Chuck E Cheese in La Mirada, Wayne Boyd doesn't care about the children or employees of Chuck E Cheese La Mirada CA

I found my way into a job interview. It wasn't just any job interview, it had been one I had been planning for years. I came into the La Mirada Chuck E. Cheese for a group interview, and to my surprise Wayne Boyd picked me, among other to hire as a game room attendant. He originally, by his own admission, wanted to hire me as a manager during this interview, as he claimed I was ‘over qualified’ for the position I was applying for. But because I had worked with so many awful and incompetent managers in the past, and wasn’t excited to be working with fellow parasites, I talked Wayne out of it, and I’m actually glad I did.

When I first started working at Chuck E cheese, I did what I do at every job I get hired for: I work harder than anyone else in the entire building including the head managers. Its just what I do, but In hindsight, It puts a giant target on your back as other employees are forced to work extra hard when working next to me. I refused to only work on my assigned tasks, and instead picked up extra work to keep me busy. I was generally in charge of maintaining the “big kids” area of the arcade, yet found it incredibly easy to take care of the “small kids” area of the arcade, as well as the “showroom” as well. Essentially I was just cleaning extra tables, and doing extra work that wasn’t even assigned to me. A lot of the younger workers would thanks me and say things like “your a life saver! I’m so tired today, so thank you for finishing my work for me!”

I started to notice internal problems with the management almost immediately. Firstly, Wayne went out of his way to help me get hired, and to explain things to me, but as soon as I was officially hired, he stopped answering my questions, and would instead say “I will teach you how to do that later. Maybe tomorrow?” instead of helping me with whatever task I needed help understanding. Then I noticed Wayne would flat out refuse to buy cleaning supplies. Specifically, he would refuse to reorder spay bottles that we used to keep the tables, games, and salad bar clean. We had one working spray bottle that was shared between the entire store. As you can imagine, this made work incredibly difficult. Having to wait an hour to use a spray bottle to clean your dirty tables led to more tables being left dirty with food on them. When asked why Wayne wouldn’t reorder new bottles his response was “well I bought 25 of them a month ago, so if they are already broken then I cant reorder more.” Wayne was making a fortune selling birthday parties to families on a daily bases, as well as money coming in from the arcade, and kitchen, yet, somehow Wayne didn’t have a couple of bucks to purchase items that are generally found in a dollar tree. I took it upon myself to purchase a spray bottle out of my own paycheck as it was getting too difficult to come to work and not have the supplies needed to keep the place in tip top shape. Well, eventually it became a hassle to even use the bottle I brought in to use, as the employees would routinely ask me to use the bottle, so I was without a bottle to use, even though I would bring one in.

To make matters worse, Wayne was solely focused on providing a ‘birthday experience’ to only the customers who payed for a ‘deluxe birthday package’. Sure many other guests would throw “free” birthday parties, but Wayne would silence the music being played in house, so your ‘free birthday’ would be without music. Wayne also made sure that you had to ‘ask’ for chuck to come out and say ‘hello’ to the non-paying guests. Essentially, if you didn’t pay for a party out of pocket, your experience at chuck e cheese would be pretty boring with no animatronics (as they were removed a year prior), no music to listen to (as Wayne would mute the music he grew tired of listening to), and no chuck e cheese to view as he made it clear chuck was NOT to come out every hour unless asked by a guest to.

Even worse, nobody wanted to dance as chuck e cheese. After getting to know the employees, and asking why they didn’t like dancing as chuck the answer was obvious. Not only where you being asked to wear a suit that caused you to sweat profusely, you basically had to do it while living in poverty. I asked an employee who made it clear he did not enjoy dancing as chuck, “Pretend Wayne gave you a competitive raise today and you now make $20/hr. Would you THEN dance as chuck e cheese?” He replied, “absolutely! If I was being paid fairly I would have NO PROBLEM dancing as chuck!”. Well obviously employees didn’t feel they were being compensated for their hard work and devotion to the children.

To make matters even more worse, Wayne made it clear that nobody was to receive free food. Wayne must have believed he was doing his employees a favor by giving us 50% off of food purchases, but if you start your job with no money in your pocket, and your first paycheck is 2 weeks away, when you first start your basically being forced to work without food, as I did every day of the first month of employment here. Eating out of the garbage was my only option to keep my job at chuck e cheese. I pretended to be a ‘rat’ while doing it like templeton in “Charlotte's web” in order to keep myself in good spirits while living like a literal rat.

Essentially, to work for this company, you will be asked to work at minimum wage, and given very few hours, as well as nothing to eat. I wasn’t even embarrassed to be eating the left over food at the tables, and whatever was about to go into the trash can, as I had to survive somehow. I was given so few hours, and such low pay that at the end of the day, after working one month for the company, I never had enough money to eat at budget restaurants like Del Taco as I was forced into a life of poverty, thanks to wayne and his inability to sympathize with hard workers living out of their cars just to make the place run efficiently.

Wayne could have easily given his hard working employees a personal sized pizza if he wanted to. My years of working at ‘pizza hut’ earned me a free personal sized pizza everyday, yet my hard work at chuck e cheese left little to show for after a long day of sweating inside a hot chuck e cheese suit, and still somehow not having enough money for my car payment, car insurance, or dare I say stable housing. It was clear to me after working for the company that Wayne was exploiting high schoolers, or fresh out of high school workers, who didn’t understand they were being taken advantage of. Towards my final days of the company, I tried to form a ‘low key’ union called ‘club chuck’.

After my bills started pilling up, and getting every changing excuses why I was never allowed to have any real “hours” to make a living, it was clear I had to challenge Wayne. I eventually told him that I was going to file a corporate complaint regarding the lack of cleaning supplies, lack of hours, lack of competitive pay, and lack of food for the workers, as well as other problems like Wayne refusing to answer your questions or help you on the job as a manager. Out of all my years working for different companies, I have NEVER seen a more LAZY or INCOMPETENT manager as I did in Wayne. He basically sat around all day saying “no” to any question you ask. If you ask him to look at a broken game that guests would complain about, he would say “sure I’ll be right out to fix it” but the game would sit broken for a week straight. Coming to Wayne with problems or complaints was completely useless.

Eventually I reached a breaking point, after Wayne would threaten to cut my already dismal hours if I didn’t agree to come in to work in the mornings (directly after a closing shift) to do his maid work all without cleaning supplies. I was so upset that I eventually called his bluff and refused to let him treat me this way, even if it meant losing hours.

Prior to my argument with Wayne, I would week after week, routinely ask Wayne “how is my performance? Do you have any complaints? Does anyone have complaints against me?” he would always reply “I have no issue with your performance or your job ethics.” He never could complain about my work because ultimately I was doing the job of 4-5 people on a daily basis, by working the kid check, while working the ‘big kids’ and ‘little kids’ section of the arcade, as well as maintaining the showroom, on top of doing dishes in the back of the house. It was hard to criticize me as it was obvious employees with my kind of work ethic and drive were very hard to find, especially in dead-end minimum wage jobs!

I eventually sent Wayne a text message saying that I was going to report his behavior to Corporate, and low and behold, just a few hours later, Wayne “magically” had numerous complaints about me which he supposedly kept from me for weeks? Something didn’t add up. Wayne said “your in big trouble mister. We have gotten numerous complaints about you staring at children.” Because I was so busy working the job of 4-5 lazy high schoolers, it was obvious to me that this wasn’t a legitimate complaint, and to this day Wayne can not prove to me that the complaints were real or actually filed. If he had said “we have complaints that your staring at the adult female guests, I could have at least somewhat believed him, but to say I was staring at the kids? This is awful sick behavior to use the children that I loved against me. I challenge Wayne today to answer how I was able to star at children while running around the store everyday working the job of 4-5 people? I was the only employee who would volunteer to dance as chuck, so how was I staring at kids inside the suit? Obviously Wayne has used this “starring” excuse to get rid of employees he didn’t care for, or ones smart enough to challenge his flawed authority. Well his secret is out now, and I don’t think he will be able to mistreat employees the same way again now that the public is aware of his incompetence.

I walked off the job as it was apparent I wasn’t being appreciated for the hard work I contributed to the business and talent that I brought to the table. Wayne had nothing but good things to say about me, until the day I said I was going to file a corporate complaint in his name.

I stand very secure in myself when I say Wayne Boyd does NOT care about the guests of his restaurant as he would be allowing employees to dance as chuck every hour regardless of how many people are currently in the restaurant if he did. Wayne does not care about the employees of chuck e cheese as he is blatantly creating false accusations against hard workers who challenge his “authority”.

If your okay with employers creating false accusations against your character, or enjoy working as a maid with no cleaning supplies then this job is for you! If you wish to live a life of poverty, all while working so hard you feel like your going to faint from the lack of food you will be able to afford, than chuck e cheese is for you! Odds are, if you work here, your fresh out of high school, and have no idea what a “union” is, or what being compensated fairly looks like.