Cedar Point mistreating its employees?

I just read an expose by a former employee claiming unsafe and unethical working conditions at the park. Read it at http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3427866&userid=143160

Just looks like someone had way to much time on their hands. Especially for something they clearly don't like.

As someone who has been to Cedar Point at least 4 times growing up and greatly enjoyed it, this absolutely disgusted me that Cedar Point management is willing to dehumanize and abuse their employees like this, all to make a few more bucks. I have already gotten my fraternity to remove Cedar Point from our list of ideas for yearly activity trips, and I plan on telling all my family and friends not to go either.

Absolutely disgusting, and I hope you go bankrupt or to jail for these abuses

What I find interesting is the fact that Johnny Spice joined Pointbuzz on the same day as TheInternationale, apparently with the sole intent of agreeing with him.

So, in the few hours after this 'expose' -- I use the term quite loosely -- was posted, on a Saturday night, you convinced your unspecified fraternity brothers not to go to Cedar Point? Amazing.

As far as the blog post itself, as soon as I got to the description of CP as a "poo poo pile", I tuned out. Clearly this is written by someone who lacks objectivity and fairness.

The moral of the story? Be careful of people with axes to grind. Their blades usually only cut one way.

[ /sarcasm ]

Me joining to say I agree with the article doesn't make it suspect, if even a shred of the article is true (and reading other reviews online, I have no doubt that it is) then Cedar Point is horribly exploiting its workers.

Why are you so quick to disregard the article? Are you part of management with something to hide from the rest of us? Of course this article is going to be objective, but these abuses are so outrageous that if they were even partially true then they are still highly offensive to me and others.

Also, the article has been up for several days now, and taking Cedar Point off the list wasn't much more than a few emails on our mailing list.

Ensign Smith sounds like a corporate shill who must defend human rights abuses like these.

The article sounds like a lot of BS. If the working conditions were that bad, they would have been exposed long before now. Anyone who has time to write or even read the whole thing might have a bit to much time on their hands.

Yeah, Ensign Smith is far from a corporate shill. He's probably close to being a hippy.

With that said, the hours are long, the conditions suck, the pay sucks and they treat you like dirt. Working at CP was by far the worst job I've ever had, but I still am glad I worked there. Yes they are probably somewhat predatory to foreign workers, but American kids are lazy.

I will say I highly agree with how terrible housing is. I understand why they have to have so much control with who comes in/out, but a lot goes on inside of the commons that is very bad (thats what you get when you put a lot of people recruited from inner city Cleveland and Detroit together). The living conditions were pretty downright awful, especially for the price we were paying for the one room.

But the bottom line is, nobody made the poster work there, and they worked there for years and kept coming back.

I laughed out loud when I read Johnny Spice's imagining of me as a 'corporate shill'. Pretty hysterical for those of you who may recall how vehemently I got on Cedar Fair when Kinzel closed Geauga Lake. But I laughed even louder when Ben surmised I might be a hippy...but only because he's pretty close to being right. :)

Johnny Spice, maybe you aren't the ISP alter ego of TheInternationale. But you seem awfully fast to leap on his bandwagon without bothering to check the accuracy and authenticity of the posted report.

My first year, I was working open-close (13-15 hour shifts) 7 days a week at the start of the season because our department was so understaffed. They had hired enough people, but so many of them didn't show up or else quit almost immediately.

I couldn't handle that schedule. I know I was there to work, but not just to ONLY work. I wanted to have fun too, and spend time with my new friends. So it was either come home and go straight to bed so you could get a tolerable 6-7 hours of sleep, or else come home and hang out with your friends for a few hours, have a little fun at the end of a looong day, but then only get 3-4 hours of sleep and be exhausted the next day. I burnt out fast. Although I did come back for subsequent years and had a better time because my hours were not as long.

I know it wasn't my managers fault, or CP's fault that so many people didn't show up or quit right away. But how can you expect the remaining employees to shoulder such a burden? You should let them work a normal amount of hours, and then if you find you have to close down a stand/ride/restroom due to not having enough staff, then oh well. I think it's better than running your remaining employees ragged.

Another thing was coming in to work a normal shift, like Open-3:00, and being told you now had to work Open-Close instead because of co-workers calling off or quitting. Nobody cared if you had plans for later in the day, you now had to work all day and there was nothing you could do about it. I loved Cedar Point and had a great time overall, but there really was that sense that you were supposed to be a slave to the park.

Every other thing I've read about them seems to confirm this is true, and you are so ready to defend these awful practices.

Cassandra L said:
I know it wasn't my managers fault, or CP's fault that so many people didn't show up or quit right away. But how can you expect the remaining employees to shoulder such a burden?

The not showing up/quitting right away may actually be attributable to Cedar Point, specifically, their housing. One of the regular posters (not in this subforum, though) who used to be a manager has mentioned many times how many employees would process in, and then upon seeing their options for housing, leave. I can tell you that this is true, and does happen, and not infrequently*. Certainly not your direct manager's fault, but definitely attributable to CP at large.

*I did not personally know those who did, but I did witness it happening on more than one occasion.

Johnny Spice said:
and you are so ready to defend these awful practices.

I'm not sure who you think is defending Cedar Point, but it's still nothing most of us don't already know. You're still not forced to work there, and can leave at any time you'd like.

Ensign Smith said:
But I laughed even louder when Ben surmised I might be a hippy...but only because he's pretty close to being right. :)

I knew it! HIPPY! :)

Here is Something Awful OP

http://www.esl.eu/eu/player/2545338/

fakeposter total

Ben: yep. Guilty as charged. :)

Sounds like this guy needs a tinfoil hat....and a life.

I can't say much as a current employee, but I can say that there are many of us that love our jobs and make the choice to work as hard as we do so others can enjoy the park...If you weren't happy as an employee, well, its sad you had a bad experience. There are reasons many of us come back though...

I am a long time member both here and at SA and a former CP seasonal employee. I will say that I was blinded to a lot of what went on as far as the foreign workers in Foods and stuff as I was a Ride Op. And I lived in Bayside the majority of my time at CP, and to be honest I generally enjoyed most of my time working there. But I don't really think that the OP of that thread is saying anything untrue per se. Just perhaps giving a lopsided account for effect.

edit: and the censorship part is true. While I worked there, management certainly made it very clear to me that they knew what I posted on the Internet and what their opinion was of whatever I would say.

Heh, I'm friends with the Wicked Twister seizure guy. He was surprised he was being talked about on the intertubes.

I will say this guy does make some decent points. I worked in quick service foods fro 5 years and did everything from red tag all the way up to area supervisors and I will say that you do need to love your job in order to enjoy it. I cant comment to much on other departments in the park but in foods you are usually one of the first employees to arrive at the park and one of the last to leave. Usually working in hot kitchens and being that most stands are understaffed alot of the summer breaks can get a little sketchy at times.