Merriam-Webster defines retarded as “slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development or academic progress”.

As I predicted, there were idiots at La Ronde while it was raining this weekend. Okay, it’s not so much a prediction since idiots are everywhere, but there is something I didn’t expect.

When I worked at La Ronde, customers (family with kids) often complained about their kids having to pay a lot for rides for which they weren’t even tall enough to be allowed to get on. Employees all thought about adjusting rates according to a person’s height as other Six Flags park charge.

I didn’t know that was going to happen this year. “Show some humanity” doesn’t mean only showing signs of goodness at all, because people getting angry at anything is part of humanity. This actually makes the world progress (or that might be just me). So some people are angry at the new rates.

A customer said “C’est pas logique. Tu es un enfant, même pas un adolescent, et ils te disent que t’es un adulte”. It translates to “It’s not logical. You’re a kid, not even a teenager and they say you’re an adult.” The logical par tprobably applies to whoever told a kid that he’s an adult doesn’t make sense indeed. A kid can be like an adult, but not be one yet.

In logic terms, there is nothing more logic than charging by height.

I have finally been able to get back on laronde.com and they are so retarded. At the time of this writing, while La Ronde already opened its gates, the map isn’t even updated, online or PDF. As a designer, I know it takes time to do something like that, but it’s not like they decided to add the Goliath and other stuff yesterday and if they did, I am sure there would have been a lot of dead people in that park by now.

By the way, since I am talking about death, only a few years ago (2001) when La Ronde was just owned by Six Flags, when I started working there until when I stopped (2003), La Ronde had and probably still has the lowest number of deaths, basically no dead people. Except there was an employee who died (may she rest in peace), but it wasn’t at La Ronde.

Now, here is a warning for anybody who plans to go to La Ronde.

This ride called the Maelstromhas been both a shrine and a bane for employees over the years. It’s a bane because employees keep going up and down all day long to check that people are well seated and that nobody is hiding when the ride is over. This is the part where you, customer, should pay attention. It’s a shrine because there is where most customers lose their pocket money (that’s coins left in pockets).
As the ride turns and do its stunts, pockets are shaked and it’s likely that everything falls out. Employees who work at that ride can easily see their hourly rate go a few dollars up through no fault of their own. Actually, they could, not take the money, but then what? Give it back? To who? Some employees are going to hate me for this. Ha, well.

Oh, I forgot. the thing called OVNI is also a money shaker-maker as the seats keep going up and down. You can definitely lose money in every ride. Actually, you already lost money just by going to the park, but at least you were conscious about it.

I seem to be bashing a lot about this place where I worked for three long years and some for over ten years at just operating rides. La Ronde actually offers a good work environment. While I worked there, they renovated the main cafeteria and made storage areas more pleasant. It’s no Googleplex (Google headquarters), but it’s close enough, just without the pool table, free snacks and comfortable couches.

On the customer’s side, La Ronde is trying to make more people happy every year and keep happy those who already are. Even though there are complaints, I don’t think it even reaches 5% of customers.

Customers are not all idiots. Here is a typical thing I used to do. At night, when it was time to close a ride, I would often chase people away teeling them to get the hell out of there, because I wasn’t paid to keep the thing open. Say that with a smile and you win. While some people (colleagues, supervisors never heard about it) claim that I was rude, I was actually connecting with these people. Not a single one of them has ever been unhappy about the way I handled closing a ride while a line of customer was still waiting. Since most of them are adults by the time things close, they do understand. Then some would want to pay me just to keep the ride open and we all have a good laugh.

Ah fun times. La Ronde isn’t all bad. It’s not all good either. I guess that balance thing in life is really important.