Tiki Room 45th Merch Event
Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 12:16 pm
Oh god was this event a disaster! We got a LOT of good SGs in City Hall yesterday because of the botching of this merch event.
Apparently, the website said we would have 500 fountains, among other limited edition merch. Thanks to a child labor dispute in China, there were only 50 actually on site for the event. I have never seen people go nuts the way they did over this fountain! There were also apparently not enough guest control CMs to patrol the line (since most merch events have a line from the front of Disneyana to Photo Supply, but this one had a line backing up all the way around the hub) and people were letting 5-10 friends at a time cut.
Now, I understand that these (and other problems that morning) are things that would frustrate you, but the level of anger the guests in City Hall reached was just plain ridiculous. One lady yelled at us, "I don't give a SH*T about child labor, you go to China and get me my FOUNTAIN!!!"
Another guy was pissed at me because he had gotten a 1 hour shopper pass to come in and buy the merch, but the line was too long and he wasn't going to make it to the front of the line. I explained that I wasn't sure what he was asking of ME, since he clearly understood that he only had one hour and there wasn't anything I could do if the line was longer than an hour. That was when he told me I was giving horrible guest service and I should walk him over to Disneyana and let him CUT THE LINE so he wouldn't miss his hour cut-off and get charged. 
The kicker was the guy who came in at about 10am for his Birthday button and casually mentioned that he was gonna walk over and get "some tiki pins". I tried to politely and gently warn him that I was pretty sure they sold out around 9 and people had lined up for wristbands at abour 5:30am. He went incredible hulk on me, going from happy birthday man to angry gimme some godd*mn pins man, then tore off his birthday sticker (we were out of buttons, thankfully) and threw it on the counter. Whoa, buddy! Not MY fault you didn't line up at 5:30 to get a wristband like everyone else did!
The funny part was that I had originally thought about trying to get one of the prints and asking for the morning off. I was SO glad I didn't in the end! What a mess!
Apparently, the website said we would have 500 fountains, among other limited edition merch. Thanks to a child labor dispute in China, there were only 50 actually on site for the event. I have never seen people go nuts the way they did over this fountain! There were also apparently not enough guest control CMs to patrol the line (since most merch events have a line from the front of Disneyana to Photo Supply, but this one had a line backing up all the way around the hub) and people were letting 5-10 friends at a time cut.
Now, I understand that these (and other problems that morning) are things that would frustrate you, but the level of anger the guests in City Hall reached was just plain ridiculous. One lady yelled at us, "I don't give a SH*T about child labor, you go to China and get me my FOUNTAIN!!!"
Another guy was pissed at me because he had gotten a 1 hour shopper pass to come in and buy the merch, but the line was too long and he wasn't going to make it to the front of the line. I explained that I wasn't sure what he was asking of ME, since he clearly understood that he only had one hour and there wasn't anything I could do if the line was longer than an hour. That was when he told me I was giving horrible guest service and I should walk him over to Disneyana and let him CUT THE LINE so he wouldn't miss his hour cut-off and get charged. The kicker was the guy who came in at about 10am for his Birthday button and casually mentioned that he was gonna walk over and get "some tiki pins". I tried to politely and gently warn him that I was pretty sure they sold out around 9 and people had lined up for wristbands at abour 5:30am. He went incredible hulk on me, going from happy birthday man to angry gimme some godd*mn pins man, then tore off his birthday sticker (we were out of buttons, thankfully) and threw it on the counter. Whoa, buddy! Not MY fault you didn't line up at 5:30 to get a wristband like everyone else did!The funny part was that I had originally thought about trying to get one of the prints and asking for the morning off. I was SO glad I didn't in the end! What a mess!