While you were sleeping

Birmingham may not be the city that never sleeps, but it is kept running in part by the people who start their days while the sun is down. From garbage collectors and road crews to doctors and security officers, night shift and early morning work is unseen but makes the day smoother for residents whose alarm clocks are going off when night employees have already been hard at work.

This is a look at two groups of night owls in Vestavia Hills.

Vestavia Hills Carmike Cinema

As you’re munching popcorn and enjoying the latest film at your local movie theater, the theater’s employees are all around — and in some cases, above — you to make the experience fun.

Since theaters do most of their business on evenings and weekends, the employees at the Carmike on Kentucky Avenue are typically working until 11 p.m. or midnight. When a big release like “Harry Potter” or “Star Wars” comes out, manager Ashley Reiners said her workday might end at 3 a.m. or even when the sun is rising.

“When normal people are relaxing, we’re working,” Reiners said.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though.

As they sweep seat rows, stock candy bars and refill drinks late at night, Reiners said her coworkers are joking around and having a good time.

“I think it makes for a closer team,” Reiners said. “If I were to tell you all my friends, they either work at a movie theater now or they did once upon a time because you almost form a bond because you have those weird hours.”

Joshua Johnson, who has worked at the Vestavia Carmike for two years, said he wanted a job to enjoy his time and he’s “been having fun ever since.” Even when lines are long and customers aren’t always patient, he stays in a good mood. Johnson said he’s so used to being at the theater that he’ll be there on his days off to catch a movie.

“What I like here is everybody helps everybody,” Johnson said of his fellow employees, adding that it makes his shifts go by quicker.

They also bond over the strange, funny and frustrating shared experiences of making a cinema run, such as watching customers stand and wait in front of a closed box office, ignoring the sign telling them tickets will be sold inside. In cleaning the theaters after each film, Reiners said they often find more than just candy wrappers and spilled popcorn.

“I’ve found pants before. I’ve found like a headlamp, I’ve found the strangest things,” Reiners said. “I’ve found one shoe before. Not like a child’s shoe, an adult shoe.”

Assistant manager Stephen Killen said he often encounters customers who don’t realize the projection machines are automatic now, and he must fix problems himself rather than simply calling the projectionist waiting upstairs.

“You try to tell them in the nicest way possible, ‘The longer I stand here talking to you, the longer it’s going to take me to get upstairs and do it,’” Reiners agreed.

And of course, opening weekends of major movies is an experience to draw any theater team closer together. Reiners remembers one of her first days as an employee, for the opening of “Iron Man.” The computer system crashed and she had to hand-write tickets for hundreds of people.

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” crashed three pre-sale ticket websites for the Vestavia Carmike and brought about 900 people to the theater on opening night, and Reiners didn’t have room for them all inside. The 2D customers wrapped around one side of the building and the 3D customers on the other. In the theater stock room, there were five times as many bags of popcorn seed and pallets of water bottles as usual, stacked higher than Reiner’s head.

Night shift at a theater has its difficulties, such as counting money late at night and trying to schedule for unpredictable crowds. Evenings and weekends are the busiest, but Reiner said she has to guess each week on how many employees to staff.

“When you see a manager on drawer, rushing, you know that unfortunately we failed at the guessing game that day,” Reiners said.

It can also make late-night employees forget how the “normal” day works. Reiners recently had a free Friday night and went to dinner at 5:30 p.m. and was shocked to encounter rush hour traffic.

“I guess I haven’t experienced rush hour traffic in months,” she said. “It’s like it didn’t even occur to me that it was going to take me so much longer to get food, because I normally work 12:30 to 8:30 and I miss all the traffic.”

There’s only one thing the Carmike employees all agreed they were tired of hearing about: concession prices. Reiners estimated that the theater only receives 5 percent of ticket sales, leaving popcorn, candy and nachos to make up the difference.

“How I stay open, how I pay these guys is concessions, which is why those prices are so high,” she said.

The Egg and i

On those opening weekend mornings when the Carmike employees are leaving at dawn, coffee is already brewing and bacon is sizzling at The Egg and I next door. 

To serve early morning church groups and businesspeople on their morning commute, employees at The Egg and I have to get a head start. Team Lead Tina Johns gets up at 4:30 a.m. to get from her Vestavia Hills home to work. For cook Jose Rodriguez, living in Columbiana means his day starts even earlier.

Kitchen manager Steven Marshall is the first to turn the lights on at 5 a.m. each weekday to begin making pressed juices. Rodriguez arrives at 5:30 to turn on the grill and begin cooking, and Johns or other first-shift servers arrive soon after to begin brewing coffee and tea. By 6 a.m., the restaurant is ready for its customers.

Marshall and Johns both chose early morning work to allow them to spend more time with their school-age children. While the alarm clock sometimes buzzes a little too early, they agree that it’s easy to develop an early routine.

“I love to sleep. But I’m a family man by nature, so I like to be home when my son gets off the bus,” Marshall said. “I don’t really get to sleep late like I used to. Sleeping in to me is like sleeping in until 7 [a.m.].”

The downside, Johns said, is that she’s typically in bed by 8 p.m.

Just as the Carmike employees feel their odd hours make them a closer team, Marshall said the morning shift means he gets cooks and servers at their best.

“Everybody’s in a good mood at work, as compared to night time,” Marshall said. “I think everybody comes in, they just wake up, just showered, just up, I think they have a good attitude.”

“We have a really great kitchen crew back there. They’re really great guys, they work well together,” said Johns. This is her first time working at a breakfast location.

Rodriguez said on an average day he cooks more waffles, scrambled eggs and bacon than anything else. Sundays are the busiest days at The Egg and I, but Johns said they have regulars every day of the week. 

“A lot of individuals, we know exactly how they want it made too, so they’ll be just like, ‘Tina, I don’t have to explain it to you, you know what I want,’” Johns said.

While he doesn’t work a typical 9 to 5, Marshall said he wouldn’t trade his morning job for an evening job like the movie theater.

“I’ve worked at jobs where I’ve been there until 11, 12, 1 o’clock at night. I couldn’t do that,” he said.