Six Flags employees are taking to social media to demand the ouster of their CEO, who last week said the theme park has become a “cheap day care center for teenagers” as he revealed it has lost 2 million customers.
Two anonymous letters posted on Reddit — shortly before the Arlington, Texas-based company’s customer defections sent its stock tumbling more than 18% in a single day — portrayed chief executive Selim Bassoul as an ax-happy boss who is out of touch with the workings of the struggling theme park.
“Selim is the laughing stock of the entire company,” according to another anonymous employee’s letter with the title “Step Down Selim” that was posted Aug. 6 on Reddit. “None of us have an ounce of respect for him.”
On a Thursday conference call, Bassoul told Wall Street analysts he was raising prices at the parks in a bid to weed out “rowdy teenagers” and replace them with “middle class and even lower-middle class” families. He likened his plans to “migrating” customers toward Target and away from Walmart and Kmart.
Those comments come amid reports of violence at Six Flags — most recently this weekend, when three people were shot outside one of the company’s theme parks in Gurnee, Ill.
Nevertheless, Bassoul’s moves to raise prices outraged park goers, with some pledging to take their business elsewhere until the CEO left. The lengthy Reddit post last week portrays Bassoul as an intimidating boss bent on slashing expenses and freezing wages.
“I’m obviously posting this anonymously because Selim has the tendency to fire anyone and everyone,” the Reddit post began.
Customers are meanwhile getting a raw deal with dilapidated parks that are “embarrassing” as prices begin to approach those at Disney and Universal theme parks, according to a more recent Reddit post.
Problems referenced in the Reddit post include “food service locations that are overrun by rodents” and have “no AC and 15 year-old equipment,” the post claimed.
“On every level, management included, us employees feel that he’s running this company into the ground to bankrupt it and sell off portions of it and run away back to his mansion with a check to retire on,” according to the post.
The author of the letter also claims to have called the United Food and Commercial Workers union to “get information on unionizing. Hope they’re prepared for that.”
The Post could not immediately confirm whether the Reddit posts were made by current Six Flags employees.
The letters received more than 200 comments from customers and current and former employees, including Reddit user JersyBoy782nd, who said, “I’m glad that I left! But I’m disgusted with that bozo and he’s pretty much destroying what made Six Flags great.”
Customers also weighed in with complaints of their own.
“I shouldn’t be told at the end of a 45 minute wait that I can’t have something with me, or my child is too small, of I’m too fat/tall/whatever to ride this ride,” one miffed customer wrote on Friday.
“How freaking hard is it to put misters, water coolers, and/or enclosed lines with AC into your park,” the customer added. “Maybe classier people would be willing to go if they didn’t have to swelter in the heat for hours.”
In July, a power outage at its Great Adventure park in New Jersey forced park goers to wait for more than 90 minutes in the scorching heat to enter the park.
Six Flags did not respond to requests for comment.
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