Understaffing at Cedar Point hits nightmarish levels...

Proper safe food handling techniques do slow operations down a bit. :)

While increasing base pay may entice a few workers, I think a larger issue stems from the lack of flexibility during this time of the year, and maybe throughout the whole year. When most of your workers are High School/College Students with no/limited other responsibilities during the summer months it is quite easy to have a more rigid working schedule as those that are employed don't have much else going on. But some the fall season you need to be able to work around other commitments, and I think this is what is causing their staffing issues.

I'm sure there are individuals in the greater Sandusky area that would be able to work one day, or even half day, during these weekends. The park just needs to be more open to flexible scheduling.

To piggy back off this thought, college students usually have retail or food service jobs, whether that's in the cafeterias on campus, fast food, or waiting/busing tables. Those jobs usually require a commitment to working on weekends when those establishments are generally busier.

That means that if they want employment during the week, they can't necessarily spend their weekend at an amusement park anywhere from an hour to 4 hours away.

Quick side note: At Monster on Saturday, there was a ride host all the way from Purdue who was as chipper as if it were Opening Day. It was absolutely refreshing and I was astonished that he would drive all the way from West Lafayette to be at Cedar Point and still be that energetic. Anyway, kudos to that guy!

I just Googled the driving time from Purdue to Cedar Point and it said 4 hrs 36min. Damn! That's a long way to go for a weekend job. I think all money made from the job would be going into the gas tank.

To put it into perspective the year I was there:

7.40 minimum wage (2011)

I would drive up Friday morning, drive up to Sandusky. This is a 90 mile drive from where I lived. We'll factor gas & also the 1.00 toll at the time in later.

Schedule:

Friday: 16:45 -- 00:00

• Hours worked: 7.00 | Calculated at 7.25 scheduled + any overage (staying late, low zones, long queue, etc.) minus any breaks (I think Friday was 1 hour of unpaid breaks)

Saturday: 09:45 -- 00:00

• Hours worked: 12.00 | Calculated at 14.25 scheduled + any overage minus any breaks (I believe 2 hours are unpaid)

Sunday: 09:45 -- 20:00

• Hours worked: 8.25 | Calculated at 10.25 scheduled + any overage minus any breaks (2 hours as well)

Total Hours: 27.25 hours scheduled work / 2.13 days, or 51.25 hours (53 % of time) -- This is calculated from start time Friday to end time Sunday.

So let's take a look at the wage breakdown. Paychecks are issued biweekly. I don't have the exact schedule, but lets look at a wage calculator. I actually am using one from ADP and pulling in wage info from 2011, so this will be interesting:

Lets double the total hours worked, so a total of 54.50 hours are allotted on payroll. That shows the following breakdown:

So, in the above example, you net 358.33 per pay. There's a few things to consider here though too. You still pay for housing during Halloweekends. Lets say it's 20.00 per check, it's something ridiculous and minor, nothing there. Lets consider the job expenses as an employee I incurred during: The trip is 90 miles there & back, plus a $1.00 toll each way. Given my car at the time, I averaged about 24mpg highway on a 11 gallon tank. So that's roughly 2/3rd of a tank. I looked at a historical gas chart and the average Ohio gas price in August (closest date) was 3.61 / gallon. Lets just say I fill the tank up completely each trip which would make sense.

So we have 39.61 in gas each trip ( 79.42 biweekly), and then $2.00 added for tolls (4.00 biweekly). So just in travel I'm 83.42 in expenses. That's already almost 25% of my net just in travel alone. This doesn't factor in the three hours in time driving for example too.

Then consider food expenses, you can pack or eat at the Cafe, your choice. Lets say 8 bucks a day x 3 days for food on point. This doesn't include going out after work, or funsies, whatever. That's 24 per weekend, or $48.00 biweekly.

Then, factor in any other expenses (car insurance, cell phone, any school costs, food during the week, etc.). That basically leaves 206.91 biweekly to deal with those expenses. I'll be honest, during that timeframe I was a paycheck to paycheck guy with this. Thankfully through the week I had stable employment at the Student Union to use to save up + help offset the CP paycheck. Many others don't have that luxury and CP was their only job. So 200 bucks leftover every pay, lets subtract out 100 for things like a cell / insurance, that' seems reasonable. So 100 bucks to live on for two weeks.

This should help sum up why keeping + retaining employees, especially during the Halloween event is hard. You don't make much, it's cold, it's already been a long season, it's already understaffed / operating at crew minimums, and all this work is spread over barely 48 hours.

TL;DR version, people on point bust their ass and are actually some of the most determined hardest workers in many avenues. Not all, but most do their best with what they have. Thank them when you can, and consider that they're working just to get by and end the employment contract with their crew together, and to maintain a valid resume item for future years.

Man, I'm glad I got my life turned around too, no way in hell could I live that way now...

I agree with everything your saying. But you lost me when you started figuring in eating and paying car insurance. Those aren't things you should stop doing if your not working at the park. Especially the eating! Minimum wage isn't supposed to be a living wage. But I do admire the people who work at the park. I've never had a bad experience at the park related to the staff. Usually involved rain or wind. I'm not saying I haven't been waited on people that didn't know what their doing. Just stating that I've been humbled enough to have patience with other people, especially if their doing something nobody is willing to do.

Well the reason I factored that in was to show, the kids are working for $100.00 in spending money / non life expenses...

So if you're wondering why turnover is bad, and lack of available staff, there's one big reason.

Your calculations also didn't factor in the other expenses involved in driving a car (maintenance, tires, depreciation etc), that are directly impacted by miles driven.

We could count in maintenance for sure. Depreciation I'm not going to factor in as that's related to the asset itself and that's more related to resale value moreover than operations. Plus as an 18 year old at the time I'm not worried about a depreciating asset as much.

However on the flip side, the maintenance is not an item that is required for me to perform work functions / get me through the work day. Things like getting to / from work, and expenses incurred during a work day (food needed / phone to call rides for weekly schedule & location, etc.) is more important to consider.

The moral of the story there is they aren't paid much compared to what they were paid regular season cranking out 70 hours a week easily. Add on that it's cold, extremely busy, and short staffed...

Some people's fuse is only so long...

One thing I find really interesting is KI does not have these reported "work all weekend or not at all" requirements.

They also have a larger fall list to pull staffing from (more local schools, etc.). Cedar Point's early season & fall labor force is mostly college students. My contract actually stipulated working through until the season end for weekends. For example, I worked every day during Halloweekends. The only exception was a weekend I actually needed off for a family event. I was actually scheduled to work, but had to call off even asking about a month in advance and took a few points because of it.

Decisions like that are not made at the corporate level either. It's going to be on a park by park basis and even department by department basis within one park at times.

Dang it, looks to be not so good weather wise now, rain during operating hours. I'll go, I'll give a focus on haunted attractions one last time. Tomorrow all of a sudden is shaping up to be decent, will probably be cloudy whole day but rain should be over for large majority of operating hours. Hopefully now then most people once again will go on Saturday. And if more do go on closing day, I'll be fine cause I'll use my fastpass + that day, slight chance of a pop up shower. I just hope today isn't bad crowd wise, weather is certainly looks to be not that good but it's closing weekend too.

thedevariouseffect said:

Well the reason I factored that in was to show, the kids are working for $100.00 in spending money / non life expenses...

So if you're wondering why turnover is bad, and lack of available staff, there's one big reason.

Absolutely.

Treat your employees better with more $ and considerations, and then you will actually attract and keep employees.

It's really that simple.

Anecdote: We have two locations in the same city. The turnover rate at my building is significantly less than the other location. We pay the same wages. I am significantly more flexible to scheduling and offer multiple incentive programs. I feel, as a manager, it is my job to keep my employees satisfied. It is my employees' job to keep the customers satisfied. If I'm failing my job, they will certainly fail theirs.

Things are running fairly smoothly this afternoon for closing day. Several salaried folks are in position but between the decent crowd and amount of stuff open, it doesn't feel like closing day.

Early on Saturday over by GateKeeper there were two men doing the job of sweeps. I chatted with them as they didn't quite look like ones who normally perform that job, they were dressed differently. They were both union carpenters who were asked to help out. They still got their normal rate of pay. They were very upbeat and good natured even though the weather was "challenging". I assume there were many other instances very similar around the park all weekend.

Wayne B said:

Someone pick a good charity - then have this forum as the group for gathering signees. I'd volunteer for the columbus day weekend regardless of the weather. Atleast we can be a small part of the solution and have the park's back and raise some coin for a good cause.

I've been mulling this over and I think you might be on to something here. Gather a volunteer group of PointBuzzers and work a weekend. PointBuzzers get to see what it's like "on the other side," Cedar Point gets staffing help, and we raise a couple thousand dollars for a deserving charity.

There are some potential issues. For example, getting reliable commitments from relatively anonymous forum members. But I think those are things that we can work through.

In general, though, what does everyone think? How much interest would there be if we did something like this?

I'd give it a go, I wouldn't mind putting in a fun weekend with a few people here...and one maybe be one thing to make us enthusiasts look good and not crazed front of train dead weight queue running loons ;P

Great Idea Walt, especially since they already have a volunteer group system. Not sure exactly how it works anymore, but believe the groups are assigned one specific areas, and duties are limited in some capacity depending on the job.

If we’re limited to one job, I would suggest sweeping. Not glamorous but you basically walk and get soak up the atmosphere all while doing something that makes a pretty visible difference at the park. No real stress, and guest interaction is answering directions and questions about Cedar Point. Perfect for the average pointbuzzer as we’d probably have more park knowledge than most volunteers.

Rides would be great, but the group would likely only get to do entrance or fast lane positions. Food and Merch might feel removed a bit from the atmosphere. Games could be fun though.

Parking is probably the worst job at the park IMO (Did that a few times, not fun) .but I'm sure we can get our parking expert Siouxsie on that…