Infamous: Job Story
I spent a summer working for a Six Flags in Northern NY when I was 16. It was what all the 16 year olds did since the park was close-by. However, being 16 came with restrictions. I decided to do Rides, but I couldn’t do any ride that went off the ground unless I was 18.
This left me with the kiddie rides. You know, the ponys, mice, motorcycles. Ironically enough, the kids were great - it was the parents that got annoying.
Anyway, there were plenty of us at kiddie rides so they often had us sub for someone in another ride area if they were short. One day volunteers were asked for the swan boats, and I thought that sounded like a good idea. Granted I had never done this before at all.
The idea behind the ride was this: There is a long, slow, motor boat (5mph) that seats 30 people or so. There is a swan on the back that the operator sits in with a stick to move the boat right and left. The boat goes slowly down this little river that flows through the park, there is a turnaround at the end, then it comes back and the ride is over. It lasts about fifteen minutes and is a favorite of families and older people.
So the girls trained me. I took the boat down with another girl a few times and once by myself. Then they opened the ride and people boarded my boat. I gave them the spiel about not jumping out, then I took off the rope, sat in the swan, switched the motor on with my foot (like i was told to!) and took off.
We went around the turn around and I, amazingly, didnt get stuck (its more shallow) and the first ride was going really well. We come back to the dock and I throw the rope to one of the girls and turn the motor off with my foot.
The motor doesn’t turn off.
“Turn it off!” “It is off!” “Use your foot!” “It’s off!” “Well, I can’t pull you in - you have to go again!”
So, everyone gets a free ride. And the second entire ride was done while the motor was in the “off” position - although still running. The passengers were kinda confused and some of the guys tried to look inside the swan to see if they could help. I just kinda laughed and said “this is my first swan boat run.”
When we came back for the second time, a maintenance guy was on the dock and he was able to pull the boat over while it was still running. Everyone got off the boat and it was fine. The girls were all yelling at me but I just shrugged.
What happened was that even though we were trained to use our feet to switch the motor on and off, that is not the right way and the switch just wore out and broke. Great. And, of course, that was the first time it ever happened on the swan boats.
And they never asked me to do swan boats again.