Seasoned Santa
Antioch,#2UPDATE Employee
Wed, October 19, 2011
I am an experianced professional Santa. I have worked for three different photo promotion companies since 1996 in the posistions of set manager, district or area manager, regional manager and now as a professional Santa. I am currently working for the Noerr programs.
A large number of the complaints that were given, frankly were not issue's with Noerr but rather the mall in question. Facilitys, cleanliness, over all safety of the set and "green" room area are the responsibility of the mall and if there were problems, they needed to be adressed to the mall managment. (by either the set or area manager) I am not saying those things were inacurate, I don't know I was not there, but the fact that these problems were not solved frankly are because the disgrunteled ex employee did not address the issue with the mall management. Santa and set and regional management are paid on a contract basis.
The hours involved are not hidden, and when offered a posistion it is simple enough to figure out what your pay is per hour and if the numbers don't compute for you then reply with a counter offer. If you are still not satisfied, don't accept the posistion, it is as simple as that. Bonuses are just that, a bonus earned for makeing certain goals, if those goals (some are sales, some are based on customer feedback on you. are not meet, you dont get the bonus. To complain about your pay after the fact is well, not very flatering to you in my opinion. (this goes for proffesional athleats as well! LOL)
From area managment on up, there is extreamly little turnover with this company, As for the way Santa's are treated, I am in contact with about 50 Noerr santa's every year and almost to a man they love working with Noerr and say it is by far the best company of it's type to work for. Yes the hours are long. Very long. Thanksgiving is our only day off for the whole run. (unless you are in a mall with two Santa's) and if we are feeling a little under the weather (we see thousands of kids, imagine all the germs we come in contact with!) we try very hard to grin and bear it. however, if a Santa is seriously ill, a substatute is found. (that is not easy to find a temporary real bearded santa in the area needed and can you imagine the complaints if a family shows up to the mall and Santa is not there when the schedual says he will be?) As for employees getting drunk and voicing there opinions. first, I have never once seen an employee off ANY of the companys I have worked for in the last 16 or so years drunk while on set or working. not one. I think the writer is feeding into an old stereo type that frankly may have hapened back in the 30's but just doesent happen today. Most Santa's are not spring chickens and some have medical issue's and if someone see's a Santa that apears a little wobbly it is assumed he is drunk when in fact it may be because of a side effect of medication or the fact that he has been sitting down with hundreds of kids jumping on him for hours and stood up a little fast. As for employee's voicing there opinions, what is he doing with this post? only he is doing so far more publicly and frankly most of his issue's are probably of his making as poor manager. If a Bunny or Santa was accused of inapropriate touching, the picture would be looked at to see if anything could be seen, but unfortunatly there are people that claim stuff like this in hopes of monitary settlement. I assure you I get a background check EVERY year. If the acusation is credible enough that Santa or Bunny is pulled off set and won't return untill there is a resolution. The vast majority of the time, that is very hard on the charactor as they truly are innocent but in todays letigious socioty, they have little choice.
Finally, as for customers with there own camera's. the last number of years that has been a dificult subject because you as a company want the customer to have a great experiance but they are a company that ivests many many thousands of dollars on every set to bring Santa to your mall. The mall does not pay for this or provide this as a thank you to there customers as some malls intimate. In fact, the mall is paid a large percentage of the gross profits to allow the company to come to there mall. So in order to make money and continue to be able to bring Santa back year after year, the company must sell pictures. (why do you think Santa isn't in all the department stores anymore like when I was a child?) So If a person comes to see Santa and just wants to viset, no problem, there never has been a problem with any company. But if they come in with there own camera and want to take a group picture, than individual pictures with each person in the family or group and end up with 20 pictures and dont pay and the next person in line see's this and pays for and gets one picture, is this fair? chances are the second customer will just viset santa and come back later with there own camera. I worked a mall for a different company a few years ago that a full 70% of the people brought there own camera and didt purchase a thing. That is not a good business model. Noerr's policy is if you purchase a picture (even one) you can take more pictures with your own camera and Santa will smile and be just as jolly for those pictures as well. This is a very fair policy in my opinion. I would hate to see a day when Santa disapiers from the malls like he did from the department stores.
I guarantee there is a lot more going on than is being represented by the writer in question.