Sodexo Magic FAIL

[mapo]

So Sodexo Magic is the new cafeteria provider. We have waited for months now but the conversions are underway across property.

Good news right???

We have researched Sodexo Magic extensively. This is the company that has been feeding Disneyland Cast for years. Disneyland cast warned that you will get great food and prices for first two years then it reverts to crap and huge price increases. OK...a bunch of us even looked up the menus that are posted for DL and the prices.

Currently, DL Cast spend a LOT less money on food and meals that WDW cast. Cool...sounds like this is all lining up.

Well, the first converted areas have opened and well....NOT what we expected at all.

A bottle of soda from the machine is $1.25 -- Aramark was $1.39......Sodexo Magic is $1.89

I looked at the egg salad sandwich that I recently bought at Aramark for $2.99 that Sodexo Magic has for $3.99

So the cost of living is supposedly much higher for DL cast, this is what we hear repeatedly when hourly rates of pay are brought up. Still, the fact that we are paying substantially more for food service from the same company, is completely unacceptable.

I know that I will continue to bring my lunch in and redouble my efforts to not spend any extra money in either the vending machines (Canteen aka WDW) or the cafeteria/grab and go areas (Sodexo Magic). I have been sliding a bit on spending money at work on food..but if they think that huge price increases are acceptable and will be tolerated. UGH...

Same crap food at huge increases in price. Maybe Magic Johnson and his company need to squeeze every available dime out of cast. Frankly, I would rather go hungry until I go home than give them one more dime of my hard earned money.

There are too many Cast members who are earning at or near the minimum wage that may need to avail themselves of the cafeteria or grab and go. With decreasing hours in the slow period, staying extra hours is a welcome opportunity. But then when they run to grab food on their 30 min lunch, it costs them an hour or more in pay for that sandwich, chips and soda.

Let's do the math. Joe has a 6 hour shift. He is asked to stay 2.5 hours on an extension. He loses half hour for mandatory lunch. Lunch costs him another hours worth of pay. So the result is only an additional hour worth of pay.

If you were Joe, would you extend? Worse, what if Joe was force extended? Talk about insult to injury.

Oh BTW, that sandwich is just one that you would get off a "wheel of death" machine. No, that is NOT Subway sandwich.

Speaking of Subway, word is that Subway will be going and a deli option in its place. There goes your $5 foot long option that they occasionally have on offer.

Yes, I am really outraged at this turn of events. Those that are making these changes are really not thinking like a front line cast member at all.

Finally, in a multi BILLION dollar corporation like Disney, why did they ever get out of the Cast Cafeteria business??? Magic Kingdom alone serves thousands of meals every day to its guests. The leftover prepared food is sent to Second Harvest. (A fabulous organization and should be supported.)

However, using WDW's buying power in bulk to run a cast cafeteria could not cost them that much money. If say MK's Mousketeria offered a $5 hot meal to working cast (just like Shades of Green does) then you would have a cast that feel like the Company actually gives a crap AND every cast member would have a full stomach of well balanced food. I am sure that whatever subsidy the Company would have to make to hold the price at $5 could be another tax write off.

Oh, and here is another gem. Every year WDW runs a United Way campaign. Every year they track who has not participated in the drive and will hound you until you participate. Participation is actually defined as going onto the Portal and selecting whether you want to contribute or not. This is never made clear to most Cast. Ironically, the cast that typically give the most money (related to their earning power) are those who can least afford it. Sadly, a disproportionate number of cast members qualify for United Way benefits (and government benefits too).

Perhaps Disney needs to also look at why they have not been listed as a Family Friendly Company to work for in Central Florida in memorable history. Disney is a "brand" that is associated with family fun and wholesomeness -- that sells courses to other businesses to operate in the Disney way -- are not considered to be a top employer in the Central Florida region.

Sorry, I got off on a rant here. The Sodexo Magic debacle is just the latest in a series of cast dissatisfiers. I would really like to work for the WDW Company that I started with years ago. THAT Company cared -- or at least made a good effort of faking it better.

Stop telling us how many BILLIONS Bob Igor got in a BONUS this year. Stop telling us how buying some other company for BILLIONS is going to make Disney a bigger CONGLOMERATE. START telling us how you are going to stop siphoning off every penny from our paychecks for higher health care costs, higher food costs at work, fewer ticket benefits, and less respect from our "leaders" who treat people like numbers or just things.

mapo

[WEDFan]

Wow, the cafeteria situation sounds really grim. It really seems like they should do better.

As far as United Way goes, I've been against them for decades, now. While I think a lot of the charities they support are great, and I support them directly, I think United Way is the wrong way to do it. I have always felt that working with a company which requires participation in events or completoin of a giving form is coercive and wrong. Yes, you can refuse to give, but the process makes it look like you will be judged at work based on your participation. Forms with suggested amounts based on your earnings, or forms that make it difficult to find the opt out (I've seen both of these with United Way) are designed to get people to contribute even when they don't want to. BTW, these opinions aren't based just on my exposure as an employee. At one point I was running a small business and the local United Way contacted me about setting up a giving program for the 4 employees. They contacted me repeatedly even after being told no, and the suggestions on how to get your employees to give were repugnant to me. Maybe some chapters are different -- I can't say I've worked with that many, but everything I hear leaves me thinking at best it's just a matter of degree.

[hobie16]

Three things:

1 - How could anyone trust a company named Sodexo to provide food? The name sounds like an outfit that recycles nuclear waste.

2 - Somebody's gotta pay to put fuel in Magic's jet. Apparently the CMs drew the short straw.

3 - I worked for Pacific Telephone years ago. We got the same hard sell for United Way to the point that we had to sit through a tear jerker movie and listen to some sellout that was on management fast track. One year it blew up in management's collective faces.

A guy I worked with had a horrific water skiing accident where he ultimately lost a leg. Because the accident happened in the Sacramento Delta he spent four months in the hospital fighting off all the gawd awful infections he picked up from the water. He was married with two kids. All of this put a huge strain on his family.

As his wife worked and needed help with the kids he decided to contact United Way for help. In all the United Way meetings we were forced to attend we were always told that they were there to help us if the need ever arose. When UW finally got back to him they wanted twice what he made an hour for limited child care. He couldn't afford it so he ended up relying on family and friends to help out.

Fast forward a few years. He was on track to move into management and was asked to be the United Way guy for the San Francisco mid peninsula. This area probably had three thousand employees. He said he'd love to do it.

My group happened to be the first victims. He came in, made some small talk, showed the tear jerker and then the fun began. He started off talking about losing his leg and how his family was impacted by it. He then unloaded on United Way on how they would have probably bankrupted him and closed with, "I would't give those bastards a dime." Needless to say, that was his first and last presentation.

Management thought they had squashed any problems but hey, this is the phone company and we communicate. Word spread so fast that United Way saw about ten percent of what their usual take was from the entire San Francisco area. The only reason they got ten percent was because management still coughed up the bucks.

[felinefan]

One day here at the library, I saw a flyer for a United Way-backed organization called Familywize www.familywize.org . They offered a free prescription discount card, which offers up to a 75% discount on prescription meds. The site does say the actual discount will differ, the average discount is 17%. I got the card because I take two prescriptions for my high blood pressure, benazepril--which I get at Target pharmacy as one of their $10 for 3 months' supply, and hydrochlorothiazide, which cost me over $30 for 3 months, and was not on Target's list of discount generics. The card didn't save me on the benezapril, of course, but the HCTZ, oh, yeah! I now pay less than $17 for 3 months of it, which makes it more affordable.

But you could be right, it may be a regional thing. Same with the VA--my aunt Helen was in the Army during WWII, as a driver/mechanic. Her obituary reads that she was very proud of her ability to completely take apart a Jeep and put it back together again. But she had a heart problem, likely caused by rheumatic fever, and was in the service for only about a year and a half, long enough to get VA benefits. They came in handy when she finally got her faulty heart valve replaced in the 80s. On the other hand, an uncle of mine on my mom's side was told for years he had "low-grade leukemia" by VA doctors; he served in the Navy between WWII and Korea. They finally found out, too late, he had Stage 4 colon cancer. They treated him, but he ended up in hospice and died.
My older brother was in the Army during the 70s, in the Defense Language Institute, and now he has dental problems. But instead of drilling and filling his teeth, they just pull. It's sickening how the VA helps some veterans, and all but ignores others.
My aunt lived in Kansas, my uncle lived and my brother lives in California.

[Widget]

Never understood why people give to the United Way. Why give to an organization that will take some of your hard earned money to pay their own expenses and then give the rest to another organization of their choosing? I would rather give directly to a group that I support and care about.

I have been forced to attend United Way spiels in the past. Talk about torture. One negative word about it and it appeared on your performance review as not being a team player. I refused to give but was at least polite to the UW representative. Out of 30 employees at our site I think only five actually signed up to give. Two were the lead managers. The others were just easily swayed and/or brown noses.

[EpcotFan]

I worked for an employer that pushed United Way a few years ago. I simply selected a charity I already supported and designated that all my gifts had to go to that charity. I'm sure United Way skimmed some off the top, but at least that way I didn't have to support charities I might disagree with, or give up supporting a charity I cared about in order to support ones I didn't care about.

[WEDFan]

I didn't mention it in my mini rant above, but somehow I did manage to miss 4 out of 5 "mandatory" United Way meetings for those years I was subjected to it. I still had to fill out a form, but at least I didn't have to waste the time for hte meeting. I was only caught off guard the first year.

[BRWombat]

Yeah, I'm the same on the United Way. Fortunately, my employers have been fairly low-pressure about it. You hear about the campaign, but there is nothing said or done if you don't participate.

[YANXWIN]

Working for an extremely small company allows me to have 100% say on my charity work. It is something I enjoy, but I have chosen to give to, and serve in, organizations where I know that 100% of that money is used for the purpose intended. No management pay, or salaries, or anything of the sort. It goes for good.

[hobie16]

I worked for an employer that pushed United Way a few years ago. I simply selected a charity I already supported and designated that all my gifts had to go to that charity. I'm sure United Way skimmed some off the top, but at least that way I didn't have to support charities I might disagree with, or give up supporting a charity I cared about in order to support ones I didn't care about.

All that happens when you direct your contribution is you get a letter thanking you. United Way still gives the prearranged amount to each of their client charities.