[uscbandfan]

And the NC Employees would have no case, NC is an Employee At Will state, you can be fired for any reason including but not limited to your boss not liking your shirt. No lawyer will touch the case unless discrimination can be proved.

I know of someone in South Carolina that was fired for exactly that and was working for an at-will agency. It can and does happen.

[Jonathan]

18 year old kids working minimum wage jobs are not in a position to be lawyering up to take on large corporations.

If parks like Holiday World and Knoebels can have great employees despite having an infinitesimally smaller potential employee pool of a region like Charlotte (Northumberland County, PA has less than 100,000 people living in it and Spencer County, Indiana around 20,000) then I don't buy that as an excuse.

I will say that the larger the business (or amusement park) the harder it is to effectively instill a sense of community and motivation, so I recognize the difficulty that giant companies like Six Flags and Cedar Fair face. In the end I think it comes down to management and training failures and lack of competitive pay.

This isn't necessarily a commentary on Carowinds specifically since I've only been there a couple times this season and didn't really have any particularly negative experiences.

[Capler]

No. If they don't do a good job, they can be fired. If the park is short on employees, maybe Carowinds should advertise more about hiring...

I don't want to argue, but I do have to say that is completely not true. If Carowinds fired all their employees who don't do a good job, they would have hundreds of "wrongful termination" lawsuits on their hands (and Carowinds would lose them all too, not to mention Carowind's unemployment insurance rates would shoot straight through the roof). That's the reality of the labor market today. "Not having passion or enthusiasm for the theme park industry" is not a justifiable reason for termination.

Then they'd have to deal with a massive shortage of employees. Pretty much every employer is always looking for and hiring good people. Good employees are more valuable to them than gold, and they are well aware of that.

I truly understand your point (and I also wish employers had more freedom to do those things) but the reality of lawsuits in this country really ties an employer's hands when it comes to firing bad employees.

A few people have mentioned the problem of poor managers/supervisors/trainers. That certainly is the monkey on Carowind's back. And that monkey is not going away for one big reason: Carowinds is a seasonal job. Anybody who is good at those management positions, probably would never want to work at Carowinds. It's a temporary job. In a few weeks everyone of them will be cut back to part-time. And a few weeks past that, they won't have any job, period. Anybody who does those jobs, will always choose to do those things somewhere else (Chic-Fil-A, Subway, Target, Harris Teeter, etc) where they won't automatically lose their job after a few months, and where they can work year-round. Theme parks that are open year-round (Florida, Southern California, etc) allow the possibility of people making genuine careers of working at those parks. At seasonal theme parks like Carowinds, those are temp jobs, even for the managers. So if you are good at managing and motivating the young employees at Carowinds, you will quit immediately when the opportunity to do the same thing at Target is available.

You hit the nail right on the head as it relates to managers and supervisors. Part time/seasonal is not for the career person.

[arby]

You hit the nail right on the head as it relates to managers and supervisors. Part time/seasonal is not for the career person.

That in turn circles back to the real issue, Carowinds needs more than just roller coasters in order to grow. That would draw more than just teens and thrill seekers, enabling them to be open 10 or so months out of the year. The jobs would be less seasonal and more full time.

I just got back from a road trip and hit a few parks. KI has more than 2 1/2 times the flats and attractions, Kentucky Kingdom is at least double on non-coaster rides. I think Carowinds is right on par with Indiana Beach for non coaster rides.