Originally Posted By saludos Let me start by saying on the whole I find most CM's to be very courtrous and friendly. However all it takes is one rude CM to ruin the day. This afternoon I sat down with a friend in the Plaza about 4:30. We decided to stay there to watch the lighting of the castle. About 5:15 two CM's come and start moving benches which is now the custom and I completely understand. However they were literally what I would call "barking" orders to those people sitting on the benchs they needed to move, including myself and my friend. "You need to stand up now so we can move this bench. You may stay to watch the castle lighting but at 7 p.m. we will kick you out because this area is reserved for others to watch the fireworks." I was so surpirsed at this mans comments. He was rude, condesending and not at all considerate. Never use the word please and again kept using the phrase "you will be kicked out at 7 p.m." One person commented to him about his choice of words and he replied by saying "look I have a job to do and I need to move these benches". Another CM working with him suggested if anyone had a complaint they were welcome to stop by City Hall. This is exactly what a few of us did. I completely understand when the park is crowded that sometimes it can be stressful, however this was not way to talk to people. Disney really needs to do some better training with some of their CM's, especially the ones who have the difficult job of crowd control/guest control. Again, this is the exception and not the norm, however it really stays with you when you witness it first hand. By the way the castle looks beautiful. Not really sold on the Christmas Tree. The LED lights just are not bright enough. Looks very muted. Here's to better visits in the future.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones Crowd control CMs NEED to bark orders though. When they are in the thick of it people do not respond to "I respectfully request that you please stay to your right" or whatever they are asking of guests. When your job is to make sure people move in a way that resembles order, not chaos, you need to be loud, clear, and a little bit forceful. I would not be surprised if the CMs are told to be firm when doing crowd control. I think you are being too sensitive.
Originally Posted By SBSBelle22 I understand they have to be firm with crowd control, people en masse are stupid-but I don't think they had to say, we'll "kick you out". They could have said something like at this time we'll have to ask you to leave because these are reserved for the fireworks.
Originally Posted By saludos My point exactly SBSBelle. The choice of words can make all the difference in the world. And to SpokkerJones...sensitive, not really. As a former CM myself (granted several years ago) who did guest control for the EP and Christmas seasons for over 8 years I found the use of the word please and showing courtesy to guests went a long way and made people more willing to comply. There is no excuse for rudeness no matter the circumstance. Walt would be embarrased to see and hear many of the people they now hire at Disneyland. WDW CM's are much more courteous and take a real pride in their Parks as I experienced on my trip there last month.
Originally Posted By dlkozy >>>"Crowd control CMs NEED to bark orders though."<<< No they don't-firm yes, rude never!
Originally Posted By lesmisfan yeah that wasn't handled well by the CM at all. I know i have worked guest control before and whenever we need to use benches, we go up and say, sorry you guys, unfortantley we do need to use the benches and place them elsewhere for the parades and fireworks and if they have questions, politley answer them. and the castle lights are amazing! and i really love the effect going all the way down main st and on the tree, the tree blew me away!
Originally Posted By westsideCM99 <<Never use the word please and again kept using the phrase "you will be kicked out at 7 p.m." >> Not gonna happen anytime soon with the quality of CMs Disney has been hiring recently. Good example of the stresses of being a GC cast member: New Years Eve 2001 - I was working GC at the hub assigned to keeping the pathways intersecting at the Mickey & Walt statue free: 3 hrs prior to countdown: Hub is 100% full, numerous people trying to hop into the planters to grab a spot, I must have repeated the phrase "the planters are off limits; do not hop over the fences please; and/or, this is not a designated seating area. 2hrs prior to countdown: Father of a large family, who does not speak english, starts yelling and shoving a female cast member who is trying to do prop his whole family into the adjacent planter, I went to grab security but they were tied up with another altercation at the castle, I ran to Pioneer Merchantile to call in more security but they arrived too late as the family had left the hub on their own. A woman was overwhelmed in the crowd and had a clostrophobic seizure and Disney EMT had to hurry over and cart her out. This was especially difficult because many people in the way were being so spot-greedy that they wouldn't move to let the stretcher in. The EMTs literally had to shove their way in. 1hr to countdown: While ops was running audio/visual checks the crowd got excited and thought that a performance of some type was about to start. The crowd nearest to the castle gets rushed by the people behind them and some are trampled. I helped to escort guests to First Aid that had minor injuries from the incident. 20min to countdown: Late-comers to the hub looking for a last minute spot are turned away in the masses. I'm one of the many CMs now re-assigned to maintain the integrity of the now barricaded hub. CMs are being spit at, berated, and shoved. As I look back at the planters and pathways in the central hub guess what? They are now fully packed with guests that were obviously waiting for CMs to abandon the post, I saw the shift lead run over there to remove the guests but never saw him again for another two hours. Countdown: CMs that wanted to watch the event could not because of the many people still trying to sneak under the ropes to hopefully find some space in the crowded hub. All out chaos erupts at countdown, many CMs abandoned their posts out of frustration. After park closing: GC CMs breakdown ropes, de-brief, etc. I went to the hub just to look at the aftermath.. trash everywhere, all of the plants in the planters (flowers, bushes, etc) were destroyed and trampled, some taggers drew on the Mickey and Walt statue with a neon marker. The point that I'm trying to make is that many cast members are really overworked for what they get paid. Many are shellshocked by the constant crowd incidents that they see, as exampled above, and no longer differentiate good guests from bad guests. In the CMs eyes almost everyone is a "bad guest that could potentially be a good guest" so please do these CMs a favor and take their comments for a grain of salt because chances are they are probably thinking two steps ahead of you ahead to the guest that's gonna give them a harder time than you.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones New Years Eve at Disneyland is a public health hazard. The same nonsense happens every year. I believe it should become a specially ticketed event and the amount of tickets sold (at a higher than normal price) should be limited so that incidents like the above don't happen.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt "I believe it should become a specially ticketed event and the amount of tickets sold (at a higher than normal price) should be limited so that incidents like the above don't happen." It used to be a private ticketed party with headliner entertainment. I went back in the 80's and it was quite nice. Not sure why Disney stopped doing that.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder We were just commenting in another section how Disney allows the park to get too crowded and they should put a limit on how many are inside. Also, I don't care how long they've been doing it, using the benches for crowd control is an incredibly stupid idea.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones The current capacity thresholds are not based on maintaining the comfort, safety, and experience of guests. It's clear that people have and will be injured on busy Disneyland days such as New Years Eve, especially sensitive individuals. No one is saying that New Years Eve should be like a rainy day in the middle of February. But at some point a plea for safety must be made!
Originally Posted By Zwitek <<< No they don't-firm yes, rude never! >>> One persons "firm" is another persons "rude." If asked to move, move. One doesn't have to know the "why's" of everything. At least I don't. Some do though, and they tend to get a sunburn on their bum when they don't get the message in the absolute perfect way that doesn't upset their delicate nature.
Originally Posted By SGE_lvr Well i think is that CM's are starting to lose their sight that this is dland were dealing with, not an airport(rude employees is what would/could be found in airports and not dland) and need to remember who the Cm are and what they represent, dland a place were families pay expensive $$$$ and want a good time. I see and understand that CM on crowd and parade route duties MUST be firm becuase society has changed since the first parade/fireworks display in 1956 and the way ppl ask and get response from HAS change for crowd controls! dont take the CMs "rudeness" seriously. It's one thing for a CM to say "please move, that would be great if you move along, sorry please grab a seat were theirs one" and "At 7 were going to kick you out of the seats for reserved." but what is rude is that when a cm says to a large crowd "get back behind the yellow line, the tram WILL NOT LEAVE TIL YOU MOVE!!!!" is a rude thing! and yes it is
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost I have always been of the thought that there are two sides to every story. The Disney CM's of old had respectful, courteous Guests to deal with. Such is not the case anymore. I'd be willing to bet that they had tried several times to politely ask the public to move and were totally ignored. What...they can't be talking to me. I paid a fortune and I will sit, stand, run wherever I please. And someday when I am elected King of the World, the first thing I am going to do is send everyone back to school to learn the definition of the word "rude". It is the single most overused word in the English language today. If someone is telling you the rules and you do not think they apply to you, and they tell you they do...they are not being rude. They are educating you to the proper procedure which may or may not correspond with how you would like it to be. If you agree then everything is OK, if not then they were rude. But as usual, I'm sure all the folks that were being spoken too were perfect little angels and the CM's were big meanies with no patience and exemplify all the people hired by Disney these days.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost >>>but what is rude is that when a cm says to a large crowd "get back behind the yellow line, the tram WILL NOT LEAVE TIL YOU MOVE!!!!" is a rude thing!<<< Thanks for helping me point out the "rude" thing and it's interpretation. It is not rude to say that...it is factual. It is instructional and it is necessary in order to get thick skulled people to realize that they must react. Now calling people "thick skulled" is rude.
Originally Posted By Sweeper It is the responsibility of all CMs to be courteous...period. If there is a major safety issue that requires a tense response, fine. That is understandable. But not in the case of moving benches. There are other jobs if working with people doesn't agree with someone.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost It is also the responsibility of guest to realize that CM's are not mechanical devices put on this planet to serve one's every need, regardless of how stupid the expectation might be. They are human beings and ENTITLED to as much respect as everyone else on the planet. The idea that the gigantic salary they receive (about minimum wage) means that they have become someones whipping boy or girl is so far beyond logical that it is ridicules. Since one is vacationing at Disney I will assume that you have a relatively decent income with excess spendable income. Ask yourself just how much "crap" you are willing to take, how many dehumanizing incidents it will take, how many spit laden tongue lashings you would take from some "trash" before you decided that enough was enough. Place human emotions on all humans that you see. Treat them in the same manor that you think you should be treated and I will bet the farm that there will be no more "entitlement" threads concerning just how terrible the CM's attitudes are these day.
Originally Posted By Mr X Goofyer, that's all well and good but if the quality of the staff has suffered it's fair enough to talk about it. It's easy to say "well, the customers suck these days", but there have always been rude customers out there. It's nothing new. And, it's fine for any human being who works in the customer service business to be upset if they are mistreated BUT, the important thing is for them to respond appropriately to the rude person in question and NOT let it carry over into some sort of bad attitude towards ALL their customers. If they truly start feeling like they've put up with so much that "enough is enough", it's time to find another line of work. The last thing we need is more service people with crappy attitudes. There are plenty of jobs out there that do NOT require dealing with consumers directly. They need to find one. People pay good money for decent service, and it's not THEIR fault that the employee they are dealing with got treated badly earlier in the day by someone else. It's called professionalism.
Originally Posted By Mr X Having said all THAT though, I must happily report that on my latest trip to Walt Disney World (a year ago this month), I had nothing but happy and positive experiences with all the employees there, and they certainly all did their part in making my latest WDW vacation as magical as ever.
Originally Posted By BellesLibrarian We can never quite understand the flashing wands during crowd control. When we look at them they seem to go back and forth with no emphasis on one direction or another. To the CM shaking it to tell us what direction they go in, they know in what direction they want us to go. The CMs often seem to get annoyed with us for not knowing which way we are supposed to go. Is there a method to their waving?
