Would You Like Magic with That?: Working at Walt Disney World Guest Relations (2 page)

A lot of new CPs didn’t know their work location off the top of their head. Many people who sign up for the DCP are brand new to the whole Disney thing. It’s literally Day One for them. They don’t know Adventureland from the Animal Kingdom. It was interesting to see who did and who didn’t recognize their location, but everyone seemed pleased with it nonetheless. It was Disney after all, right?

The guy in front of me was placed at Yacht and Beach curbside. He didn’t realize he was going to be hauling luggage all day, but he appeared to be a strapping young gentleman, so it wouldn’t be too hard on him. Then, the cast member handing out assignments turned to me.

“Salisbury, Annie?” he asked, double-checking his notes, and then looked deep into my eyes. This guy held all the power. I was ready. Where would I be working?

“Yes!” I held out my binder for him to place the all-important sticker.

“Congratulations, you’re going to be working at DisneyQuest!”

That’s when I burst into tears.

Have you ever cried in front of roughly 30 strangers? If you haven’t, I highly suggest it, because it is a very humbling experience. As soon as the nice cast member told me that I would be working at DisneyQuest, I burst into tears. My reaction for it was instantaneous. I knew it wasn’t a joke. I knew I hadn’t been placed at Jungle Cruise, or Great Movie Ride, or Haunted Mansion. Heck, I knew I hadn’t even been placed in a
park
. Instead, somehow, I had ended up at Downtown Disney’s indoor-interactive theme park. Which is, at last check, the only attraction not physically in a Disney park.

Following the role assignments, we had to go see some Disney accountants, who would process our direct deposit payroll. I cried hysterically through this interaction. He kept offering me tissues, and I kept denying them, like I wanted to drown the whole casting building in my tears. I wasn’t supposed to have my phone on me, let alone pull it out, but I needed to text my mom. While the guy imported my bank routing numbers, I had to talk to my mom.

From 3,000 miles away, she immediately jumped on the internet to figure out if it was appropriate to put me at DisneyQuest, or if there had been a huge misunderstanding. Surely, they wouldn’t make CPs work there, right? She was just as furious as I was. She kept on texting me that there had to be a mistake, that there had to be a mix-up, because DisneyQuest
couldn’t
be an attraction.

Through my blubbering tears, somehow my payroll was processed. Then, I needed to be fingerprinted so Disney could run a thorough background check on me, and I cried through this, too. The woman in charge of fingerprinting sat me in a chair and told me to keep still, and she did all the work for me. She grabbed a finger and rolled it around in some ink, while I sat there, crying. She asked me if I was OK, and I shook my head “no”.

Not like she knew what to do with me, though. She was just in charge of fingerprinting. She wasn’t there to coddle me and let me cry on her shoulder over being placed at
DisneyQuest
. I would have settled for Animal Kingdom, my least favorite park. It was like Disney was punishing me for something I hadn’t even done yet. Because what kind of cruel, unusual torture is a DCP spent at DisneyQuest? I couldn’t even think about it without erupting into tears again, and I tried not to think about it as I continued my journey though Casting. But everyone else around me kept asking, “So, where are you working?” and I kept crying.

After the long march through Casting was complete, we were free to get back on the bus and return to the apartment complex. But something inside of me snapped at this moment, and I knew that as soon as I left Casting, that was it. I was sentenced to DisneyQuest. I figured that if there was any moment to change my fate, it was now. Instead of heading outside, I ducked into an office labeled DISNEY COLLEGE PROGRAM.

Inside I found a woman sitting behind a desk. She asked me if I was lost, and before I even gave her time for a follow-up question, I launched into my Disney sob story.

“I just got here, and I just got my assignment, and I was placed at DisneyQuest. I just want to know if I can change that location? I’m really excited and happy to be here, but I don’t want to be at DisneyQuest. Nothing against DisneyQuest. I bet it’s a really great place, if you like, really like, arcade games. But I want to be in a park. I signed up for the Disney College Program to be in a park. And I don’t think it’s fair that as a new cast member, I have been placed at DisneyQuest. I emailed someone over the summer about this and—”

Talking a hundred words a minute, the woman cut me off. “Can I have your perner?” she asked.

Except I didn’t know my perner. I didn’t even know what a perner
was
. I cried.

Someone heard me crying. A few moments later a head popped out from an office a little ways down the long College Program hallway. “Is everything OK?”

I shook my head, still crying, still unable to really form complete sentences.

A short and stout man emerged from the office. He wore a blue polo shirt and khaki pants and stuck his hand out for me to shake as soon as he was close enough. “Hi, my name’s Michael!” he said through a giant smile. “What’s wrong?”

“We’ve got a brand new CP who’s upset with her work location,” the woman behind the desk told him, with a bored attitude. She had heard this story a hundred of times before, and I wondered how many new CPs actually wandered into this office to complain. And in my case, cry.

“Where were you placed?” Michael asked.

“DisneyQuest,” I mumbled, like if I said the word out loud, it might become real.

“DisneyQuest! That’s where I worked when I first got here!”

“Really?” Back then, I believed him. I believed that Michael really did work at DisneyQuest like he told me on that fateful day. But now, in hindsight, I do not believe that Michael really worked at DisneyQuest. I think I could have said any location across property, and Michael would have gushed, “I worked at the American Adventure pavilion, too!” because he just wanted me to stop crying and leave the building and get on with my college program. I could have said, custodial at Typhoon Lagoon! And Michael’s eyes would have popped wide open as he said “NO WAY! Me, too!”

Michael leaned back against the desk. “Spent two years there, and it was a
great
two years. You get to spend all day in air conditioning! That’s rare down here at Disney. So why the long face, princess? Have you ever been to DisneyQuest?”

“I’ve been there a few times, when my parents would bring us down. But I don’t want to work there. I didn’t realize I
could
work there.”

“It’s an attraction. You were placed in attractions for your DCP.”

“I didn’t think DisneyQuest was an attraction. It’s a building! It’s not an attraction! It’s not a ride! I spent all summer yelling for “parties of two!” and pretending to tell people to stand behind the yellow line. I want to work at a ride!” I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to start crying again. “ Over the summer I emailed someone about it, and I asked if I could be placed somewhere like Jungle Cruise? Or Great Movie Ride? Or—”

“You requested a high-spiel attraction. DisneyQuest is a high-spiel attraction.” The words Michael was saying to me didn’t mean anything. I hadn’t requested a high-spiel attraction. I didn’t even know the meaning behind the world “spiel”, and I must have given him a puzzled look, like I had done something wrong. “Jungle and GMR are considered ‘high-spiel’ since cast members there have to do a lot of talking. An attraction like, oh, I don’t know, Thunder Mountain, doesn’t require much talking. When you wrote to us, we must have noted that you wanted something ‘high spiel’. An attraction with a lot of talking. DisneyQuest is actually the highest-spiel attraction we have on property. That’s how you got placed there.”

“DisneyQuest is not an attraction. That’s bull—” I stopped myself before I swore. “I don’t want to be at DisneyQuest, and I might just go home, because this is ridiculous. I’ve been to Disney World almost twenty times, and I don’t think I should be working at DisneyQuest.” I had stopped crying and found my chutzpah again. I was not going to be forced to work at DisneyQuest.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Michael knew what I wanted to hear, and knew what I wanted to happen, but even I knew he couldn’t do it. I knew he couldn’t change my work location, and I was hereby sentenced to death at DisneyQuest. I sniffled loudly. “Is there any way I can switch to be in a park?
Please?”

“How about we do this instead. How about you work for a month at DisneyQuest, and then after a month, you check in with me. Maybe you’ll get there and you’ll like it, and we won’t have to work any magic, can you do that?”

“Can’t you just switch my work location now? Please.
Please.
I don’t want to go to DisneyQuest. This isn’t the difference between going to the Yacht or Beach Club. This is DisneyQuest.
It’s not in a park.
I’ve spent my whole life dreaming of working at Disney, and it’s like I’m not even working here! I’m working at Downtown Disney! Can I call my mom? She’ll tell you. She’ll tell you that I should be at a park!”

“Downtown Disney is part of Disney World! You’re still part of the Disney family! Have an open outlook about this! You’ll be inside. You won’t have to deal with the heat
at all
. You won’t have ridiculous closing times, like with Magic Kingdom. I think you’re going to get there, and you’re going to like it. I promise.”

I narrowed my eyes at Michael. “Thirty days? Just work there for thirty days, and then I can come back and talk to you about switching my location?”

“Check in with me after thirty days,” Michael repeated, and pulled a business card from the front desk and handed it to me. It had his name on it, with his email address and phone number at the bottom. “Be positive about this. Everything’s got a little bit of pixie dust here. Even DisneyQuest.”

“Good or bad, you’re hearing from me in 30 days, Michael. Expect it.”

“Can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to!” He opened the door to the College Program office and shooed me outside. I felt like I had been politely let down, rather than just having an awful Disney Band-Aid ripped off of me at full force. Michael said I only needed to make it thirty days at DisneyQuest, and if I hated it, he’d help me out. That’s what he had said. If I hated it, after thirty days, he’d work some magic.

I felt a little bit better. But I still didn’t feel great. I know I looked like I had been crying.

On the way out of Casting there was a PhotoPass photographer standing at the entrance, offering to take everyone’s “first picture at Disney”. I walked right by him, but he called me back, insisting that I’d want to remember this first moment of my Disney career for the rest of my life.

“This is about as happy as I’m going to be,” I grunted at him, as I quickly wiped my hands under my eyes in case my mascara had started running.

“Say, Mickey Mouse!”

I didn’t say Mickey, but I smiled.

Let’s skip ahead thirty days. Because if I were to detail those first thirty days at Disney, it would be a lot of, “Annie cries. Annie cries on the phone to her mom. Annie cries in the aisles of Target while she’s grocery shopping. Annie cries, on the phone, to her mom, in the aisles of Target while she’s trying to buy cereal and milk.” That’s no fun to read.

I tried to make the most of my first 30 days at Disney. I promise, I really did. I tried to have fun, and I tried to enjoy working at DisneyQuest, but at the end of the day, I still wasn’t in a park. That’s all I had wanted, and that’s the one thing I didn’t get.

After thirty days, I emailed Michael. I explained that while I liked certain aspects of working at DisneyQuest (like the fact that it was air conditioned), it still wasn’t a park. I was willing to trade my air conditioning to stand outside on Main Street, like a
real
Disney World cast member. I didn’t feel like a real Disney World cast member at DisneyQuest, and it broke my heart every single day I clocked in for work. I had a Disney nametag, but I felt like I didn’t deserve one.

The email I sent Michael was long and detailed. I laid it all out for him, and hoped for the best. His response back to me was short and sweet:

It’s good to hear from you! Just to make sure I’m very clear up front — we are not able to move program participants to other work locations. However, if you are unhappy with any component of your role, it’s important that you bring this to the attention of your managers, since it’s their goal to address your concerns. I’ve shared your message with the DQ leadership team, and they definitely responded with surprise! If they have not done so already, they will be reaching out to you soon. When we spoke on your first day, my intention was to suggest that you should give yourself some time to experience your work location (i.e., 30 days), rather than immediately bringing up your concern. Now that we’re past that period, your leadership is definitely where you should direct any questions or concerns.

As you are no doubt discovering, the experience of participating in the Disney College Program is totally unique, and adjusting to this new environment can be challenging. But, those participants who show flexibility and focus on creating a great experience for themselves are often the most successful (a surprising number of our company’s leaders started that way). So I challenge you to make the most of every day of your experience — and be excited that you get to work in such a unique, exciting work location. If there is anything else I can assist with, let me know.

This was the first time I realized that sometimes Disney tells you exactly what you want to hear, even though it’s not the truth. The only reason I had survived those 30 days at DisneyQuest was because I thought I could move on to something else after that initial month. Turns out, I had been given the false hope of pixie dust.

Like Michael told me in his email, the next time I walked into DisneyQuest, my managers pulled me in for a meeting. It was basically an intervention. They were shocked to learn how unhappy I was at DisneyQuest, since I guess I never showed it. They began asking what they could do to make my time at DQ a little bit better, and I kept semi-joking, “Well, you could send me somewhere else…”