Ops Discussion/Grievances

[LV-426]

yeah so far this year they have been really good, one time they told me to keep moving but no flashlight to the face, just a quick move of hands, an Ops girl even smiled at me once lol, yeah it seems is getting a lot better this year, which is nice

Edited September 30, 2011 by black mask

[copperfield13]

Yeah going back tonight the ops were far nicer than a few experiences last Friday. Only a ops girl in The Forsaken shined her flashlight into the air the whole time and kept telling people to move, but overall they even tried to stay back and out of the way =) helped make tonight awesome thank ya ops!

[atigeg]

Ops are low key and doing a great job this year. I've seen overenthusiasm no more than twice so far and haven't experienced "move along, move along" at all. I've seen a couple waving their flashlights, but in a low key way that is actually useful for guidance rather than making you feel rushed.

[Troiandan]

I have a kudos for a nice Ops lady in the In-Between last night. I've been having some major issues navigating in this maze this year (I have problems navigating in general, but that's another story ). A nice ops lady tried to point where to go, but I couldn't even see her. So she gently led me in the right direction until I could find my way on my own again. What a kind and class act, I'm very grateful to her! Didn't do anything to interfere with other guests or the actors, and gave me the help I truly needed at the time.

[Tarrbear]

First off, this is my first time being back on here in forever. Seriously.

But I've made it to HHN twice so far and had great experiences with the Ops in all houses except one. That one house was H.R. Bloodngutz. Each one was saying some version on "Keep it moving." Quite loudly, one even said, "Keeping going guys, you're almost there! You are doing great!" He made me laugh, but in his defense he made my friend feel good about himself considering how scared he was of each house

[Stumpy]

Not sure if this is the right place for this, or if she'll even read it, but I want to extend my thanks to an op in The Thing who helped me out last night. I came through during Stay and Scream and ended up doing the house completely alone. It was still daylight out and I was practically blind, so I had some trouble getting around and eventually reached a point where I didn't know where to go. She was very patient in guiding me through. She had longish (shoulder length) hair and glasses, so if anyone knows her, please pass this along.

[atigeg]

The irony (especially this year in Bloodengutz) is that A&D puts in things that cause people to pause/stop, like the bomb button this year, while Ops tries to keep them moving as they stop to play with the things that were purposely placed there for playing. After multiple visits, I still think this is a particularly good year ops-wise though.

[killswitch22]

The ops are much better than last year. I felt so rushed through all the houses last year and this year I feel I can go at a more leisurely pace.

I also have a fun story about an ops guy this year. I got a good scare in the Forsaken and I look over and find one of the ops laughing histerically at me. At least they are having fun.

[Cestlavenus]

SO.

I've been a long time lurker here... this is my first actual post (made after my first actual visit to HHN WOOT), so please forgive some minor major ignorance on my part. K? K.

First possible mistake: I assume the people outside of the doors as you enter/exit are also OPs? That's going to figure in pretty heavily to this post, so if I'm wrong about that feel free to yell things at me.

Like I said, first visit, and I had two wildly differing experiences with OPs that I wanted to share. I'll get the bad one out of the way first.

Apparently I'm not the only one who thought the OPs at HR Bloodngutz were super aggressive? Going through posts here, I'm seeing a lot of people felt the same way. I'm willing to make an allowance due to the fact that it was freaking POURING when we went through, and perhaps everyone outside just kind of dove for the first house they saw and that made things busier? But honestly, I saw no one behind us or in line so probably not. Anyway, our group (myself, an older sister, and her 13 year-old-daughter and OH MY GOD I will get to that in a second) moved through ALL of the houses at a pretty fast clip, this one included. We certainly never stopped, and I honestly felt like we went way too fast because you guys keep talking about all these awesome details and I pretty much missed every single one of them. Like seriously, here's me in the St. Patricks Day part: "Oh, we're in a cave now. Annnnnd now we're not? Wonder what that was all about?"

Moving that fast, I certainly didn't expect the constant barrage of KEEPMOVINGKEEPMOVINGKEEPMOVING around every corner; especially since this was our last house of the night, and the OPs in all of the other houses had been great, unobtrusive, etc. It got to the point where my sister started screaming back at them, which was a bit embarassing since that's kind of a crappy thing to do. She's usually not that kind of a person. But basicallly? If it pissed her off, it was BAD. We saw nothing in this house, and I don't mean we missed scares since that's more of a timing issue. I mean we were practically chased through so fast that we barely registered the scenes.

Now onto the good (which IMHO totes outweighed the bad)

My niece is 13, and generally very brave. She really wanted to go, seemed up to going, and enjoyed it... right up to the first scare of the first house at which point, holy shit she wanted out. Apparently she was under the impression that she would get hurt, even though we had explained that the actors weren't allowed to touch her? Honestly, we obviously wouldn't have brought her if we knew she'd be so scared, but she gave absolutely no warning that it would be a problem. Anyway, we got out of there without any issues, but she flat out refused to go into any more houses (save HR Bloodngutz since we convinced her it wouldn't be that scary, more funny), We'd get to the entrance, she'd freeze, we'd try to convince her to go in...

ENTER THE AWESOME OPS

You guys? THANK YOU SO MUCH for not doing either of two things a certain other theme park I've worked for that may or may not involve a mouse often does with terrified children: You did not force our whole group out of line, nor did you pressure the scared kid into the house. I've seen both of these things happen a fair amount, so it not happening at a huge event like this was a welcome surprise.

What did happen was: our group was kept to the side while we talked to my niece so that we didn't hold up the line. When it was clear that she wasn't going in, an OP stayed with her and we were allowed to enter at that point in the line, rather than be forced to wait in the line all over again. This was, to me, a really fantastic way to handle a situation that had to be super crazy annoying to the OPs, and they were all really patient and sweet with my niece as well.

Let me repeat one point: This happened at EVERY HOUSE except two, and not ONCE did an OP get pissy about it. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

I understand that being an OP is a thankless job - I've worked theme parks, and to use a comparasion someone else made in this thread, my father was a police officer, another thankless job. I totally get that sometimes it sucks to be you. My memories of you guys at this event may be very slightly tarnished due to the HR Bloodngutz craziness, but your patience and kindness with my niece more than makes up for it, and definitely the main thing I'll remember. Again, thank you.

And, um, sorry for writing a book about this. I felt like I needed to over-explain due to my lack of experience... or something, IDK.

[AaronPaHHNFan]

Ok so I've been to HHN 3 nights this year. First I must compliment most of the ops personnel. You are doing a good job but...... You knew there was a bit coming didn't you. I had a small problem tonight with the girl at the beginning of Nevermore. I was literally 2 feet behind the couple in front of us yet was told to keep moving and to close the gap. I'm sorry but what was I supposed to do? Should have I grinded my crotch on the girls ass? I believe in personal space and I refuse to get into a space within 1 foot of the girl in front of me. Even though I wanted to. Believe me I would have loved to rub up on her because she was beautiful but I refuse to invade her personal space like that. Other than that one person I've barely noticed the rest of you ops people. I do wish you could have a mask or something but that's besides the point. Your doing a good job of lurking in the shadows and not making your presence known other than that one person.

[LV-426]

well, last night of the event, and, I have zero complains about the people working in the houses, it was actually really good year, they were wearing different types of hats for Halloween today which I found really nice lol, it was cool, they were all cool, thanks guys, everyone did a great job this year

[Grimp0nd]

From my four visits this year i can happily and honestly say i never had one problem with house ops. So much so i hardly noticed them in fact other tgan a few guving me welcoming smiles. The only problem i had was at the entrance to the Bill and Ted show and i think Aaron will back me up here as he was with me. We got to the chain drop just at the second she closed it and refused to let us in. Im serious when i say 2 seconds earlier and she'd have let us in it was ridiculous. And no there wasnt anybody else behind us lol. Oh and Aaron, as to the question should you have ground your crotch in the girls ass in front. Simple answer...not unless it was Ashley lol. Sorry guys it's a private joke lol.