Management Problems...

[CMGUY89]

VENT WARNING!
I know this is like my 5th thread i've started in like 48 hours but this is starting to get to me. I'm losing sleep over it...
I have basically wanted to work for Disney for over 10 years. It is my life, it is what makes me happy, and working there is all I can think about. I finally got a job there after graduating high school and even drove 20 hours from Texas to live there. Well of course I told my recruiter that I wanted high spiel, I wanted lots of guest interaction. Well, Casting being casting didn't know that The Land no longer had a spiel and put me there even though boat captains had been gone for over 6 months!!! Well I had realized this was a possibility and had asked my recruiter about Future World West attractions and he LIED to me and said that it was a giant rotation. If by rotation he meant you had to be full-time and make line bids for other attractions which I can't do since I'm seasonal then he must have been right. Well for my first month I enjoyed my location. I was doing what I had always wanted, pushing that green button. But then I realized I wanted more than that. I wanted actual responsibility and respect. The Land is the laughing stock of all attractions and my managers have been completely unsympathetic to my plight. I told them I would work at two attractions if they were that desperate for Land cast and they still say no. I think they are mostly afraid of the Union (as am I). So now what am I to do?
I am in New York at school planning to go back for the holiday season after Christmas. I am sure that they aren't going to put me somewhere else, but if they don't train me by Summer I am pretty sure I am going to transfer. Has anyone else had this problem??? I went to my Cast Service Manager (the person whose priority is the CM unlike regular Managers who focus on the Guest). I got yelled at by my managers!!! They thought I went over their head. I told them that if I didn't get training I was going to transfer and they basically said don't make ultimatums or else I was going to "burn bridges that I shouldn't". Casting is no help, my managers are no help. I am stuck!!! I feel trapped and helpless with no way to escape the Land.
Well thanks for listening. Feel free to share your stories as well.

[Tinker Bell]

Honestly? Just transfer out. The best thing about Disney is that you can try other roles and learn other stuff. If where you are now is not working out; then is time to find something else, maybe a different park too.

Sometimes time and air is the best you can give to a situation.

[Big Wallaby]

I would say just transfer. You are at Disney for the same reasons as me, I like to talk. That is why I am out of buses as of Sunday morning at 3:30. In fact, I would go so far as to encourage you to transfer.

I would have loved working the Land back when it was a spieling attraction. It works okay as it is now, but it's nothing like it was ten years ago.

Join me at KSR! You have to spiel about 28 different animals in 18 minutes. That's a lot of spieling. Pressing that green button doesn't work for me. I might enjoy it at a place like Soarin' where the load is rather guest-contact intensive.

I can tell you're one of those people I will need to meet sometime. Oh, and I can tell you're going to give me a run for my money on keeping my Top Poster status :D: .

[CMGUY89]

I would say just transfer. You are at Disney for the same reasons as me, I like to talk. That is why I am out of buses as of Sunday morning at 3:30. In fact, I would go so far as to encourage you to transfer.

I would have loved working the Land back when it was a spieling attraction. It works okay as it is now, but it's nothing like it was ten years ago.

Join me at KSR! You have to spiel about 28 different animals in 18 minutes. That's a lot of spieling. Pressing that green button doesn't work for me. I might enjoy it at a place like Soarin' where the load is rather guest-contact intensive.

I can tell you're one of those people I will need to meet sometime. Oh, and I can tell you're going to give me a run for my money on keeping my Top Poster status :D: .

KSR kinda scares me...I have a friend named Jasmine over there, ask her about her friend that works at The Land. I want to get to Soarin' even though it is Green Button heavy but it at least has a cool theme. TOT would be even better. Jasmine worked there as well. We will have to get together sometime! The problem with transferring is that I am seasonal and that I am unsure of how the process works if my season is over. Also since I am seasonal I am afraid they will have a tendency to through me on easy things like theater shows. (That's the only thing worse than where I am now)
Good luck at KS, and watch out for Rhinos. (Ask Jasmine) ;)

[mechurchlady]

Here are the facts as I see them.

You have a job, yeah.

You got to stop dreaming of the really famough big rides and work on moving up to more difficult jobs and establishing yourself. You do need to transfer some place else since you hate the job and the management stinks. If your bosses are not helping you to grow then get out and go elsewhere.

Remeber that spieling is a learned art and you have to learn to read people. Loading is not that easy when you have protein spills, e-stops, and guests that cannot or will not do what they are supposed to.

On Soarin' you have guests that cannot ride, guests that chicken out, and special needs guests. Failure to do everything by the book could get someone killed or hurt. It is not just smiling and spiel but having to make sure you have the right number of people in each row, WAIT kid hiding so the row has too many, people demanding to sit together on single ride option, talkers, questions asked, body odour, heavy perfume, other smells like food ooh nothing to take your mind off work as food odours, illness, and so much more. It seems fun but with some rides you have to include a lot of stuff in the spiel and actually have little time for the fun stuff. WAKE UP and realize that being a CM on a ride like tower of terror and and soarin' is a lot harder than The Land.

[CMGUY89]

Yeah, I realize Soarin' isn't like some sort of dream but I need a ride that challenges me a little more. Land doesn't challenge me. But I think you are right about management sucking. They keep refusing to place additional CM's at Land and force us to extend or now they are calling us to come in early! Apparently in the other areas they cross-train you within a month. Over there I think they are scared of the shop steward in our area. I am pretty ready to get out of there. Does anyone have information about transferring if you are seasonal?

[mechurchlady]

Yeah, I realize Soarin' isn't like some sort of dream but I need a ride that challenges me a little more. Land doesn't challenge me. But I think you are right about management sucking. They keep refusing to place additional CM's at Land and force us to extend or now they are calling us to come in early! Apparently in the other areas they cross-train you within a month. Over there I think they are scared of the shop steward in our area. I am pretty ready to get out of there. Does anyone have information about transferring if you are seasonal?

Hunny you need to read what you just posted. It is clear there is a management problem and you want to grow. Not everyone at Disney is there to grow but just do a job for a season or until the husband gets out of college. You want challenges and want to move up the ladder so management is not seeing your needs and probably assume you are just a temp there until out of college or a long term dead end person. Get out while you can and start talking to other CMs as friends and learn from them what is available and what is right for your skills. That is what others have been doing, making friends, learning and then waiting for that apple to fall. It pays to have friends in any career but especially at Disney.

[Cranbiz]

The hourly transfer process is your route IF you meet the transfer requirements. Now I will preface this by saying that I don't know attractions at all and what the time and attendance requirements are so you will need to verify my info.

If you have access to the portal, go to the work tab and under castlink will be a listing for hourly transfer process. Go there and fill out the form and make sure that you put down 2 preferences. If you meet the requirements and one of those departments has a need for additional seasonal CM's you will get the position. In either way, casting will let you know what your status is.

There should be no stigma attached to going to a CSM. That is what they are there for. If your managers are frightened by that, that is their problem. It's your right to speak to a CSM anytime you need to.

Maybe you need go to your managers with a different approach. You do need them on your side to transfer into a popular attraction. You do catch more bees with honey than shit. The last thing you want to do is piss them off. You need to make them think that you are doing them a favor not that they are doing you the favor.

Personally, I don't think the land is lame. I like going on it but I do miss the boat captains. It's like MiM's in the buses. If Disney could figure a way to have MiM's drive too, they would (and may God have mercy if they do).

[Big Wallaby]

Network, network, network. That is the name of the game moving around and up.

You know, one place you might enjoy is Monorails. I have some friends there (from here as well, although I see them more at the World than here), and at least one of 'em loves the interaction you get with the guests. I'll have to hook you up with him. He's told me stories of stuff they've done on the load platform at TTC that, being in buses, were all but hard to believe because I don't work in guest load areas that are away from anything else. And, of course, for a couple hours a day, if you are in the cab with the right people, you can make some magic for four guests at a time.

I can just imagine your reaction when you got to the Land your first day and saw that it was all automated except for that green button. Same as mine would have been. :(

So get out of there. I would agree with Churchy that it almost doesn't matter where you go, because most places you should be able to Cross U, which helps your networking and repertoire.

It's like how I was promised at Casting that when I went into buses, I could use the Cross U and go learn other things and do them. Then, I found out that Union rules are that bus drivers are bus drivers, nothing else, except for a very few jobs that are in the Teamsters... most of which I don't have time to train to do while driving a bus. But I can't, for instance, go into Monorails, attractions, watercraft, etc., etc., etc... One of the shop stewards said it best to me once, "We are here to be assholes."

Not me, I am here to be a Cast Member. That is when I fully parted ways with most of the shop stewards (except the one who left last month to take care of his mother in upstate New York. Awesome shop steward and awesome CM... I am so glad the company recognized it too, and honored him with a Partners pin) and I generally don't have anything to do with them (and again, since most of 'em are the type to whom this is just a job, screw 'em).

I ask again, if you have the choice of working at Disney but you're not going to keep the Magic experience of our guests in mind, and you could do the same job elsewhere for as much as three or in some cases four times the pay, why wouldn't you go? Please, do.

[CMGUY89]

Thanks Churchy, I needed some tough love.

As for the shop stewards being assholes, you are so right. It's kinda sad people are getting to the point of being fed up with STCU. In the words of my assessment trainer, "I give them how much out of my paycheck for a .50 cent raise?!?!"
It's ridiculous. I am kinda worried that if I put in my transfer and it goes through while I am away they will just skip me. I am going to call casting right now and find out...
Thanks again guys