Amber Earns Her Ears: My Secret Walt Disney World Cast Member Diary (11 page)

Fortunately, I had made sure to show up with plenty of extra time. I asked around and someone pointed out the trailer where I’d find the Cast Deployment System (CDS), and another building where I’d find a fridge and a spot to stow my bag. When it came time to clock in through the CDS, I did so, and was put out on bussing.

Bussing is not my favorite task. Probably my least favorite, actually. In the heat, with the lovely smell of the grease and trash located just off-stage permeating the air, and the oily smell of turkey legs wafting over from the stand…wonderful experience. Throughout the day, I was sometimes sent to get trays ready for pizza or to scoop ice cream, but mostly, I wandered around wiping down tables and pushing the trash cart.

When another Cast Member finally told me it was time for my break, I was elated. I went inside to grab my stuff and asked where I could find the cafeteria. Luckily, it wasn’t far, and I made my way there, already missing my old job at Electric Umbrella.

I headed over to the microwaves to warm up the batch of pasta I had brought with me. What I hadn’t brought was a fork. I wandered around to the food area, only to find it gated up, the container of utensils inconveniently out of reach. Already impatient for my shift to be over, I took my Tupperware container out of the microwave and found an isolated seat in the sparsely-populated dining area. Eating pasta with my fingers was a pleasant way to break up the frustrating day. One of the guys from the Facebook group who I’d met during check-in drifted over to where I was sitting, and we chatted for a bit, he complimenting me on my lovely white handkerchief and glowing air of positivity. Far too soon, my break was over, and I made my way past the dumpsters to the CDS trailer, ready to clock in and receive my closing assignment. Bussing, of course.

Thankfully, a few other CPs were also bussing, and as the area filtered out after Fantasmic, it was nice to chat with them; I had spent most of the day in silence. I watched in exasperated amusement as a guest hopped up on one of the tables and broke it; there’s something funny about how people who have done something stupid always look hurriedly around to see whether anyone is watching them. I went and told a manager, who came out to see if he could fix it, then went back to sweeping up chips and scooting benches under tables.

When my shift ended, I walked to the bus stop with a few of the other girls from Sunset Ranch. We plopped down on the concrete, exhausted, and waited a good hour or so until the bus arrived to take me home.

The next day was no better. I clocked in, got a slip of paper with my assignment, and told the woman in the area I was supposed to take over that she could go back to the CDS for her assignment. Not ten minutes later, she had returned, grabbing hold of my arm and pulling me backstage. Not exactly in the best of moods, I dug my heels in and waited until she let go of me before I walked any farther. She refused to answer any of my questions as to why I was being dragged backstage, only to say that the leader wanted to see me. Thoroughly bewildered at this woman’s anger, and starting to get a little peeved myself, I walked into the trailer, only to have the manager ask if I had taken over for the Cast Member who had dragged me back. I replied that I had, and the leader dismissed me without any other comment.

I was put on scooping ice cream at some point in the day, which was probably my favorite position at Sunset Ranch. Unfortunately, I had hurt my wrist earlier at EU working on the fryers, and scooping ice cream all day wasn’t making things any better. But making apple crumbles and sundaes was so much better than assembling burgers in a hot little building or filling up cups with Coke.

Needless to say, when the time came for me to pack up and head to the Orlando airport to fly back home for my high school graduation, I was thrilled. No more work at Sunset Ranch! During my short time there, I hadn’t really spoken to anyone, and had scarcely seen a manager’s face. There had been some people who were quite nice, but just as many who were not. Driving Dinosaur to the airport, on a fairly empty highway, in the still-dark hours of the morning, was a heavenly experience.

Back in Tennessee, I put on my cap and gown (and my Mickey Mouse graduation ears, which my principal wouldn’t let me walk with), and sat for a couple of hours in the overheated gymnasium between two pregnant girls, zoning out during the valedictorian’s speech and wondering who all these people were that I could have sworn I’d never seen. I walked across the stage, chatted with the few fellow graduates who I knew and liked, and said thank you to the family members who had come to see me.

I was back in Florida in no time. I walked in to my apartment, threw down my bags, and hopped online. And saw a lovely message from one of my managers, Eddie, telling me to not worry, but I should come in and talk to him as soon as possible.

Throwing a vexed look at my computer, I went back downstairs and drove to EPCOT, making my way to EU to find out what kind of trouble my leader had gotten me into. A few of the leaders I got along with spectacularly — TJ and Eddie, in particular — because we were smart-asses, and we could get away with insulting each other. I walked into EU through the back entrance, and one of the leaders told me that Eddie was hiding behind the oven.

“What. What have you done?”

Eddie looked at me rather sheepishly. “Well, I may or may not have almost gotten you terminated. But it’s fine now!” he assured me as my eyebrows shot even farther up. “Something didn’t work out, and they didn’t know you had those last two days off, so you had two no-call, no-shows. Three of them get you terminated. But they called us, and I got everything worked out. You don’t even have the points on your record card anymore!”

I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the knowledge that, had I taken another day off, I could have come back to find myself without a job, but since Eddie had already fixed everything, I left, shaking my head.

Deployment? Not exactly my favorite experience. I had never been so glad to have a shift at Electric Umbrella again.

SOMETIMES THINGS HAPPEN THAT you don’t plan for. Sometimes things go wrong, or reactions to an event aren’t what you had envisioned.

For example, a lot of people arrive in Florida for Disney’s CareerStart or College Programs with the mindset that nothing — nothing — is going to deter them from sticking it out. They are going to see it through to the end.

But then, of course, life happens.

While I worked at Walt Disney World on my first program, I saw many people leave before their time was up. Some caused trouble, did drugs, or got caught drunk at work.

One girl, who was absolutely a blast to hang out with and extremely amiable, once didn’t come in for her next shift. When I asked around, I found out that she had been found the night before, passed out drunk in a bikini on the floor of the Grand Floridian Resort. And she was wearing her Disney ID, which only made the situation worse.

The guy who had trained me at Fountain View had a bad habit of coming in less than sober. He would recount to the other CPs how he had driven to Magic Kingdom rather tipsy, and would come back after a night in the park, only to realize that he had locked his keys in his car. On multiple occasions. Eventually, he didn’t show up for work a couple of days in a row, and when later he reappeared, his reaction was rather bemused when he realized that he didn’t have a job anymore.

And Brian, the CP who had been bussing upstairs on the first day that I and a few other girls had come to Electric Umbrella? His wonderful personality couldn’t counter his failure to understand that, as we all had to sign in with unique user names when we operated a register, Disney would easily be able to track money. He was terminated for stealing from the Mouse. I ran into him at the bus stop the next day, as I was heading in to work, and saw that he had all of his possessions piled around him.

“Hey, Brian,” I said, keeping an eye out for the C bus.

“Hey, Amber.” He looked self-consciously at his TV and his trash bags full of belongings. “Yeah, I’m leaving. I’m totally just, you know, over this place. I’m done with it.” He explained how a family member was on their way to pick him up, and we shifted our feet awkwardly, myself fully aware of the real reason he was going. When the C bus finally pulled up, I said a quick good-bye to Brian and headed in to work.

And then there are the people who leave and then wish they could come back, like Jenni. Sometimes unforeseen circumstances arise that make being somewhere else more important than working for Disney.

Leah, for example, was the perfect Cast Member. She was cute and bubbly — the ideal princess. She wore bows in her hair that coordinated with her costume, she joked around with the kids, and even when she was completely sore from lifting a 45-pound robot, she could find something to smile about.

Around May, things started to get a little rocky. Leah was having boy issues — her boyfriend back home wasn’t being the best of beaus. She was in the midst of planning a trip for him to come down and visit. She had plans for every day, cool little excursions that he would love. And then her father went into the hospital.

Leah’s entire goal in coming to Florida had been to see if this was what she wanted to do with her life; now that she was fairly certain it wasn’t, she didn’t need all the stress that being in Florida placed on her.

After his release from the hospital, Leah’s father drove to the complex to help her load up all of her stuff to go home. Security, however, wouldn’t let Leah or her father inside (they can be unaccommodating like that at times; though in this case she may have already turned in her Housing ID), so I packed all of Leah’s belongings in my car and drove out to the front gates, then walked back to the apartment so I could get ready for work.

With a quick hug, Leah was gone.

With the disappearance of each roommate, Disney would change the locks and leave a letter on our counter informing us that a new roommate would be arriving soon.

The first key change I managed to catch, but the second time, after Leah had left, I drove to the apartment, ran up the stairs, and then realized that I hadn’t had a chance to get the new key. I knocked, thinking that May did have the new key, but no one answered.

I slowly made the trek to the security booth at the front of the complex, hoping they’d be able to let me in. I was exhausted, I had worked an hour past the usual end of my shift because I had been delayed in cleaning the fryers, and I smelled like a revolting mixture of cooking oil and French fries.

When I arrived at the security booth, I saw May sitting on one of the benches. I gave a little whimper and sat down next to her. We would have to wait for Paige to come home.

After an hour and a half of waiting — I had called Paige, with no result, and had actually fallen asleep on the bench, my backwards baseball cap falling from my greasy hair to rest against slick shoes grainy with crumbs from chicken chunks — we heard Paige’s sympathetic call, and I lethargically rose to accompany her and May to the apartment.

Jenni did go back for another CareerStart Program, working merchandise. She seemed to be doing much better on that go-round, and her new job was preferable to selling egg rolls from a stuffy cart. When I went to visit her in March, we spent one morning together in Magic Kingdom. Jenni was once again the vivacious girl bursting with the laughter I remembered from the beginning of our first program, not the lonely Jenni who had made the decision to pack up her stuff in the middle of the night. Her plan, she told me, was to extend, and then hopefully become a part-time Cast Member when her program was over. Unfortunately, her plans didn’t pan out, and she left her second program early, too.

Two people that I chatted with on Facebook before arriving in Florida, Jake and Rebecca (yep, the girl I was supposed to room with), ended up getting together during the program. They’re now sharing a wonderful, spacious apartment just a few minutes away from Disney World. They had been stuck for a little while in the jobs they held during the program, but both are now in different roles. They have an adorable kitten named Ohana, and last I heard, can see the Magic Kingdom fireworks from their bedroom window.

Leah isn’t quite sure what she wants to do. Sometimes she was desperate about returning to Disney; other times, she talked about opening a cute little boutique back in her hometown. I’m simply hoping she finds something that makes her happy.

And the ones who got terminated? They never mentioned it much, and I don’t speak with them anymore. But I’m sure they went back to the lives they led before they departed Florida, reflecting on their time here as a fun experience cut short before they were done partying.

AS MUCH AS I enjoyed working, and despite how many hours as I was spending at Electric Umbrella, there was still plenty of time to hang out with co-workers outside of the break room and kitchen. While the phrase “going out” still gave me trepidation, I had slowly become acclimated to the social world, especially after my successful venture to the Ale House.

Buffalo Wild Wings was a favorite stop for CPs because it was one of the few places the CP buses went that served alcohol and played loud music. From Peerada, Jennifer, and MoMo, to Fan, Victoria, and Cristina, and even part-timers like Mike, Tenisha, and Stevenson, most of our group CP pictures were taken on the crowded floor of Buffalo Wild Wings. More were taken at the McDonalds just across the parking lot, though it wasn’t the most popular restaurant for our group.

Restaurants open around the clock had a big advantage for us. After a late shift, we’d head out for a milkshake at Steak 'n Shake or a stack of pancakes from IHOP. I learned how to make worms out of crinkled straw paper. We waited at the drive-thru of McDonalds as Sarah Mae chatted with Mauricio, the guy with the headset. I stood up and got an award — Mostly Likely to Succeed — at our EU Cast party in the back room of IHOP. Others were awarded such titles as “King of Fryers” or “Queen Closer”.