2008 Pay Scale

I guess the lesson you should take from this is that it is time for you to get a real job if you are seriously relying on this job for income and not for the experience!

I will say, as a former full time employee, what no current full time employee can say:

Dick Kinzel does not value the seasonal work force. He will pay lip service to the idea that he does...but he does not.

The seasonal workforce has seen decreased pay in the past several years. The seasonal workforce still lives in mostly substandard living conditions.

Dick Kinzel does not see the negative impact of an unethusiastic workforce or, worse yet, he does and chooses to ignore it.

What could be one of their greatest assets is, instead, one of their greatest liabilities and the only one to blame, in my opinion, is Dick Kinzel. Plenty of folks beneath him have very creative ideas for how to make working at Cedar Point more attractive. Those ideas have been left dormant for many years.

Instead, they will bring even more foreign employees from overseas to try and fill the void. At some point, that well will dry up and then what?

^Then what? Wages will go up! It's probably the only way.

Quite honestly, everytime I go to CP, I have not noticed a shortage of employees. I do notice bad attitudes but I chalk that up to the fact that they are only making minimum wage. I think that this "shortage" that you all say exists has to become much more apparent before it becomes a concern to the Dick.

If being 200+ under in rides this past season wasn't apparent enough (and evidently it wasn't), then I am afraid to consider the number it will have to reach to get the proper attention. *** Edited 12/13/2007 6:47:22 PM UTC by BlueStreak64***

I'm not claiming a shortage of employees. I would say there is a shortage of American employees and, as a result, they heavily recruit overseas.

And, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that. But, you do hear criticism of folks interacting with employees that don't speak the language well. And, I don't think there is ANY doubt that, on average, the quality of the worker they hire today is less than the quality of the worker they hired in the past.

Are there good employees? Sure there are. And, kudos to them. But there is a marked decrease in service at CP which most frequent guests will attest too and this is a significant part of the reason why.

IrishEd said:
They then go as far as to blame the employees, like saying that the Commons bathrooms are dirty because of employees, instead of looking at the fact that a couple hundred people just used them in a matter of 3-4 hours and they might need to be cleaned again.

Yes and no. I agree, but at the same time, there were some employees that did really make a mess of the bathrooms. Some people seemed to think the bathroom was a barber shop. There were many days I would walk in to get ready for work and there would be a chair in themiddle of the bathroom and hair all over the place.
And there was another time someone decided to write with marker all over a stall. So, while you make a good point about the bathrooms needing a better, and more often cleaning, there were quite a few employees that were more than responsible for some of the issues.

...It goes back to the quality of some of the employees they're hiring though...

I'll be interested to see how the overseas employees respond to the weaker dollar. Wonder if anyone's considered that...

Something else I'm curious about: I know that right as I was leaving last season, they were talking about forming some sort of committee to look at retention and appreciation. Does anyone know if that was actually done, and what (if any) conclusions they came to? And how many of them were actually implemented? Did it suffer the fate of 90% of the "Employee-Management Relations Committee" items and get placed under "Will review"?

A lot of internationals used to be able to come and work for the summer, and return and support they're family for a year on what they earned. Far from true anymore.

Anyways, I find it interesting that the pricing for housing is no longer listed on the website. Should we be expecting to see an increase...?
http://www.cedarpoint.com/public/jobs/benefits/housing/facilities.cfm

Back in the mid-90s there was a committee devised to look at short term and long term strategies for employee recruitment and retention. I was involved. It was a terrific sharing of ideas/information that led to some very creative and potentially effective ideas.

A few of the short term ideas were actually implemented. Many more of those ideas and ALL of the long term ideas were shot down almost immediately by the man at the top.

The committee felt the need to respond to that blatant smack down and a carefully written rebuttal was produced and sent. While the committee was all on the same page, the author of that rebuttal was put in his/her place by said man at the top which sent a message that there would be no more dissention in the ranks.

Needless to say, a review of the long term plan did not happen, at least not while I was still there. And, based on what we see today it is apparent that long term plan never did materialize.

So, you see the kind of environment that may or may not foster inspiration.

I want to reiterate. There are excellent people working at Cedar Point. People who's very love of the place carries them through. If those people are ever truly empowered by an inspirational leader then you will have to fight me for the next stock purchase.

TerraCoaster said:

CP4eva'04 said:

CPboy77 said:
Clown? Far from it, trust me I know what it's like to be not paid enough. The point is rambling here is not going to do anything about it. Maybe discuss it in person with, um maybe your manager??

I don't know where you work, or what experience you have. But whatever it is, it must be nice. Because in the real world things don't quite work like that and hell I'm not in the real world yet either. But one thing is for sure I know what its like to be treated like a piece of trash at work. I also know what its like to work a 14 hour day, how CP employees do it week in and week out is beyond me.

Point is they have every right to complain and you need stop before the hole your digging hits water.

Dude, you gotta understand that CPboy77 thinks Cedar Point is like...God. Nothing they do is wrong and you are damned if you dare to complain. I mean, the kid thinks freakin' Disaster Transport is the best ride in the world!

I never said Disaster Transport was the best ride.

CPboy77:

Out of respect for the kids that browse this website, and out of respect for Jeff and Walt, I won't actually post what I think of you here, but rest assured that it isn't nice.

The fact that you ignored all of the comments against your greediness post, and your complete and total ignorance for anything in the real world shows me and everyone else here just how old you are, and how limited your mentality really is.

You've never worked like the employees have worked at CP, clearly. In fact, from the sounds of it, you probably still live with mommy and daddy, and you know what, I hope you get a kick in the face when you finally have to leave your sheltered life.

Being a past employee and reading what CP is doing now still makes me sick, and I support every single employee in their right to complain, and guess what CPboy77, managers at CP have no more power to change this than any seasonal employee does.

Even in 2001 the pay scale wasn't great, and when you work O-C over and over and over, with one, maybe two days off, you'd like to get paid a little more too.

And yes, some employees have a choice to work at CP, or not, but many of them don't have very much choice, or they enjoy the friends and fun, but can't justify the labor vs. wage cost.

So get off your high horse. You think you know what its like? Clearly you don't. You want to sit at your computer and act like you know all about the real world, go ahead and stay in your bubble. But I got news for ya: your wake up call will come.

People like you don't appreciate hard work, and simply don't get that what CP is doing to their employees is seriously crossing into unfair territory, and clearly, CP doesn't wish to keep any good people around anymore.

CP seems to liken themselves to Six Flags with these assinine decisions, maybe thats what they want.

If I had to make a decision now whether or not to return, I probably wouldn't.

Whatever, I could care less what you think of me. You actually think I'm going to read that entire pathetic rant you just posted? I stopped after the first couple sentences, because I knew it would just get more ignorant by the minute. Bye now!

*** Edited 12/13/2007 9:14:33 PM UTC by CPboy77***

^So does that make me pathetic because I read all of it?

DBCP said:Anyways, I find it interesting that the pricing for housing is no longer listed on the website. Should we be expecting to see an increase...?

That is interesting. And sad to if they decide to increase the price. I always thought it was overpriced to begin with.

^Next time please read more carefully. I said his rant was pethetic, I never said someone who reads it is pathetic. Thank you!
*** Edited 12/13/2007 9:11:25 PM UTC by CPboy77***

Someone needs to take their Ritalin today I gather....

That would be why it's in the form of a question. Pay attention here pal.

Oh yeah sure. It's pretty obvious you were trying to make a punk comment.
*** Edited 12/13/2007 9:23:37 PM UTC by CPboy77***

99er said:
That is interesting. And sad to if they decide to increase the price. I always thought it was overpriced to begin with.

If they increase the price of housing, they will give themselves another bullet in their proverbial foot, which is already full of holes. It also gives those of us considering Hard Rock or elsewhere even more of a reason to cut our losses and go elsewhere.

Chief, I would love to discuss the things that you've been talking about in a little more detail.

As for the complaint troll, just quit feeding the appetite. We all know we aren't greedy and are justified in our rants, complaints, etc...Stop feeding the troll and it will leave.

Doug, you make a very good point about the current weakness of the dollar. I may look into that a little more this next semester with Macroeconomics on the class list. *** Edited 12/13/2007 9:53:41 PM UTC by BlueStreak64***

I'll second that, ChiefWahoo. Just for my own personal curiosity, what were some of the proposals that were either implemented or scrapped?