Dear Editor,
My wife and I spent three years as docents at Bonfante Gardens
Theme Park. The first two years while Michael Bonfante was there
were great and, as has been noted by previous contributors, this
program became our
”
home away from home.
”
Dear Editor,
My wife and I spent three years as docents at Bonfante Gardens Theme Park. The first two years while Michael Bonfante was there were great and, as has been noted by previous contributors, this program became our “home away from home.”
Everyone worked many hours beyond the requested 8 hours per month and we enjoyed this time as we had all developed a real desire to help Michael achieve his dream. Michael always made a genuine attempt to socialize with the docents as we were working. He also paid us $1 per hour in “Bonfante Bucks” which we could spend at the park for food, gifts, etc; He also gave us an elaborate banquet at the end of each of the two years.
On the third year, in came a Paramount manager with a great deal of theme park experience. At our first docent meeting with her, she admitted that she had never heard of a docent and seemed to be a little confused. She did, however, compliment us by saying: “I love all of you … because you work for free!”.
She also told us that Bonfante Bucks were history. If she would have run the numbers, she would have found that the $1 per hour was only costing the park 30 cents per hour because the food and gift items were marked up based on an actual cost of 30 percent , or less, per product sold. Paramount also would not listen to simple suggestions that we made to their supervisors, and none of these were “this is how we used to do it”.
For example, one of the supervisors had the music shut off at the entrance to the park … because the paid ticket takers got tired of hearing the same music over and over. We told Richard and he took care of it right away. This, plus other feedback that Richard may have forwarded to park officials, may be the type of things that Paramount considered “aggressive e-mails to park officials over routine management affairs.”
My wife and I resigned at the end of our third year because we felt the same way as Terrence Hansen stated in the subject article on Aug. 26 … the atmosphere was not one that we wanted to continue working in and it was no longer fun. We have still made many visits to the park to see Richard, Marie and the other docents that we worked with. In addition to the many hours that Marie dedicated to the park, while we were there, she also volunteered at the Steinbeck Museum in Salinas on Thursdays. This is a remarkable lady.
Eugene Brajkovich, Gilroy
