10 Things They Don't Tell You About Working In A Cinema

"The candyman can cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good" - Bill, Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

Pick and mix at the cinema isn't so much mixed with love, it's mixed with whatever little John or Judy had been touching prior to cramming their fists into the plastic tubs. There's a perfectly good reason that, during the pandemic, a lot of pick and mix stands in cinemas and supermarkets shifted to individually wrapped sweets.

You can see some amazing sights when working on the concessions counter, the wide-eyed excitement and enthusiasm of the children soon gives way to the abject horror of the naive parent who thought their kids would heed the "not too much now" instruction. People, in particular children and the hard of understanding, see "£1.50 per 100g" and read it as "£1.50 for all you can stuff in the box" with hilarious results.

Many a time you'll take the groaning pick and mix container from a customer, pop it on the scales and read out an eye-watering final total of upwards of thirty pounds. Naturally, people refuse such a total and the sweets must be wasted off to avoid contamination. And once you've seen how many hands have gone in or how many dropped sweets you've had to clean from the congealing trays underneath, you'll be quietly disposing of your appetite.