go hang out with friends, no real breaks unless there are no customers, then its clean up time, but i put a lot into making my job fun and create great customer service, i made people in line laugh while waiting for there sno-con, i acted like a bar tender and was trying to do tricks with the flavor plastic bottles ( and dress hawaiian and have paper umbrellas all over my head), my now wife worked with me at the sno-cone stand we both hated the pay and the hours, but turned the negative to positive, there really is no excuse to treat customers poorly just because you cant find a positive in your job, if you cant turn it to something positive then leave.

[jsibelius]

Actually I would agree with Scootinger. I had a similar experience when I worked at K-Mart. They treated their employees so poorly to the point that no one was interested in helping customers because it didn't matter. The 40 something year old managers that had worked at K-Mart for 20 years wanted a power trip. I kid you not that one day a manager called all the employees to the front of the store in the middle of the day to tell us all that we were expendable and could be replaced in 24 hours, so we were to shut our traps and do as we were told.

Now you tell me if that would make you want to have a happy work environment no matter what the pay is. You can pay someone minimum wage and still have a happy work place. My first job was at a packing/shipping place similar to Mailboxes Etc. It was minimum wage but we all got along, had fun, and did a good job. I made more at K-Mart but it wasn't worth the crappy management.

Employers tend to think that just because they are hiring teenagers or college kids that it means they don't have to treat them with respect. That very crappy attitude is why the turnaround is so high in that age group. I'm not talking about petting them and giving them awards for doing their job, I'm talking about treating them as human beings and not treating them like crap. I guarantee I worked harder than my department manager at K-Mart but made a lot less.

Frontier City can go a long way to the same philosophy. Yes the place operates on a seasonal basis. HOWEVER, if you treat your employees well, you will probably get more of them back next season which means less training time, which means cost savings. It's more beneficial to have happy employees. They are more likely to show up on time, with a good attitude, and be absent less. Unhappy employees cause the downfall of a company. Those employees are the face the public interact with, and if they aren't happy, then why would they care how the public sees the place? From the kid's POV, so they give an attitude to someone and get fired....ok, so they lost a low wage job that they had to drive a good distance to, where they were treated poorly. Firing was probably the better situation for them. Now they'll get a higher paying job closer to home that pays year round.

Originally Posted by oneforone: I beg to differ on the argument of pay. Amusement park jobs have never been intended to pave a path to financial stability. I have never known anyone to make more than a buck or two over minimum wage. The ground level jobs are do nothing non skill jobs that almost anyone can do. For every person that turns their nose up at a low wage there are ten people behind him who will. Besides a persons work ethic should not be based on their level of pay. What few people realize is that you have to start somewhere. Your not going to land a $18 an hour job without work experience and/or training. My first job paid $4.25 an hour. 8 months later I moved on. The key is not to stay in a low paying job. Stay for 6 months to a year (or in this case the season) and move on to something that pays better. Stay there for a little while if that job does not pay what you want. You move on and keep repeating the cycle until you make the big bucks.

Well bully for you. You've clearly never worked at Frontier City as a teen. When you ask a kid to work 12.5 hour days (14.5 on Friday and Saturday) with only 1.5 days off a week and NO overtime, you're going to get a LOT of turnover unless you make it worth these kids' time.

Actually, this ties back into what bombermwc was saying about treating your employees well. It's not really about pay, it's about treating people like people. That also includes reasonable hours (and if you were working 12.5 hour days with only 1.5 days off per week with no overtime paid, your employer was violating labor laws). Good pay does not equate to good customer service, believe me. Good customer service usually comes from a happy work environment. It comes from people who like their jobs and from people who like working with people. People like their jobs because the work is rewarding. Money is sometimes helpful, but people who make tons of money often hate their jobs. Think about that. More pay will not make the "expendable teenagers" who work the rides and other areas at Frontier City treat the park-goers any better. That has to come from a change in "corporate culture" (so to speak).

[SoonerDave]

Good customer service usually comes from a happy work environment.

Good customer service comes from the heart of the person doing the serving,, regardless of pay, regardless of social stature, regardless of <fill in the blank>. It is as much a definition of character as whether you run a red light if no one else is around - its what you do when no one is looking (or, in the case of retail, if no one is paying you and your employer "treats you like crap.")

There has to come a time when you look at the mirror and recognize that whatever effort the person in the mirror gives is 100% dependent upon....the person in the mirror. It is a choice. You may hate your boss, you may hate your pay, you may hate the job, you may hate the environment, your boss may have delusions of grandeur, you may hate the company, but what you do in service to others is your choice.

It is sad to me to hear the position in this thread opined by some to amount to "Screw me, screw you." And then we wonder what's happened to the very notion of being in service one to another....

[hoya]

I used to work at Frontier City, when I was 16. I remember what it was like. The managers didn't care. They were grumpy and apathetic and hated their jobs. They treated the employees like dirt. I was a temp there, and at $4.25 an hour I was making more than the regular employees (some exception about seasonal employees being paid less than minimum wage). Managers expected everyone to be dumber than dirt, and treated you like you were as well.

Overall, I hated that job. The only part I liked was that if you had the slightest bit of competence they'd stick you out in the middle of the park by yourself and let you operate a ride or run a food stand. That was nice, because it meant I got to stay away from all the unhappy people in their 30s who were depressed because they were still working at Frontier City.

My experience with the other teenagers was that most were doing this as their first job, and kids that normally would have been happy and friendly could get dragged down and embittered by managers that seemed to have learned people skills from a New York cabbie.

Overall, it falls on management. If it's a bad corporate culture, it's management's fault. If it's employees who just don't care, then it's management's fault for not firing those people and hiring ones who do care. You can't expect a 16 or 17 year old kid to care about the overall company image when you pay him pennies and don't give him the power or authority to do anything. Management is the one that is supposed to craft an enjoyable experience for the customer -- that's why the park is there in the first place.

I think customer service declines because it's easy to overlook. It doesn't show up on a balance sheet. It's difficult to quantify. And a lot of the expenditures that keep up company morale and make customer service easier end up looking like wasted expenses.

[OKCMallen]

Actually, this ties back into what bombermwc was saying about treating your employees well. It's not really about pay, it's about treating people like people. That also includes reasonable hours (and if you were working 12.5 hour days with only 1.5 days off per week with no overtime paid, your employer was violating labor laws). Good pay does not equate to good customer service, believe me. Good customer service usually comes from a happy work environment. It comes from people who like their jobs and from people who like working with people. People like their jobs because the work is rewarding. Money is sometimes helpful, but people who make tons of money often hate their jobs. Think about that. More pay will not make the "expendable teenagers" who work the rides and other areas at Frontier City treat the park-goers any better. That has to come from a change in "corporate culture" (so to speak).

They claimed that because the job was seasonal, there was no requirement for overtime. I never checked the veracity of that.

[Jesseda]

there is people that will work for minimum wage, and do a great job, it all falls down to how the employees are treated, maybe the new owners need to look into this

[SoonerDave]

They claimed that because the job was seasonal, there was no requirement for overtime. I never checked the veracity of that.

The US Labor Department has a variety of job classifications that ultimately govern which type of wage laws apply to a given worker. As an example, most white-collar jobs are broken into two broad categories, called "Exempt" and "Non-Exempt." Exempt employees are typically salaried, full-time workers and generally do not have to be paid overtime. Non-exempt are usually hourly workers, and must be paid overtime if their scheduled workload exceeds a certain number of hours per week. I don't know the exact number.

There's an entirely separate group of classifications for part-time, seasonal employees, or even temporary employees, and unless I'm mistaken I don't think any of them have to be paid overtime as I understand it. Some of the classes were specifically created to allow small business the opportunity to hire temporary, college-age employees for inherently temporary work, such as lawn care companies and amusement parks.

There are a bunch of other rules and classifications that I don't begin to know in detail, but I am all-but certain summer workers at amusement parks are among those that can be scheduled very liberally by the employer.

-sd

[bombermwc]

SoonerDave, you're so full of it. So you expect that sunshine is going to come gleaming out my rear if I make $4 an hour, have a mean boss, a corporation that doesnt care if I live or die, work 15 hours a day, don't get sick leave, etc.

Oh yeah I can totally see why I should overcome all of that so that some person that wants to ride the ejection seat breaks the straps and I have to apease all the people in line who get pissed about it while it take 2 hours for repairmen to come by and fix the strap because they get treated poorly as well and don't exactlly hustle.

I should totally have freaking rainbows flying out my ass while that's going on! All so I can say I've provided good customer service.....

Excuse me but screw that.

[Jesseda]

bombermwc, if it is true that sunshine is going to come out of your rear, can you shine it over the metro, i dont want any of this white stuff staying around. But I wouldnt recommend a rainbow coming out your ass, last time that happen to me, two ruby slippers fell out, and a tin man

[metro]

Wow, and who was that said this was not a slow news cycle. The only thread getting discussion on regular rotation is about Frontier City management and old memories....

[bombermwc]

Now that was funny Jessseda.

[oneforone]

I have worked my fair share of S**t jobs over the years but, I always made the effort move on when it got the point that I hated going to work.

Regardless of your work environment or pay you should not take it out on the customers. You should make every effort to treat every customer with respect and find solutions to their complaints.

The problem with workplace abuse is the fact that nobody ever reports it. Sure everyone complains but, nobody has the courage to confront all levels of management and voice their concerns. You always here the typical line "This place sucks but, I am not saying anything. I have got kids to feed and bills to pay." Millions of people are more than willing to complain, but only a few are willing to act to initiate change.

BomberMWC did you any of your fellow employees make a complaint to people above that manager who told you that you could all be replaced. If he was the store manager, did you got to District, Regional or Corporate. I know I would have. Somebody on up in the chain would have come down on that type of behavior because it is represents a hostile work environment.

Few people realize they cannot fire you for making a legitimate and tactful complaint. If they do, you can probably sue them for hostile work environment or wrongful termination.

[dismayed]

For anyone that has been to Frontier City lately, I'm wondering if they have finally painted the place. One thing that really aggravates me about OKC amusement parks, such as Frontier City, White Water, and that other place off of I-40 whose name I can't remember, is that they all look so run down. Why anyone would want to go to a park where we are depending on the park to maintain the rides for our safety, when they can't even manage to do basic maintenance such as paint, is beyond me.

[Jon27]

and that other place off of I-40 whose name I can't remember.

Celebration Station