Mini-Ethnography The discourse community included Epic Theatres, a small theatre in the town of Hendersonville, North Carolina.

Epic Theatres is a part of small chain, based in t. !ugestine, "lorida. Epic is a discourse community because it is a group of people wor#ing together to achieve a goal$ to provide patrons with a high %uality movie theatre e&perience, for a cost of course. Epic preforms intercommunication in various different ways. "or instance, each station has their own wal#ie tal#ie. The managers, or someone with more e&perience, can't be at all stations at once, so the wal#ie is a tool for staff members to as# %uestions and inform other members of the activity in their station. !s a member of staff, one must complete their daily duties. ! chec#off sheet is provided by managers. This must be completed daily. (f it is not, that results in a write-up. The chec#off sheet allows the manager to #now if the employee is doing their )ob correctly or doing their )ob at all. To gather my research for my discourse community, ( first visited the website. There is an Epic Theatres website that customers can use to loo# up show times and gather general information about the company. ( went to the Hendersonville location's part of the site to obtain the show schedule. To gather information on the rewards card, that had a whole section by itself. The rewards card section has its own flyer pasted onto the website with information about the point system that we use. !lso, it gives information about where to sign up for one and how much it costs *it is free, of course+. "or the interview ( conducted, ( contacted one of my old colleagues, ,rad. ,oth ,rad and ( were shift leaders at Epic together so we were close. (

gave him an over the phone interview because he lives two hours away from Charlotte. ( as#ed him a few %uestions about Epic and what its role was as a discourse community. There are a few different levels of positions at Epic. The base level consist of the floor staff members. These are the basic concessionists, tic#et sellers and ta#ers, and the cleaner. Most of these employees are part time. The shift leaders are one level higher than the floor staff. They do the same duties as floor staff members however are placed as supervisors and act as a buffer between an angry customer and an ine&perienced employee. (f a floor staff member happens to have a %uestion, they are re%uired to as# their shift leader before they as# a manager. (f the shift leader is not sure, then they may continue down the line of management. Ne&t, are the associate managers. They perform managerial duties and assist the first assistant and general manager in the up#eep of the facility. (f the assistant manager and general manager are both unavailable, then the associate manager will ta#e charge. The assistant manager is above associates but below the general manager. He or she will act as the representative for the general manager when they are on leave. -nly the assistant and the general manager perform the e&act same duties when the other is away, however only the assistant ma#es the schedule. The general manager is above the assistant to provide authority over his or her entire staff. This person usually has the most e&perience in the theatre business. (f corporate is involved with this particular theatre, the general manager will be the direct contact and spo#esperson for the theatre. (n a typical day, the manager on duty will come in early to open the

facility up, along with the floor staff and shift leaders. There is usually one other associate manager on duty as well as the general manager or the first assistant. There is usually at least one shift leader on duty for the concession area to supervise the floor staff. The shift leader will help any floor staff members in their daily duties. The managers will help the floor staff and shift leaders with any struggles or difficulties with a rush of patrons. !t the end of the day, floor staff members typically go home first, and the shift leaders will close the concession stand. The managers will stay until the very last movie drops and every customer e&its the building. .oing to the movies as a patron and actually wor#ing there as an employee is a completely different world. /hat one customer says will be turned around and said to an employee in what would seem to be a completely different language. This is how the employees tal# to eachother and communicate. The language comes with e&perience. "or instance, instead of saying 0are you wor#ing the matinee10 the employee would say, 0are you wor#ing the mat10 This might confuse people who have called it 0matinee0 since they #new what a matinee was. !nother e&ample would be the 0door0 person. Most people would li#e to call this person the 0tic#et ta#er0, however employees )ust call it 0door0. There are times that using a different language benefits the company. They use a language that employees li#e to call 0silverwarian0. (f there is, for instance, a person with an outside drin# or food, the first encounter employee would say, 0the blue #nife has a for#0. The 0#nife0 represents a male while a 0spoon0 would represent a female. The color of the #nife or spoon represents the color that they are wearing, and the for# )ust means that they have either

a beverage or food. This is directed to the door person so they can stop the person with the food or drin#. .oing further on the participation of employees, each employee is sub)ected to obey all rules of the theatre. This includes but is not limited to$ (2ing patrons who do not loo# li#e they are old enough to see a rated 030 movie, not allowing friends in free, and #ic#ing people out who are being a disturbance. /hile this is definitely not the most en)oyable part of the )ob, it is part of the )ob description and it is re%uired to oblige by the rules of the theatre. (f the rules such as these are not followed, there is a possibility of the employee being written up or even terminated. Each Epic employee is re%uired to as# for the Epic rewards card at the bo& office station and the concession stand station. This allows the customer to remember to use their rewards card and it also gives customers without a rewards card an incentive to get one and therefore come to the movies more often. ,y the employee doing this, they are actually doing the company a favor by getting more customers to spend even more money at their theatre. To be a part of the Epic team, there is an application online that someone could fill out. The theatre hires mostly close to holiday seasons, before summer, and before school starts again. 2epending on whether one is willing to wor# holidays or if the theatre is hiring, the hiring manager will give that person a call bac# for an interview. (f the theatre is interested in that person after their interview, they will give them a call bac# letting them #now that they are hired. -nce the the employee is hired by the theatre, they will come in for paperwor# and a tour of the facility. They must fill out a /-4 form for ta&es, and bring copies of their driver's license and social security card.

The employee is provided with a shirt to wear on the cloc# and is e&pected to purchase their own shoes and pants. The employee will be started in the concession stand where we ma#e the most profit. The main purpose of this discourse community is to provide a movie theatre e&perience for patrons who are willing to spend money. The theatre is very money oriented, so to be a good employee, there must be obedience towards the company and its policies. (f there is no obedience, it inconveniences the company and possibly loses money for them. The theatre believes in high %uality product and e&ceptional service. They thin# that if it isn't the best, then customers will go to some place that is better than they are. The theatre ma#es the customer see all of the good %ualities in Epic, so it displays things that would be considered 0deals0 to a customers eye.