Pet Peeves

What experiences with customers do you absolutely HATE? Also, what do you run into every night that makes you want to donkey-punch someone? As a bonus; how do you handle it?


For me, I absolutely HATE it when someone drags someone up to me and goes "Hey, scare him/her!" I normally work out in the open so there are people walking around in all directions and many of them are watching you when these people do this. *sigh*

Most of the time I'm working in tandem so when this happens, my partner can sneak up behind the dragger and pop at them while I work a distraction. Most of the time it works. Mostly...

I can't stand it when people hit on me. I work in a bedroom scene and wear a dress so when I say something like "never look under your bed" the response from the customer usually is "well can I look under your dress?" I also get stuff like "Hey when do you get off work" and "can I have your number" and then the whole group they are with laughs and after hearing it 20 times in one night, it's really not that funny. And it comes from guys of all ages - teenagers to 60 year olds. It's even worse when they follow that up with a touch of some sort. It's the touching my leg or trying to put their arms around me that really annoys me. But I just stay in character and get out of any attemtped hug fast (and then appreciate the fact that I've been in karate for 2 years).

lol the stupidity of people does not cease to amaze me. My character is part mad scientist part willy wonka part spiritualist zealot....dont ask me to explain it just works. I go for a deep level emotional freak out scare where I am generally withen inches of the patrons (oh the pains I take for art lol). The thing I hate the most is the personal insults. For example, my haunt uses smells. I've gotten everything from "did you **** yourself?" to "is that your feet?" It's just amazing how rude people can be. However, I deal with it different than most people lol. I've been acting for 13 years and I am a great improv artist lol. If you get sarcastic or rude with me I, in character mind you, respond similarly to you. Doing so either:
1. makes everyone in the group laugh at that person, making them look like an idiot
2. makes him realise hes being a jerk and causes him to cool it

or the bad one
3. he becomes a bigger jerk and you need to back off (this is a rarety and only occurs if I misread a person)

Hope this helps, or atleast entertains lol

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Originally Posted by Fear Unfathomed

I can't stand it when people hit on me. I work in a bedroom scene and wear a dress so when I say something like "never look under your bed" the response from the customer usually is "well can I look under your dress?" I also get stuff like "Hey when do you get off work" and "can I have your number" and then the whole group they are with laughs and after hearing it 20 times in one night, it's really not that funny. And it comes from guys of all ages - teenagers to 60 year olds. It's even worse when they follow that up with a touch of some sort. It's the touching my leg or trying to put their arms around me that really annoys me. But I just stay in character and get out of any attemtped hug fast (and then appreciate the fact that I've been in karate for 2 years).

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thats just rude...but seriously fear when do you get off work ;) lol im just playin I dont recall ever seeing you here lol welcome to the boards :P

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Originally Posted by Damien Warwick

thats just rude...but seriously fear when do you get off work ;) lol im just playin I dont recall ever seeing you here lol welcome to the boards :P

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yeah i hate it when people are jerks and they try to undermine all your work to get a good scare.

and well at least you didnt try to grab me and you only kept it to a comment ;-) lol jk.... i just joined last week - my first "haunted season" was last season with the Darkness and now im addicted. what can i say.

I also suffer from the frequent "Whats up honey what time you get off work" or "Ooo look she be cute, hey ma whats up!" -shudder-

Really though you have to wonder whats going through their minds when they see a little half crazed insaniac girl in a straight jacket covered in cuts, scars, blood, brusies, who's drooling everywhere as she crawls all over the Q line...really....thats sexy to you? And they call us the scary ones.

but what really annoys me is the groups of people that come through that think that they're hard and jump at you doing the "You dont scare me, what, what, what are you gonna to do?" ooo that just makes my blood boil, usually i track them down once they enter the haunt though and make them think differently

OdetteDespairr
Rotting Flesh Radio Haunt Hottie

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Originally Posted by OdetteDespairr

I also suffer from the frequent "Whats up honey what time you get off work" or "Ooo look she be cute, hey ma whats up!" -shudder-

Really though you have to wonder whats going through their minds when they see a little half crazed insaniac girl in a straight jacket covered in cuts, scars, blood, brusies, who's drooling everywhere as she crawls all over the Q line...really....thats sexy to you? And they call us the scary ones.

but what really annoys me is the groups of people that come through that think that they're hard and jump at you doing the "You dont scare me, what, what, what are you gonna to do?" ooo that just makes my blood boil, usually i track them down once they enter the haunt though and make them think differently

OdetteDespairr
Rotting Flesh Radio Haunt Hottie

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yeah i wonder that too - seriously, what could possibly make me dressed as something resembling the living dead attractive? and some people say we're twisted? i think not compared to those customers. lol

Lol i had one group of guys one time who were pulling the "think the dead girl's cute" routine on me so i crawled over to them to see if i could change their minds lol. Luckily one guy in the group had just bought nachos in the snack line and he figured that he would be cute and lean down and see if i wanted one lol....i gobbled it right out of his hand then proceded to hack it up on the sidewalk right in front of them lol......oh the lengths i'll go to be disgusting.

Needless to say i was no longer "cute" to them anymore.

I had kinda the same thing happen another time when Ihad a group of girls who were trying to torment me. I had crawled up behind them on a picnic table and inched up to one of the girls who because our house is a "No Touching" haunt started to taunt me that "Im not touching you hahaha" and started poking me in the head with a coupon for our snack stand. She ended up poking me a little to close to my mouth and i snatched it with my teeth and ate her coupon right in front of her while she shrieked at me.

It's just paper lol...

OdetteDespairr
Rotting Flesh Radio Haunt Hottie

Oddly, most of my pet peeves are from fellow actors, but patrons bug me also. I hate it when patrons pay money to come in but have no intention of having a good time. They want to fight, swear, call us names, and make fun of the show. The key is to remember that that may be the way they have fun.
Once at skull kingdom a group of french 20 something males came through and were rowdy as heck , they started pushing the actors and reading what they wanted, we started pushing back, very physical show especially in the dark parts (bean bag room and mosquito room) and they poured out of the show laughing and high fiveing, then paid to come back in again immediately.
It was a blast, often its a matter of the actors perspective of the situation. Anger is a choice, and the most obvious one considering the environments that we work in we have to fight the anger urge and respond in an entertaining way. I find that despite the behavior of the patrons we have the advantage. Odette mentions that she hears the same things 20 times a night. This gives us a chance to form canned comebacks that the patrons (who think they are being clever) will think we made up on the spot with our super quick wits. Odette try the line "Yeah my sifilus can have a steel cage match with your crabs and we will see who wins!" or "thats better than you wasting your obvious talents on roadkill like usual" I used to get the line "your breath stinks" all the time no matter how close I was to them so I came up with the line "when you eat babies you don't always check the diapers"
While they may be annoying, proper perspective can keep our attitudes up and our guests entertained. I think that patrons even want us to win the little power struggles they throw our way. they want to be trumped, normally as soon as they are they back off as opposed to escalate conflict.
Just my two cents,
Allen H

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Originally Posted by Allen H

Oddly, most of my pet peeves are from fellow actors, but patrons bug me also. I hate it when patrons pay money to come in but have no intention of having a good time. They want to fight, swear, call us names, and make fun of the show. The key is to remember that that may be the way they have fun.
Once at skull kingdom a group of french 20 something males came through and were rowdy as heck , they started pushing the actors and reading what they wanted, we started pushing back, very physical show especially in the dark parts (bean bag room and mosquito room) and they poured out of the show laughing and high fiveing, then paid to come back in again immediately.
It was a blast, often its a matter of the actors perspective of the situation. Anger is a choice, and the most obvious one considering the environments that we work in we have to fight the anger urge and respond in an entertaining way. I find that despite the behavior of the patrons we have the advantage. Odette mentions that she hears the same things 20 times a night. This gives us a chance to form canned comebacks that the patrons (who think they are being clever) will think we made up on the spot with our super quick wits. Odette try the line "Yeah my sifilus can have a steel cage match with your crabs and we will see who wins!" or "thats better than you wasting your obvious talents on roadkill like usual" I used to get the line "your breath stinks" all the time no matter how close I was to them so I came up with the line "when you eat babies you don't always check the diapers"
While they may be annoying, proper perspective can keep our attitudes up and our guests entertained. I think that patrons even want us to win the little power struggles they throw our way. they want to be trumped, normally as soon as they are they back off as opposed to escalate conflict.
Just my two cents,
Allen H

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all very true and good things to keep in mind. even if people dont scare easily, if they are entertained then we still did our job - and i like the "when you eat babies you don't always check the diapers" line - that is awesome.