Why?!?! Why In Their Right Mind Would Do Such A Thing?!?!?!

[Ms. Matterhorn]

I'm not saying they shouldn't want to work in the park, most young people do, and that's fine. I did! I'm just saying aren't there a lot of other careers that parents want to encourage their children to aspire to?

[ktulu]

I'm not saying they shouldn't want to work in the park, most young people do, and that's fine. I did! I'm just saying aren't there a lot of other careers that parents want to encourage their children to aspire to?

Yeah, President/CEO of the Walt Disney Company ;)

[darph nader]

[quote="ktulu"]Yeah, President/CEO of the Walt Disney Company ]

Yeah. When Mr Eisner came on board,he wanted 'Walt's' pay. $750.000/year.
How long did that last?

Now I'm just a poor Church Mouse,but I 'think' I could survive on a 3/4 Mil a year.

[Shorty82]

I'm not saying they shouldn't want to work in the park, most young people do, and that's fine. I did! I'm just saying aren't there a lot of other careers that parents want to encourage their children to aspire to?

One good thing about Walt Disney World is the room for advancement. Someone can start in one of the million basic hourly positions but can work their way up into more professional positions.

I've heard of a number of people you have done so, my uncle is one. He started at WDW in high school as a dishwasher at King Stefan's (sp?) and now he is a programming engineer at, I believe, the "global" level (global as in all four parks). For a while he was the "sustaining engineer of rides and attractions" (or some such title) at Studios. Essentially he was the head engineer for the team that fixed the attractions if the problem was more than just a basic mechanical problem and did the software and hardware upgrades. He's a professional engineer, not just a mechanic.

That kind of thing is what I want to do. Once done with school I want to move down to the Orlando area and get a basic job at WDW. Be it attractions, character attendant, parade & audience control, whatever. I want to work with guests for a while (yes, I know I'm crazy). Eventually I want to move into an IT or similar position

I assume DisneyLand is the same just on a much smaller scale.

[Kwahati]

...Once done with school I want to move down to the Orlando area and get a basic job at WDW. Be it attractions, character attendant, parade & audience control, whatever. I want to work with guests for a while (yes, I know I'm crazy). Eventually I want to move into an IT or similar position...

I don't know about Disney specifically, but I do know that in the IT field (which I work within) it's exceptionally easy to move into different jobs with different companies. In fact, at least in DC, Seattle and silicon valley, that's where the real money is: jumping ship! Nobody will ever pay you what you're worth, so you do their job for a while and study for another certification simultaneously, all the while keeping your updated resume on Monster and the other job-hunter sites. You'll field calls daily from head hunters who want to pay you more and give you more real world experience in almost whatever way you want (of course, you have to be choosy--they'll say whatever they think you want to hear to get you, but some of those jobs suck and no employers will trust you if you don't stay with jobs for at least six months or so). Additionally, with the advent of bad management and stupid guests in many areas of the parks, why would you want to risk a potential career with Disney by starting out as a low-level grunt? That's just more time to, potentially, butt heads with some chump of a manager or some other such BS which could result in your termination and limitation of ways you can get back on with Disney. (IT is a sensitive field: if there's some old manager saying they couldn't trust you to sell a soda correctly-whether it's true or not-why would they trust you with their servers? [no offense intended to vending people. I know your job is a bigger pain than mine, but it's a pain you don't generally need a security clearance for.])

So I guess the moral of my little rant is: I love idealizing Disney, and I do think the idea of joining a company, being part of a team, and staying with those people until your retirement is a really romantic practice... Unfortunately, I just think it's virtually a dead practice, especially in your chosen field. Does anyone know anybody who's really started as a grunt and made it past middle-management? None of the current top dogs got started dressed as Goofy, did they?

[BTW: I'm really not trying to discourage you Shorty. I hope you don't take any offense. I'm just already in that line of work and thought I'd offer my take on my experiences. All I can hope is that it provides you an alternate perspective and an opportunity to re-evaluate your path...]

[ktulu]

So I guess the moral of my little rant is: I love idealizing Disney, and I do think the idea of joining a company, being part of a team, and staying with those people until your retirement is a really romantic practice... Unfortunately, I just think it's virtually a dead practice, especially in your chosen field. Does anyone know anybody who's really started as a grunt and made it past middle-management? None of the current top dogs got started dressed as Goofy, did they?

Uh, John Lasseter was a Jungle Cruise Skipper, and then went onto Animation.
Not that I'd consider him a top dog or anything ;) Although I don't believe he "worked his way through the ranks" but I'd say he got started as a JCS.

Oh, greetings from the tech world!

[hobie16]

[quote="ktulu"]Uh, John Lasseter was a Jungle Cruise Skipper, and then went onto Animation.
Not that I'd consider him a top dog or anything ]I heard a story about Lasseter years ago. His business cards at Pixar read:

John Lasseter

Pixar

Someone inserted "is" between his name and Pixar.

[GaTechGal]

Tony Baxter is currently Senior Vice President, Creative Development, Walt Disney Imagineering, and has overall creative direction for the Disneyland Resort.

Growing up in Southern California, he started his career at Disneyland at age 16. He scooped ice cream on Main Street, U.S.A.. After several years of odd jobs at the park, he moved to WED Enterprises (now known was Walt Disney Imagineering) and has been with the division for more than thirty years.

His work includes Disney attractions such as Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which debuted at Disneyland in 1979, and the Euro Disneyland theme park which opened in France in 1992, now known as Disneyland Resort Paris. Several projects that Tony personally supervised, but never got off the drawing boards,were a dark ride based on The Little Mermaid, a re-design for Disneyland's Tomorrowland called Tomorrowland 2055, and a new theme land for Disneyland called Discovery Bay (which later got built at Tokyo DisneySea as Port Discovery).

Projects that Baxter was responsible for include:

The 1982 re-design of Disneyland's Fantasyland
The Disney Gallery
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Splash Mountain
Star Tours
Indiana Jones Adventure
The Original Journey Into Imagination Pavilion
Disneyland Paris
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea attraction in the Magic Kingdom
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage at Disneyland

[Kwahati]

[quote="ktulu"]Uh, John Lasseter was a Jungle Cruise Skipper, and then went onto Animation.
Not that I'd consider him a top dog or anything ]

Now that's cool, but that's not really what I was driving at. In that example and in the example of Shorty's uncle, it's pretty obvious they continued their educations or had real talent or something. Nobody just strolled up into Adventureland and said, "Alright, who here wants to start a computer animation motion-picture company? Anybody? Just sign here and come with me!" (And nobody ever strolled into a dish pit at any restaurant and said "We're short an engineer! Hey you, dish guy! Come with me!") I was really trying to suggest that there is a lot of great talent that has been driven out of disney by bad practices which (based on this board and others) is most obvious from the view of the lowest levels. It's also possible that this epidemic was not present (or at least as prevalent) when people like Lasseter (and Baxter who would have been a grunt in the `70's) had their stints as grunts. Look at what happened to DLRFantasmicDan! It's been a while since I read the thread, but from what I recall, he got shit on by a crappy low level manager. The type of manager who wouldn't deserve to get the time of day from you if you join the company at slightly higher level. Why would you risk you reputation with your chosen company [not to mention wasting the time] by coming on at a low level when that's not what you're ultimately considering?

On the other side of the coin: I would love to take a sabbatical from my work and go be Goofy! I definitely see the value of being a low level Disney parks person and the fun that could be had in making magic for people, but I wouldn't be risking anything by doing that as I wouldn't be looking at trying to stay on with them...

(Side note to DLRFantasmicDan: I really hope I didn't offend or upset you by dredging up bad memories, but it made the point pretty nicely--you're a prime example [from what we know of you] of people who are great for guest service, honestly care about the Disney name, and work hard to do their best, and then get driven out by the stupid BS that runs rampant in low levels of any corporation including, sadly, Disney parks...)

[ktulu]

As a manager, I sometimes think that it would be nice to just be a grunt again. Heck, even getting away from the tech job would be nice sometimes. Even with the SG's, stupid management and other less desirable factors, I think I could be happy with a job at WDW. I'd say DLR, but I really don't want to live in California, although I would prefer to work at DLR...