CEC people

[CEC478Worker]

So for the people who work at a CEC is there any standards that you think should be removed or some that would be put in? Or what are some of your favorite standards?

[Shiney Happy Jenn]

Thought i don't "officially" work for The Rat these days... ( more like "Un-Officially" i'd say..) i have some thoughts.

Standard that should be removed....or discontinued. Hmm, well i can't think of one off hand though the Sky Tube details cleaning was a royal pain in the ***. Nobody noticed ( Guests that is) so it seemed a waste of labor, not to mention brain cells of the poor kid who had to endure the pain of doing the job! Ha! I totally understand the importance of keeping something like that clean ...but some of the nuiances were plain ridiculous.

I think in general MOST of the Standards are good and CEC needs to have them. I think many of the Kitchen Standards could be a little better executed but overall they are satisfactory for the task at hand.

Now Standards to be introduced? I would say more in the line with the Entertainment aspects. I think the Standard of having "Every Guest SEES Chuck E. Cheese" needs to be better enforced/policed at Stores. Many are still severly lacking. When they say EVERY GUEST SEES CEC they mean the walkaround..not just the robot people! Seriously, i have had Stores tell me that line when i have asked about their lack of Chuck on the floor and some have actually said "oh they see him....on STAGE"...! ( !!!)

I don't care HOW slim your labor is for a shift, you can STILL get Chuck out during your peak Lunch period!

Other then that, i can't think of any other Standards that stand out in my mind as fitting into either catagory.

[Aaron]

I think that standards should be followed 100% of the time, however I've noticed the issues usually lie within the training. If you are a Team 2, Birthday Coordinator or Master Trainer however you are unenthusiastic and look for cheap, tacky ways to get out of doing things the right way... then the trainee will follow, and its like a dominoe affect afterwards.

Absolutely Chuck E. should always be on the floor. A few weeks ago I was at a store and overheard, 'Chuck only comes out for birthdays,' which I've noticed is an unspoken rule at many stores, too. It's a shame, but unfortunately it is what it is.

I don't have any standards. My single goal each day is to go higher than standards and over achieve. My favorite standard is our magic clean procedure. I strongly encourage everyone to take advantage of it, makes your weekends look much brighter to the guest.

[CEC3066]

what happened to the Weekday: 10 On/20 Off Weekend:20 on/10 off standard for the Walkaround Chuck. EVERYONE should see him w/o having to ASK for him

[CEC478Worker]

This should be done, BUT it will depend on the store business rate and labor rate.

[Aaron]

It's still a standard, but during the week sometimes it is hard to keep it up. Something I'm still working on out here, though.

[Rapid T Rabbit]

Again, back in the franchise days at Union NJ, one thing the former management was very good about was having Chuck E. out every day, and even coming out on request (even when asked by an older fan such as yours truly before I joined their cast). Of course once I did join the cast, I had Chuck out ALL the time!

Contrast that nowadays like this week when I took Nevin to three stores in my area and not once did we see Chuck appear on the floor. Kind of sad actually.

The company should actually go out and hire folks like myself who are dedicated costume character/mascot performers and allow them to be just that. That was the way I was hired in my day.

[FanOfCEC]

This should be done, BUT it will depend on the store business rate and labor rate.

True that, I deffinately believe it is an important thing that "Every guest see's Chuck E. Cheese" but like in our store, if we don't have the crew to pull off a proper CEC walk-around scheadule, what can you do??? Our crew is slim but we try very hard. Of course it's even extra bonus points when we can bring Helen out at the same time with Chuck. What might happen is that we may have a girl cast member do a Chuck and Helen rotation walk-around just so both characters can be seen by guest.

[CEC478Worker]

Chuck should be the only walk around character says Corporate >.<

[chucki233]

Chuck should be the only walk around character says Corporate >.<

at first I thought that said "Chuck should only be a walk around character" meaning, get rid of the animatronic version.

[Shiney Happy Jenn]

Chuck should be the only walk around character says Corporate >.<

I have yet to have seen that officially in print, on some sort of document. This was a hotly debated topic back when i was still working for The Rat...and to this day i have yet to have seen anything that justifies the fact that ONLY Chuck can be out!

Fight the power man....if it MAKES MAGIC with YOUR Guests and you have performance grade ( as in, clean and correctly dressed Helen, Jasper, Munch, etc) costumes by all means use em'!!!

:smokin:

[Aaron]

It's an unspoken rule, so to speak. Regardless, magic can still be made without other characters as long as you've got hospitality and A+ service.

[chucki233]

Whiel on the topic of walk-arounds, has anyone heard of doing kid check in the walk-around costume? like maby on a slow weekday, and they could keep a couple of dry erase bords on the counter for comunication (If needed). To me as a guest that would be so cool!

[Rapid T Rabbit]

Not quite, but in my day during the course of making rounds sometimes, I would have Chuck E. standing next to Kid Chek welcoming all the guests as they entered our store. When things weren't too busy in the parking lot, I even had Chuck escorting guests to and from their cars. And at the end of the evening I would give everybody a good night hug and wave after they exited the store past Kid Chek.

[FanOfCEC]

[quote=Shiney Happy Jenn;21772]I have yet to have seen that officially in print, on some sort of document. This was a hotly debated topic back when i was still working for The Rat...and to this day i have yet to have seen anything that justifies the fact that ONLY Chuck can be out!

Fight the power man....if it MAKES MAGIC with YOUR Guests and you have performance grade ( as in, clean and correctly dressed Helen, Jasper, Munch, etc) costumes by all means use em'!!! /quote]


THANK YOU JENN! Magic CAN BE and IS created in many ways then one. A cast member entertaining some kids at merch, A cast member from shoroom dancing with a child for no reason, Maybe a gameroom attendant playing Air Hokey with a guest, They are all forms of creating magic for guest. And correct me if I'm wrong, is it not a "cast member" who may use a walk-around costume, be it CEC, Helen, Jasper,ect. to create magic for guest??? I can honnestly say that our Helen walk-around does get nothing but posative vibes from our guest. Since we are a franchise we are able to use her which to be completely honnest, I feel we are blessed.

[ChuckEZone]

I have yet to have seen that officially in print, on some sort of document. This was a hotly debated topic back when i was still working for The Rat...and to this day i have yet to have seen anything that justifies the fact that ONLY Chuck can be out!

Right, as long as Chuck is out with the other characters they're cool with it. If any store is lucky enough to have a character other than Chuck, it would be foolish not to bring them out.

[CEC Kid Check]

Whiel on the topic of walk-arounds, has anyone heard of doing kid check in the walk-around costume? like maby on a slow weekday, and they could keep a couple of dry erase bords on the counter for comunication (If needed). To me as a guest that would be so cool!

This cannot be done for a couple of reasons. One big reason is that if Chuck checks guest out, the guests don't know if the 'Cast Member' inside is actually checking the number because they can't see the CM and the CM can't call the number out loud.

As for the white boards, Chuck cannot sign autographs, thus that no CM knows what the "official" writing font of CEC. So no chuck is allowed to write letters, symbols, signs or anything through pen/pencil and paper. If this happens, then one chuck is going to have a differen't style of font than another. Disney walkarounds mastered this because they have there CM's practice the specific walkaround style (whether its writing or personality) over and over until they mastered it.

[chucki233]

This cannot be done for a couple of reasons. One big reason is that if Chuck checks guest out, the guests don't know if the 'Cast Member' inside is actually checking the number because they can't see the CM and the CM can't call the number out loud.
They're supposed to call the number out load :choochoo: , no one ever does that at the store here. they just look at your hand and open the gate.

As for the white boards, Chuck cannot sign autographs, thus that no CM knows what the "official" writing font of CEC. So no chuck is allowed to write letters, symbols, signs or anything through pen/pencil and paper. If this happens, then one chuck is going to have a differen't style of font than another. Disney walkarounds mastered this because they have there CM's practice the specific walkaround style (whether its writing or personality) over and over until they mastered it.
Very True. but if It happend to be at a cec with studio c (w/o curtains), or an exsisting stage, and a kid isn't observent enough to see that there's 2 chucks then I don't think they would be observent enough notice hand writing.

[Rapid T Rabbit]

Actually on one of the character training tapes I posted, I think there was some allowance mentioned about signing autographs. But it was the way it was said that didn't make sense.

[CEC478Worker]

I say let's just use all of them.