The Worst of the Worst SG's

[Big Wallaby]

BW, the problem with sociopaths is that they'll just say YOU have a problem- They are ALWAYS right, everyone else is wrong, so I don't think you would get anywhere using the label. Just use it to categorize.

We had a guy tonight who got nasty and started joking around about his chosen subject, and I said in response something about how nasty and rude his words were, since both of us working as he was there that night and we were both friends of Austin. He made another joke with a snort, I responded how if he experienced what we had in the last month he would find it impossible to laugh about it, so please don't in front of us. He continued, so I called a manager over, and he and his wife bolted and took a boat. At the boat ramp, the f***ing cowards complained about me to a Watercraft manager (whom I know and knows me).

I have been informed that Guest Relations has been notified that they might come up and if they do they will be Trespassed.

I also saw CMGUY the other day, and he told me about a guest complaint he received about us not talking about the crash, and that we should. He roundfiled it. I wish he had passed it on so my managers could see it. Along with that we would have her name and be able to send her a thank you card.

I came up with an idea my manager liked today... when guests get rude, we should give them comp tickets to Six Flags over Georgia. That way, they can't accuse us of being mean, but at the same time we are giving them something that says, "Go away."

[DisneyMom]

Again, am so sorry these idiots are revealing their stupidity and heartlessness. :( It does sound like management is being supportive.

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

WDW should take a page from the TSA book and put up some signs:

"We experienced the loss of a dear friend and co-worker due to an accident.

Any jokes about it will result in being expelled from WDW, thank you for your understanding and cooperation"

And post them at all enterances.

It MIGHT get through to some of the SG's walking around.

then again...

[Princess Susi]

Don't worry about telling old jokes, they are still around for a reason.

PETA is a very insane group as evidenced by what their founder's real goal, "We want the total abolition of animal cruelty and death." Clearly she wants to find a way to make it so animals will never die; I don't think she understands nature. Their cofounder is diabetic and is on insulin and tells us, "I don't see myself as a hypocrite, I need my life to fight for the rights of animals." What PETA wants is for all animals everywhere to be set free; they think they will magically live together in peace. I see three possibilities for this group, they are on the spectrum, they are stupid, or they are just insane.

For every animal you don't eat, I'll eat three.

"Dolphin safe tuna isn't good enough, we want tuna safe tuna."

I would go with stupid, insane and unaware of what animals REALLY need. We have had our run-ins with PETA here in Colorado when we had about 400,000 cattle starving and without water in one of the worst Winters a few years back. Our local radio station called PETA to see if they would donate $10,000 (their yearly intake is 10 million dollars!) to feed and bring water to these poor creatures caught out in 4 to 7 foot drifts of snow and a howling wind. They said no, they didn't want to help the farmers who would eventually bring them to slaughter anyway.

So I guess if you are in PETA, it is better to let an animal freeze and starve to death, instead of being put down somewhat humanely (the jury is still out on "humane" killing of threse animals).

As an aside: A few slaughter houses in California were shut down for inhumane treatment in the killing process of the cattle and pigs. They would bolt their heads which is supposed to render them unconscious and then slit their throats, but the bolting was not working in some cases and the animals were having their throats slit while conscious...UGH! Extremely brutal!!!! The government has to make sure the slaughter houses are doing it right. Not an easy task to check everyone of them every second of every day...).

Anyway, The announcers of the radio station actually got the founder of PETA on the phoone that morning and she was really not like PETA has become. Her adage that they want to stop animal suffering and cruelty is a good one. She was very sane and had a good head on her shoulders. I just don't think she is watching her organization very well as it fills up with militant crazies and the like. The ones who are destroying PETA are those fringe freaks. She actually had a great idea when she formed it. She just wanted an animal organization to help stop cruelty and to educate people on humane practices. A little crazier thought was teaching vegetarianism as an alternative way of stopping the animal killing for everyone in the world. That is pretty fringe to expect everyone to be a vegetarian, but not as crazy as her minions and what they do and who represent PETA and have given it a very, very bad name.

Yep, PETA. Real animal lovers.<sarcasm> All they are out for is attention for themselves. They don't want to help animals.

There is another story of some PETA worker bees that were finding strays and getting animals from the shelters to "release" them. What they were caught doing was euthanizing these cats and dogs in the back of a van and tossing the bodies into a dumpster. That's real love for animals. The problem was, was that once they got the creatures out of the shelters, they had NO place to take them and they sure did not want them in their home! So they thought it was better to send them to doggie and kitty heaven than to let them maybe have a chance at a good life with a family. Oh, that's right. We are not supposed to keep the animals in chains as pets. UGH!
They were prosecuted. I guess it is better to kill the creature than to have it locked up where it is safe and has food in it's cage or finds a home with someone who will love it.

I HATE PETA and I am a bleeding heart animal lover. I would never support the PETA organization. They are hypocrits! Just my .02

Princess

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

Don't let the full goose bozo crazy lady from PETA fool you.

Watch the Penn and Teller BS show on PETA. She was behind ALL of the ideas of that organazation. there are also a lot of other sources on just how whacky they think.

[DisneyMom]

YAY, Susi's back! :)
I was reading a book on Temple Grandin, a lady with Autism who has advanced designs for the equipment used in cattle handling and slaughter. She designed them to help cattle feel more calm/ secure during their final moments. I feel bad for the cattle, but unwilling to give up meat :homer:

[felinefan]

In reading emergency first aid procedures, I came across the instructions for how to do a stab tracheotomy on someone who's choking, if the Heimlich Manuever doesn't work. The instructions state that the front of the throat has very few nerves, so it's not particularly painful to make the cut. I wonder if this is true in animals....

Mom used to tell us when my dad was in the Army, one of his posts was in Manila, Philippines, and one the public buses, everything--and I mean everything--went on those buses. Mom told of seeing farmers giving pigs a dose of beer or other alcoholic beverage--pigs have the same affinity for alcohol humans do--in order to calm them down so they could be loaded onto the buses and stay quiet during the trip to market.

Also, in one of James Herriot's books, he gives the account of a call to a farm where a sow was farrowing (having piglets, to those unfamiliar with the term), and she was pushing her babies away from her teats, so they couldn't eat. The farmer was worried he'd lose all of them, because apparently back then they didn't have milk replacer so they wouldn't do well being bottle fed. An old farmer who was there watching the proceedings announced that what the sow needed was beer, and he went to the local pub with a gallon bucket. Upon returning, chuckling over the reaction at the pub, he poured most of the beer into the trough; the sow went to investigate, and began lapping it up. She finally got enough in her so that she calmed down, finished farrowing, and the farmer and Herriot jumped into the pen and began putting the piglets onto the mother's teats. It worked; the piglets got to eat, the mother accepted them, and all was well. The farmer, his neighbor and the vet shared the last of the beer left in the bucket.

Along those lines, I wonder if that would work--give an animal a dose of ethanol to calm them down before being butchered? I assume they won't go back to using rifles and bullets because of the danger of a misfire, or a worker going postal, or something.

Anyway, just a thought....

Oh, glad to see you back again Susie. Next time don't be such a stranger! How's the move to FL going?

[darph nader]

We had a guy tonight who got nasty and started joking around about his chosen subject, and I said in response something about how nasty and rude his words were, since both of us working as he was there that night and we were both friends of Austin. He made another joke with a snort, I responded how if he experienced what we had in the last month he would find it impossible to laugh about it, so please don't in front of us. He continued, so I called a manager over, and he and his wife bolted and took a boat. At the boat ramp, the f***ing cowards complained about me to a Watercraft manager (whom I know and knows me).

I have been informed that Guest Relations has been notified that they might come up and if they do they will be Trespassed.

I also saw CMGUY the other day, and he told me about a guest complaint he received about us not talking about the crash, and that we should. He roundfiled it. I wish he had passed it on so my managers could see it. Along with that we would have her name and be able to send her a thank you card.

I came up with an idea my manager liked today... when guests get rude, we should give them comp tickets to Six Flags over Georgia. That way, they can't accuse us of being mean, but at the same time we are giving them something that says, "Go away."

WTF is wrong with these people?

[felinefan]

Wait a minute--a guest complained that you wouldn't talk about the incident and they felt that you should? Ask them if they know what a gag order is. Or tell them that legally you can't talk about it, but they can go to the D.A. or whomever is in charge of that and ask them. Or they can read archived accounts online like everyone else. I mean, if they want dirt, why don't they take up gardening?

Seriously, once somebody wrote Dear Abby saying she wanted to hear more dirt about other people in her column, and I think Abby, after telling her that that was not the purpose of her column, basically said just that--if you want dirt, get into gardening. Since this was before the internet, I think that lady had too much time on her hands....

[Big Wallaby]

And they continue to amaze.

Now the management has decided that we need to return to riding in the cars with guests, to return to what is normal. I have no problem with this, providing that one thing happens.

We need to have a way that, if someone starts doing what they will and that turns into jokes, insults, theories, or other things regarding the accident, then they need to be expelled from the parks at the next stop. The Pilot riding with the guests will have the right to get on the emergency phone, tell the pilot to stop the train, and not move again until Security is at the next platform waiting.

Otherwise, we need to be insulated from the guests as far as that goes. Honestly, there is a part of me that realizes that the Epic cast is insulated in that way, and that part of me envies them, if there is anything there to envy.

Seriously, how do you joke and cajole about this?

As a reaction, I was looking at the way I operate today, and I am not the same Cast Member that I was three months ago. I so wish I could go back, but with the knowledge I have now. I wish we could make this never happen, and get the guests off our back.

I am thinking that if the guests' comments and conduct regarding this doesn't change soon, I may transfer out long before I ever planned to. I have moved on in this, but then guests just take us back. I have had managers say that they just wish they could do physical damage to guests that do that to us.

At least the managers are on our side in this, for the most part. But then, they should be, as they went through this with us. In fact, I am glad that I haven't been a Monorail manager during this time, as there is information out there that I don't really want to have access to or know, because I know if I had access I would find out... it's in my nature.

I have to be honest, I have had thoughts about how, if I was in a different area, having taken my next step down the road that I want to take, people would not know that I had been a Monorail Pilot and so would not have a need to talk about it with me. At Jungle Cruise I would so control the show that they would not have time to ask, nor would they have the opportunity.

But then, I would give up this thing I have wanted to do for so long, this thing that I am not finished doing... working in this area that I still want to work in, doing what I still want to do.

No, I will remain a Monorail Pilot for a while longer.

I had another difficult guest the other night, but difficult for reasons not their own.

It was a mom and daughter. The daughter did not want to ride the Monorail, but mom knew it would be good for her.

They had just gotten off Monorail Pink after a fun July 4th at Epcot, and were headed to the Polynesian. Still down in the mall, they watched it happen.

So many things went through my mind, things I wanted to say or do, but finally, only one thing could come out.

"I am sorry you had to see that."

The mom thanked me, then I got down on a knee and addressed her daughter who was truly upset. There was no joking in her, there was no sense of having been coached.

I did my best to put into simple words why she had no reason to fear that ever happening again, why the Monorails were and are safe.

In some ways working with her was more difficult than dealing with all of the toilet seat gaskets I have posted here about. But she was also the most... and only... rewarding one to deal with.

She finally got on the Monorail, and as the doors closed, she smiled at me. A smile that did not seem to hold any of the fear she had just been feeling.