Originally Posted By GalDisney One job i would like to do, if just for one day, is sell popcorn on main st. at the MK, or Disneyland. Wobder if i could job swap for one day lol
Originally Posted By -em I currently call the Contemporary Convention Center home- but I'm Merch and Fantasmic trained so pick up shifts there often -em
Originally Posted By disney pete EM where was you working this last 2 weeks we may have walked right past you? vbDAD you are dead on about the photopass people most of them where awesome going above and beyond for that perfect shot,ok we had maybe 2 who just took a photo and scanned your card without a smile but everyone can't be on form every day,the only day we forgot ok I FORGOT to bring camera and camcorder i got to ride a segway and there was no photopass people around
Originally Posted By CMDad I love that I still get things like this from my daughter - under the title of "worth getting up at 5 AM for" <a href="http://gallery.me.com/mfendrick#100153/photo" target="_blank">http://gallery.me.com/mfendric...53/photo</a> But then, being in the park is not "her job" generally.
Originally Posted By Tink34 OMG how freakin' cool!!! Those I guess are the moments to live for as a CM!! I just want to thank everyone for such great information and maybe even future information. This is something I really want and you've all be so helpful!
Originally Posted By Disneymom443 That is a fun photo CMDad. That is what I call one of the perks to being a CM at a park.
Originally Posted By CMDad ^^ Or even working at another location other than the park. She actually works in the Team Disney Building at DTD. Her team was given the opportunity to tour EE *before* their regular work schedule. I love hearing about when she gets perks like this!
Originally Posted By disney pete wow great pic your daughter is very lucky indeed glad to hear the magic is still there for her
Originally Posted By Supermatt70 As a 9 year CM that wears a vest, I'm fascinated by this topic. It's always interesting to read what fellow CMs have to say about their roles and to hear from starry eyed Guests. I really like my job & don't think I could work anywhere else but, being a CM is just a job...really, it is...there are days when I love my job (And I think I have a pretty cool job)and then there are days when I can't wait to leave the "office." It's like where you work. Nobody loves their job 100% after a week or so. That's why it's called work & not awesome fun, right...being a CM is a job...you get out of it what you put into it...plain & simple... BTW "Perks" like that cool picture are REALLY few & far between for CMs outside of the Team Disney world. Budgets & all...Non Team Disney CMs have parks & resort to open & maintain. There are Guests waiting to be sprinkled with magic. Budgets cover that...they mostly don't cover making sure the CMs get a little sprinkling of that magic too. I had a leader once tell one of my peers that her paycheck should be reason enough to get excited about working at <BLANK LOCATION>. We don't need any of that silly rah-rah "You guys make the magic" stuff. It's work...
Originally Posted By HRM >> "There are Guests waiting to be sprinkled with magic. Budgets cover that...they mostly don't cover making sure the CMs get a little sprinkling of that magic too." << And this is the crux of the problem. At what point did "management" forget the basic principle of treating the front line CM(employee) the way you want the Guest(customer) to be treated. Taking Disney-speak out of the topic, this is true for the majority of work environments. Front line people are expected to bend over backwards and give excellent customer service, yet are treated very poorly by supervisors/ managers. Disney used to highly regarded for it's training program; now not so much, although Disney is still better then the majority of companies today.
Originally Posted By mousermerf Things really fell apart when Deployment came online in the parks. The computer essentially removed much of the human side of the job and all possible "unprofitable" wiggle room in a person's day. CM's not only can't help guests because they can't stop their assigned task and there's no extra CMs per the computer, but they also get less backstage rest so they tend to be far more irritable. It used to be every 15-45mins in attractions you'd "bump" to the next position. That's because a CM was scheduled to come into the working-rotation. Finish the rotation, take a break, finish it a few times and then goto Lunch for the hour/45mins as long as there is coverage from other people bumping around and in/out. So if something came up, you could hop out of the loop or simply call to the attraction office and pull from the CMs on break - no one really minded because they were so frequent. I remember having days when the ride would suffer a pretty bad breakdown during peak periods and all the CMs in the building would assist evac, unload, and crowd control and then the CMs who had been on "formally" would go on break while the group that was on break at the time would take their places. Far lower stress level. It made CMs happy - and they got several breaks. The computer decided to control exactly where everyone was at every single minute to get the most out of them.. CM numbers were cut to having minimum breaks, like one 15min break for every 3 hours of work. You didn't goto lunch until the computer said it was ok. And you don't "bump" regularly, but when the computer feels it's time - which can be 2 hours, at its worst the computer was doing up to 3-4 hours (the max limit a CM can work a position without a break per the Union agreement.) Bubble this down and you end up witha ride breakdown.. none of the CMs on break are going to help. The allotted positions really aren't technically enough to cover such an event, at least not without high stress on the CM's (ratio is 500 guests to 1 CM in some of these situations.) No one can leave what they're doing (because there is no double-coverage) and the CMs generally cant communicate except for by phone - and many positiobns weren't designed with phones in mind. Hence the rise of the additional radio units and call signs on the park airwaves in the last few years. You didn't need to radio in if you had a position that people bumped-through every 15mins. And then you get to the monorail.. Where the manager is on their lunch down the street off property, the minimum number of CMs are operating the system, all very focused on their direct job duties, and no one is watching the track switch and no one is making sure the monorail is backing into the right station - because that's an auxiliary part of the various positions. The driver is driving the train, the CM on the platform is watching the guests and gates, the tower CM is making sure the computer isn't reporting any errors, and the switch is supposed to put the right train on the right track. No one is sitting around going "Wait, purple is coming in from Epcot and Pink is backing through the Epcot station.." And bad things happen.
Originally Posted By leobloom The CDS was a horrible system to have at the Land when CMs did the live spieling for the boat ride. Sometimes you'd end up doing boat tours for 2 hrs straight. And people wonder why so many of the CMs did poor jobs with the spiel. The first couple of trips around weren't too bad, but when you're doing your 6th or 7th trip in a row, it would wear on you big time. I had also heard that the boat ride was a much better place to work before CDS, when rotations were done frequently enough to keep people from doing more than 2 trips in a row.
Originally Posted By sjhym33 I agree 100% about CDS. It is a terrible system. The old rotation system was much better. And CM's were generally happier. On the days I had extra people I could put double bumbs thru and everyone really enjoyed it. True people got more breaks then they were required to but I always felt it made up for the days when we were short handed or the crazy holidays when you asked people to go above and beyond. For me CDS was the final thing that turned WDW from a feeling that we were all family to a business. The time when you actually knew your supervisor were over. Since then managers have been given such specific areas of the operation that no other supervisor will make a decision when it is not their area of responsability. Schedule change? Sorry thats Johns area and he isnt in till Tues. Can I train somewhere else? Here is the form and you can give it to Mary on Thurs when she is in. Terrible. A side note: CDS was created by the husband of a top Disney executive. They made a fortune from it.
Originally Posted By Labuda "Taking Disney-speak out of the topic, this is true for the majority of work environments. Front line people are expected to bend over backwards and give excellent customer service, yet are treated very poorly by supervisors/ managers." Continuing on the "taking Disney out of it" tangent, I'd like to say that my job is NOT like this. I deal with customers at a customer site day in and day out, BUT I am free to come and go as I please, work from home if I need a break from the office, and I get a GREAT team lunch every other Friday. (We usually hit Trudy's, a really yummy place here in Austin that has a location not far from where I work.) Anyhow, just wanted to say that SOME companies know how to treat their employees who face the customer.
Originally Posted By bobbelee9 ^^Hopefully your company doesn't get bought out, everything will change.
Originally Posted By Labuda Bobbelee - nope, not any expectations of that right now. In fact, we're in the process of buying Perot Systems for around $4 billion.
Originally Posted By sjhym33 So a friend of mine got an email from Disney last week asking them to come in for a job interview. The friend had done an online application (I gather Casting no longer accepts walk-ups) saying they were interested in a fulltime position in either Security, Photopass or Front Desk. They chose those because the pay is better than other places. The interview was scheduled online and my friend had no idea what job they were being interviewed for. They arrived at Casting and the person at the desk told them that they were being interviewed for attractions and merchandise. When my friend said that those were not jobs they had applied for the CM told them to discuss other options with the interviewer. From there everyone is required to watch a film on being a CM as well as doing a computer interview type testing thing. An hour after arriving they called my friends name. The inverviewer told them that the job was part-time attractions or merchandise and the starting salary was $7.65 an hour. When my friend told her that he was looking for a full time job (he already has a full time job but wants to work for Disney) the interviewer told him that they only hire part time and that they could then request a full time position. She said that there was a 30-60 day waiting list for fulltime positions (not accurate...I know people who have been waiting 6 months or more). My friend asked about the positions he had applied for online and was told that he would need to start in attractions, foods or merchandise and then transfer (that could take upwards of 6 to 9 months). My friend said they would be interested in working part time in the hopes of going full time and could work on his days off from his full time job. The interviewer told him that Disney requires 3 full days availability for part time help. He said he could give 2 full days and one morning but he was told it would need to be 3 full days of availability. The interviewer told him that he was an excellent candidate for a role and if anything changed for him to contact her and she would find him a job. My friend left a little frustrated. The whole process took over 2 hours plus travel and my friend said that had Disney gave him the information about the interview such as the part time thing, the pay grade, the jobs open, etc, he could have saved himself and Disney time and just not bothered to proceed with the interview. I guess times have changed from when if you could breathe you could get a job a Disney. I am not sure what to think about the 3 days availability for a part time position. My friend was disappointed with the whole experience.
