Stupid CDS Tricks...

[CMGUY89]

Yeah it's Video Monitor. Basically we sit in the transition tunnel between Barn Theater II and the Tropics Greenhouse and watch six monitors to make sure no one is acting up in the green houses, because they have no intrusion sensors due to the constant presence of the greenhouse staff. We have a PA back there to spiel to guests who stand, reach out, get out, etc... It is one of the most hated positions because you sit in the dark alone for an hour watching boats go by. It is very easy to fall asleep back there and several people have. When we only had one rotation it was at the very end, so often times when you were rotated back to CDS to re-deploy you would grab VM's break again. Now we have two rotations, a dock rotation, and a Land position rotation. Its 2nd or 3rd in the Land position rotation so we don't get stuck there for as long.

[Randy B]

Yeah it's Video Monitor. Basically we sit in the transition tunnel between Barn Theater II and the Tropics Greenhouse and watch six monitors to make sure no one is acting up in the green houses, because they have no intrusion sensors due to the constant presence of the greenhouse staff. We have a PA back there to spiel to guests who stand, reach out, get out, etc... It is one of the most hated positions because you sit in the dark alone for an hour watching boats go by. It is very easy to fall asleep back there and several people have. When we only had one rotation it was at the very end, so often times when you were rotated back to CDS to re-deploy you would grab VM's break again. Now we have two rotations, a dock rotation, and a Land position rotation. Its 2nd or 3rd in the Land position rotation so we don't get stuck there for as long.

Are they just too cheap to buy enough cable to run the monitors to a location where lights and activity will keep you alert? Heck if the monitors were mounted to the dispatch panel they could save one position.

Randy

[CMGUY89]

Probably Randy, but Dispatch has a lot going on so I would say it would be too difficult to watch there. But maybe right behind dispatch (ala Maelstrom) would be fine. They could even throw in some cameras for the whole ride and then it would solve more problems! Alas, that's just wishful thinking!

[HarryFromMarydelDE]

CDS can give odd assignments. Once I was in the Firehouse (on Main Street) and someone came with a slip for them to relieve me and for me to get an assignment. I went back and got my assignment. The assignment was to go to the firehouse and send the guy that just relieved me on break! I thought, "Why didn't it just send him on his break in the first place."

Thinking about it, I think I know the answer. It's supposed to at least try to make sure the outside positions (carts and the Firehouse) get rotated with inside positions fairly frequently, especially in the summer (when this happened). And I know it has target times it would like people to go on break. So I guess it had decided I was in the firehouse for too long and he hadn't quite reached the target time for his break. By the time I walked to the CDS his target time had arrived, so being the next guy to log in I got the assignment to relieve him.

I think it's missing capabilities it should have. For example, on Main Street East we have two costumes, yellow for the Confectionery and brown for everywhere else. CMs in yellow are not supposed to be tasking if CMs in brown are on the Confectionery registers. So it should know that before it gives a task to someone in Zone 2 (Yellow) it should check and see if anyone from Zone 1 (Brown) is on a Confectionery register and send the Zone 2 CM to that register. But it doesn't and consequently the coordinators have to manually check every so often and straighten it out, or the Zone 2 CM has to tell tho coordinator about it so it gets straightened out. Not a big deal, but it is a distraction and I don't know why the CDS can't keep track of it, except that no one thought to put that feature in.

And like someone said, it has a lot of burps. I know of plenty of times when it has left someone on a cart for three hours on a brutally hot day. To be fair to CDS however, sometimes this is caused by CMs who can't learn to read the assignment slips.

-Harry

[bpgstudios]

When I started in my area, we used to staff Ariels Grotto greeter and poohs playful spot (2 positions), and those were tacked onto the end of rotations. Rotations on small world ended with smallworld/pan strollers 1, PVH greeter, ariel greeter, back to PC. Rotations on philhar complex used to end in philhar return, dumbo shortwalk, philhar strollers 1, smallworld/pan strollers 2, back to PC. During the summer months it was brutal! I always got caught with the shortwalk-strollers-strollers loop, meaning I'd clock in, get someone's break at shortwalk (but rotations take 45 minutes to go through, so they are still at return), go to strollers for a rotation, then another strollers for a rotation, then head back to the PC and get someone's break back at shortwalk or strollers. Finally there was a big group of us that seemed to always get the shortwalk strollers strollers loop, talked to management, and they decided to change all the rotations so you would never be inside or outside more than 2 positions in a row. So new rotations had small world strollers in between small world rearload and unload, PVH in between unload 1 and unload 2, philhar strollers inbetween philhar merge and lobby, and the end went shortwalk-theatre-smallworld strollers. Last week, CDS magically changed the end of rotations without our managers "knowing" about it to return, theatre, shortwalk, smallworld strollers, back to PC. I can't wait to see all the fun we have when we staff tink strollers, pan strollers, f-sky 1&2, pooh strollers, snow strollers, teacup greeter, carrousel greeter, area assist 2-way, pan return end of line, small world end of line, small world exit turnstyles, dumbo greeter, dumbo turnstyles, snow grouper, snow unload assist, and pooh unload assist. And yes, I have seen days where we have all these positions up. With the basics coming, we will be having more of these positions up, too.

[CMGUY89]

LOL, they pull out weird positions at the Land during the holidays/summer. They grab Elevator Assist, Stroller Parking, Perm Merge, Exit Greeter, Circle Theater assist, Swirl front doors entrance, Swirl Top of stairs, Swirl bottom of stairs, Swirl exit, Bottom of ramp greeter 1 and 2 (in exchange for dropping front doors entrance and exit), and my personal favorite blow off.
Blow off is basically only used on NYE and July 4th. They open the emergency exits downstairs next to Soarin' and allow people to exit the pavilion there, walk backstage and exit onstage next to Image. It's fun because basically all you do is tell people to keep walking back into the park.

[accioetoile]

Yeah, if it was properly designed it would know who was at what position so that I wouldn't get assigned to VM for three consecutive hours. It would go like this:
12:00 Come back from break, pull VM's break.
1:00 Get rotated to PC, re-deploy and pull VM break again.
2:00 Go to PC re-deploy and pull my break.
2:15 Re-deploy and pull VM again.
GRR I HATE VM!!! It is so easy to fall asleep back there where it is dark, with soft music playing, and having the barn theater film looping telling me "In Saudi Arabia and Mexico we're learning to produce food on desert sea coasts by developing and planting crops that thrive on Salt Water."

That's like the time I got ATL for 3 hours. All you do at ATL is stand at the end of the long hallway, as guests walk by you, to make sure no guests go running back up the hallway, and keep guests from going out the CM exit.

[CMGUY89]

That's like the time I got ATL for 3 hours. All you do at ATL is stand at the end of the long hallway, as guests walk by you, to make sure no guests go running back up the hallway, and keep guests from going out the CM exit.

See! You never get the good positions for three hours running. Like Launch Director? Though once I did get Circle of life for three hours during a downtime. Sometimes it is worth it to have rotation stopped. LOL! I love getting dispatch, even though it is repetitive (Gates Auto Open, Close Gates, Advance Boat, Repeat), just on the outside chance something goes wrong and you have to make the decisions. It's fun to be in charge! A good friend of mine from the Land used to work over at MS and she said besides the protein spills it was really fun.

[Ms. Matterhorn]

My son and I used to love the Kitchen Kabaret at the Land Pavilion. I haven't been to WDW since 1995. What show is in there now, and is it as good as the Kitchen Kabaret?

[CMGUY89]

Soarin' is in it's place now. The stage is still there but walled-off and the queue cuts through the old seating area. Kitchen Kabaret was replaced by Food Rocks which closed in 2003-2004. Soarin' opened on May 5, 2005 (Hence Soarin' Flight #5505) and is now the most popular attraction on Walt Disney World property. It has sort of breathed a new life into the Land pavilion, although the boat ride is still pretty neglected. They removed the boat captains from Living With The Land in exchange for a very unreliable automated spiel. This is due to staffing concerns as well as capacity limitations. Operating the attraction is pretty idiot-proof and is frankly very frustrating to me. It's hard to create magic when everyone's reaction to your attraction is "That sounds boring, where's Soarin'?" :(