Originally Posted By VanFrance2009 <<One reason Attractions Cast Members had more breaks is because they, unlike virtually any other Cast Members, take people's lives into their own hands all day long. That is also one reason why rotations developed--and, until CDS, Attractions CMs moved positions every 15-30 minutes (or more frequently). Just an observation--which may not need to have been made--I didn't read through all the posts. Sigh.>> This is an interesting theory. Here's mine. I believe that rotations developed because it was too hard to figure out how to give out breaks and lunches otherwise. I think rotations stayed in place for so long because the technology didn't exist to effectively deploy folks to their breaks and lunches. (and probably because the early leaders of the Park came from Attractions). The belief that attractions Cast Members need more breaks because they hold "people's lives in their hands" all day just doesn't hold water with me. Does the airline pilot get a break every 90 minutes? Does the surgeon get bumped out by another so she can stay fresh and alert? The Parking Lot Tram driver can run someone over if they are too tired. The Outdoor Vendor or the Sweeper could lose control of a stock cart or a trash cart and kill someone. The Attraction Cast Member is not alone in the Resort in maintaining the safety for guests. A rotational bump every 30 minutes and a break every two hours or so should allow anyone to stay fresh and alert throughout their day. I think the other thing to be aware of is that of the major incidents to happen in the last 10 years (and one month), none of them can be attributed to the completely fair and contractually obligated two breaks and a lunch in an 8 hour shift. VF
Originally Posted By monorailblue Puh-leeze. Every other area in the park could figure out breaks and lunches, but Attractions couldn't possibly without a computer? What utter nonsense and rubbish. You think breaking Attractions CMs is harder than working breaks and lunches for--oh, I don't know--restaurant servers? Again, total rubbish, utter flim-flam and hysterical nonsense. Thank you for a comedic Monday.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "Eight years, I guess. Look, I just don't think working at Disneyland is as good as a job they make it out to be. There is no "Disney Difference" and management and guests treat and pay the employees like crap. There are better jobs out there for first-time workers and/or people who need a part-time job while doing to school. And you definitely can't make a real living working at Disneyland." Well, good. I was afraid I wasn't giving your relentless criticism of Disney the proper credit and perspective it deserves. But since I wasn't giving it much, I was right all along. Thanks.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones "Well, good. I was afraid I wasn't giving your relentless criticism of Disney the proper credit and perspective it deserves. But since I wasn't giving it much, I was right all along. Thanks." I could have said anything and you would have still acted like an uptight twit.
Originally Posted By lesmisfan honestly disney is a great company to work your way up if you know how to network. And there is a "disney difference", it might not come from higher wages but it comes in other forms, free admission, discounts on food and merchandise and hotels all around the disney universe, there are plenty of cast activities such as flashback, minnies moonlight madness which im hoping to do this year, the canoe races, there are plenty of opportunities to volunteer with the disney volunteers, the difference is there you just have to look. Like i said it doesn't come in the form of disney being one of the best payers like they used to me. I mean yeah the guy flipping burgers across the street is probably making more money than me who runs attractions!but then again, just to work in a place that walt disney believed in and making happy memories for all the guests out there is so much more meaningful than money, yes i realize to support myself i will have to get a better paying job sometime in the future and i hope that will still be with the disney company. I am still in school and we'll see what happens. but i know were to look for that disney difference and enjoy it.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "I could have said anything and you would have still acted like an uptight twit." Hey, you never know. Thing is, I've been attending Disneyland since 1961, and have observed a thing or two about the place as well. No workplace is what it seems to the outside world. That's why it's called work. I've enjoyed reading the thoughtful essays of others here who can provide us with the benefit of years of experience on the inside. People and thigns change. Simply because it didn't go well for you in foods doesn't detract from the more positive experiences of others. Your constant sniping just hasn't seemed to add much here.
Originally Posted By Westsider The Disney Difference is what you make of it. You can clock in, work, go home and collect a paycheck. Or you can clock in, work, do Canoe Races, join a volleyball league, join a DRG club, volunteer to help with charity events for Disney in your community, play basketball against your managers who aren't as young as they used to be, go on a CM trip to Tokyo or Paris, stay at the Polynesian for half off, enter the design-a-pin or design-a-tee contests, get a team of your friends to do Minnie's Moonlight Madness, sing and dance your heart out in front of 2,000 of your fellow CM's for charity in Flashback, check out free DVD systems to learn a foreign language, do sunrise yoga with your coworkers on Tom Sawyer Island before the park opens or do Boot Camp Fitness back at the parade building, pay a few bucks a week for a very comprehensive medical/dental/mental/vision insurance package, and help send care packages to our troops overseas at Christmas, and then go home and collect a paycheck. It's all up to you. Personally, I'm happy to cherry pick a couple things off the Disney Difference tree. But what I really wish they would do is make decent food in the Cast cafeterias again. They did it back in the 90's and it's not rocket science. But the slop they serve up now with mediocre to crummy service is just a real downer. Fix the food, spruce up the break rooms, and run more shuttles to K Lot and the place would be near perfect.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones "Simply because it didn't go well for you in foods doesn't detract from the more positive experiences of others." Did I say it didn't go well for me? I had good times AND bad times. I was satisfied with my work there but did end up getting a better job. That doesn't mean it didn't go well for me. It was, as I said, a typical experience with ups and downs. Posting my experience doesn't detract from the positive OR negative experiences of others. It's just as valid as anyone's story. You act like working at Disneyland is a bed of roses when the fact of the matter is that they demand a lot for what little pay and people eventually do get tired of it. Morale isn't what it used to be. That's why the average tenure of a cast member was once measured in years where today it's measured in months. Something had to give, and it did. If you don't like it, don't work there. I agree with that wholeheartedly, and so do many of the good cast members who have jumped ship in the past decade or so. "volunteer to help with charity events for Disney in your community," In some cases, cast members are the ones who need help paying their rent.
Originally Posted By Westsider I don't know of a charity that helps pay peoples rent. But the Disney VoluntEARS do help with the OC childrens hospital, AIDS Walk, Boys & Girls Club of Anaheim, and the Multiple Sclerosis bike rally to San Diego, among other smaller events around SoCal. My personal favorite, and one I never tire reading about in The Line, is the charity that Disneyland Custodial CM's specifically donate to. The CM's go through the trash in sorting areas backstage as part of their duties sorting out all the recyclables that guests throw away. (There's a sorting station behind Splash Mountain, and it doesn't look like much fun.) At the end of the year the Custodial department donates all the money from the trash recyling to a guide dog training facility in north San Diego county that trains and donates trained guide dogs to people who need them but otherwise could not afford one. Disney cuts them a big, fat check each year, and the Custodial CM's go down to the center in their Disneyland Custodial department costumes with Pluto and hand over the check. It's really very cool, and the Custodial CM's get a big kick out of it. Bravo Disneyland Custodial! Seriously, just improve the cafeteria food and run more parking shuttles, and the battle would be nearly won for 2011 when the economy improves and unemployment declines again.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "Did I say it didn't go well for me? I had good times AND bad times. I was satisfied with my work there but did end up getting a better job. That doesn't mean it didn't go well for me. It was, as I said, a typical experience with ups and downs." Then maybe you should take a step back and see yourself as others do. There's not one post you've made outside of this last one that would indicate you liked working there at all.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones This thread isn't about my experience as a cast member, it's about cast members in general, and more specifically the economy's effect on Disneyland's ability to hire people. However, if you reread the first post about my experience working there, you would see that I had some fun, but it was also just a year-long gig and because I didn't see much opportunity I decided to leave. Not everything is so black and white. I'm now a semester away from completing my bachelor's degree and I'm looking beyond graduation for a job or maybe even graduate school since I have the grades for it. In the end, Disneyland was a good first job, but I'm not going to shy away from the negatives.
Originally Posted By gadzuux Nice to hear the custodial team story. I've always thought that a sweeper would be a cool job to have at DL - you're outside and moving around and having guest interaction, but performing a simple and almost serene little task. All "show", low stress.
Originally Posted By VanFrance2009 I wrote: <<This is an interesting theory. Here's mine I believe that rotations developed because it was too hard to figure out how to give out breaks and lunches otherwise. I think rotations stayed in place for so long because the technology didn't exist to effectively deploy folks to their breaks and lunches. (and probably because the early leaders of the Park came from Attractions).>> MonorailBlue wrote: <<“Puh-leeze. Every other area in the park could figure out breaks and lunches, but Attractions couldn't possibly without a computer? What utter nonsense and rubbish. You think breaking Attractions CMs is harder than working breaks and lunches for--oh, I don't know--restaurant servers? Again, total rubbish, utter flim-flam and hysterical nonsense. Thank you for a comedic Monday.”>> Just a couple of points that I’d like to clarify: * I was clearly presenting a THEORY. Not fact, a THEORY. It was mine and mine alone but it is based on my own observations. * I NEVER said that Attractions couldn’t figure out to deliver breaks and lunches without a computer. I said the TECHNOLOGY didn’t exist. To help you understand what I was referring to, I pulled this quick definitiation from wikipedia - "technology" can refer to material objects of use to humanity, such as machines, hardware or utensils, but can also encompass broader themes, including systems, methods of organization, and techniques. If you can find a reference in my previous post that I made to a computer, please let me know. Rotation breaking had become so imbedded into the culture of Attractions that broader thinking was almost impossible. Anyone that could come up with a system (not a computer system...just a system) that would allow for the timely and efficient distribution of breaks and lunches outside of norm would of course be met with extreme resistance. It wasn’t until some pretty savvy leaders at Kali River Rapids in the late 1990’s figured out a new way to send Cast Members to both their work and break assignments, that a new system was born. It fell into favor quickly because it made sense to pay Cast Members for work that they were actually doing instead of paying them to take double and triple the breaks of any other group of Cast Members in the Park on a regular basis. * And I do think that it is was more difficult to send Attractions Cast Members to a break or a lunch if you were going to try to do that without using either the rotation breaking system and the current Cast Deployment system. The things that makes it difficult to send anyone that works in a front of house location of any table service restaurant is that a manager must ensure that they have enough labor available to cover the break and lunch periods. I think it is much easier for a restaurant manager to ask a server working 15 feet in front of him to go on break than it would be for an Attractions Lead to ask the pilot of the Mark Twain to go on a break immediately one minute after he or she had pulled away from the dock. I’m happy that I was able to make your Monday so enjoyable. Perhaps I’ve made your Tuesday just as fun! VF
Originally Posted By VanFrance2009 Spokker Jones wrote: "Look, I just don't think working at Disneyland is as good as a job they make it out to be. There is no "Disney Difference" and management and guests treat and pay the employees like crap." I think Westsider and others have done a decent job in explaining what one can expect from the "Disney Difference." I think we're behind the "pay the employees like crap" argument because if you believe your worth more and can find an employer to give that to you, by all means you should be taking the money. Nobody has addressed how management and guests treat you like crap. What is happening or has happened to make you believe that management or guests have been treating Cast Members poorly? Also, Westsider - thanks for the Casting Update. Since Disneyland is the largest single site employer in all of Orange County, it is fascinating to watch how this company is operating in the current economic climate. VF
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones I believe this Al Lutz update says it best. <a href="http://miceage.micechat.com/allutz/al011508b.htm" target="_blank">http://miceage.micechat.com/al...508b.htm</a> "There are dozens of examples like that where Greg's fellow executives in TDA are wasting money left and right under the guise of the new "global structure," while projects and operational improvements in the parks are deferred and cancelled due to lack of funding. But when some people in TDA report to a Vice President in Orlando, and vice versa, (with lots of red-eye flights linking them together), the chain of accountability has become so muddled that all the wasteful spending goes on practically unchecked. Meanwhile, the dingy and dirty Cast Member break rooms still haven't been remodeled, and the Cast Member cafeterias still can't serve up a decent five dollar pork chop. The Cast Member shuttles that run thousands of employees per day to the huge Katella Cast Member Parking Lot are still so run down, so understaffed, and so overcrowded, that most of the big managers working in the park have weaseled their way out of riding them altogether. Even though their workplace is inside the berm alongside the hourly folks and they should be parking alongside them in the Katella lot, many top managers have been given their own personal Segway that they use to zip backstage up to their car conveniently parked at TDA. And that's certainly a ringing endorsement for how completely broken the Cast Member parking situation is, as the big boss flies past on a Segway while the worker bees file out the gate beneath an ignored plasma screen TV to wait in a long line for an overcrowded shuttle to their cars. And yet the entire corporate structure Rasulo has rammed into place is stacked against any real positive change, or anyone being able to stop the wasteful spending, while so many legitimate operational needs go unchecked and underfunded all over the Resort." It's not just the quoted part that's relevant. I think this was Lutz' best update he has ever done about how Disneyland is operated.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA ^^^One of the most enjoyable times I had as an hourly cast member was working World Showcase custodial. I was getting extra hours that summer, and got the call to go to EPCOT Center. I got to dress up in the old Foreign Legion costume, and then, with pan and broom, started at The American Pavilion, and sweep and clean my way down to the Mexico Pavilion. Got to answer guest questions, sweep up LOTS of cigarette butts and other trash, and just keep the walkways tidy and clean. I would check in with the lead at set times, took a lunch break, but they didn't make me empty trash cans or anything. Which is the heavy lifting stuff. Did that a few times that summer and really enjoyed it.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA I was referring to post #72 by the way... 'That summer' was 1986. I don't think World Showcase custodial even wears the old Foreign Legion costumes anymore do they?
