Saturday, August 13, 2016
Days 1-4 At Sassagoula
So. Transportation. A completely different ball field than recreation. I have no clue what I'm getting myself into here, but then, do we ever?Day 1, I have Fred for my trainer, and Julia shadowing him. Fred is absolutely hysterical, and I am so glad I had him for my first day. Julia is a sweetheart, just a few months older than me instead of the few decades most of my coworkers are. Going into watercraft I was warned that most of my coworkers would be older gentlemen who had retired and are doing this for fun. Those people weren't wrong. It's amazing how much more relaxed they are [so long as you're able to do your job].
On day 1, we drove around on a pargo, going to each of our docks. We started at Port Orleans Riverside, then French Quarter, before heading over to Old Key West. From there we went to Saratoga Springs and Disney Springs. Disney Springs has 3 docks; Marketplace, The Landing, and Westside. We rode a water taxi around the lake to visit each of them, before heading back to dry dock taking our own boat out. I got to drive that for a little while, and then I also got to drive the Whaler. It was awesome, and much, much faster than our flat bottom boats. We spent a while reading the OG, and then... it stormed. Huge storms that shut everything down. So we sat and watched the Olympics for a while. Sounds good, huh?
Day 2 I still had Julia, but I also had a new trainer, Eric. Day 2 was a good day. I got to drive the boat. All. Day. I took to it, and things seemed to be going well. I docked the boat a few times, did okay at that, and learned how to go through the bridges [and which are the trickiest].
Day 3 was the problem. I was exhausted from 7:30 start times, my trainers were getting used to me doing well and seemed to expect me to be perfect. Other trainers on the water would say "man, you're doing great. You're going to be fine." and Eric would shoot back with "Yeah, she's going to be okay, but she's still relying on coaching." to which the other trainers would reply that that was normal for someone on their day 3, and that I was still ahead of most people.
From there it just got worse. my trainer would say something at the exact moment he wanted me to respond, and then get frustrated when it wasn't done before he had finished his statement. He would repeat what he wanted me to do five or six times in a row, getting louder each time he said something. He would stand behind me and breathe down my neck before all of a sudden sticking his hand in my face and knocking into me as he yelled directions. I left that day feeling frustrated and like there was no possible way I would be able to do it.
Day 4 seemed to go better to me. I got yelled at less for screwing up, and was able to get myself docked by myself a couple of times, even if that meant correcting. I carried boat fulls of guests up and down the river all day, and finally got lots of guest interaction. Eric and I seemed to have found a middle ground and things worked.
I also had my one on one with the manager, which they always do on day 4. I left that meeting a little less sure of myself, but I'm not going to let that get to me. I hate that I have these trainers that tell me I'm doing better than most people and "I promise I wouldn't just say that" and then slip every once in a while and let me know how frustrated they are with me. Especially since they told my manager that I'm struggling and having a hard time. Why tell me I'm doing better than most if I'm not. I thought I was doing great, considering I still have 3 more days of training. I'm starting to get frustrated, so I'm glad I have a few days off from Sassagoula. I'm just going to go back to doing what I know I'm really good at for a couple days before I go back. I'm bound and determined to make this work.
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Take One!
Before I start this blog post, I want to preface it with the fact that I went in as a hard core, lifelong Disney fan. Disney is my end goal. Outside of Harry Potter, The Minions, and Transformers, I don't know a lot about Universal. I have a feeling I went in with some prejudice. Add in a couple of inappropriate comments made by my facilitator and... well, I'll let you decide.My class was originally slated to start at 3:30, at which point they started calling us into the classroom by rows starting in the front. We walked to the back oft the building, where we picked up our name tag(s), some paperwork, and dropped off our payroll information. Then we headed into the classroom where we sat for another 30 minutes before finally getting started [waiting for the last people to trickle in, maybe?]. After that we filled out our W-4. If you've never filled one out before, I recommend you fill out the practice one they send home. They cannot tell you how many deductions to take, only explain how it works. That is for any employer you'll ever have, so it's good to practice.
Once that was out of the way, we started. We watched a lot of clips of Universal movies, bits and pieces of monster movies, clips explaining how they discovered some of the old greats, etc. Universal prides itself on it's roots in monster movies, which I am not particularly a fan of, and they were really pushing Halloween Horror Nights, which I've never been to. It was still cool to watch, and I'll be excited to see.
Right off the bat our female facilitator caught one of my nerves. "We're genuinely happy here, not drink the kool aid happy like that other place." Multiple times throughout the night she made remarks about Disney employees drinking the kool aid. And so I have come across my first major difference between Universal and Disney.
Disney looks at Universal as: "Oh yeah, they're there, it's okay. They aren't stealing our guests, they're sharing them. Feel free to talk to guests about Universal. Wear a Harry Potter backpack into work. We don't care." And that's the end of that. No more discussion, no more taking them into account [at least not on a level I've seen]
Then you have Universal. "Oh yeah, haha, they're there, Disney isn't a bad word haha. Feel free to recognize Disney princesses when they come in haha." I feel totally comfortable telling my coworkers and managers at Disney that I also work at Universal. The reverse could not be said that day. There was this constant mention of Disney is a slightly negative way throughout the entire class that made me uncomfortable. That being said, I did not feel that way at my day 2 orientation, and so I'm thinking it was just my facilitators.
They provided lunch [or dinner] for day 1 orientation. There wasn't anything provided for people with food allergies, but we were told that we were more than welcome to purchase our own food. Food in the grill is available at cost, which is nice, but I decided to stick with the lunch I had brought and the chips they provided since I don't know how much care they take with food allergies yet.
We also talked a lot about the Universal Way and Universal's mission statement. We talked about the 10/5 rule, which is pretty much applicable across the hospitality industry. The 10/5 rule just means you acknowledge guests at 10ft and greet them at 5. We talked about how it's everyone's job to help keep the park clean, and how everyone needs to check their personal life at the door. A lot of this stuff is something you would encounter at any job that deals with customers or guests. Theme parks tend to take it more seriously than stores and hotels, especially these two theme parks.
We also talked about Universal's current marketing theme, which is [Happiness] is Universal. I hadn't seen their commercials or billboards, but I've started to notice one or two since then. Overall, besides the small hiccup of this constant subtle dissing of Disney, I enjoyed my first day of orientation. One of my old coworkers from Disney is actually going to be working at Gringotts with me, and we ended up in the same class, which was nice. I'm excited to get started on my on the job training, but first more orientations!
Saturday, August 6, 2016
I Guess I Forgot To Announce.. I'm Also Working For The "Other Guy"
Eventually I got called in, and interviewed with a lovely woman whose name I forget. She asked my a lot of questions about my leadership and management experience. They were all pretty basic questions aimed at finding out how you handle different situations. She asked a couple of questions that had similar enough stories that I had to come up with different stories. In the end, she let me know that she felt comfortable hiring me, but she wanted to wait until closer to the end of my CP so I wouldn't have conflicting schedules. So I scheduled another interview for a week before the end of my program and went on my merry way.
Fast forward three weeks and I'm back in the same place. A new interviewer, Candi, who let me know I would have to go through the whole interview process again. Two questions in, she changed her mind and said I was obviously a perfect fit, and she was going to find a place for me - would I like to work in Wizarding World of Harry Potter?
At this point, I started to get excited. As in, I was actually bouncing up and down in my chair excited. Before I could get too excited though, she let me know that I would have to be able to answer some trivia questions to move forward in WWoHP. How would I rate my knowledge of Harry Potter on a scale of 1-5? I said 4, just in case she came up with some crazy obscure question, and she pulled out a quiz with questions categorized into 5 groups based on how hard they were. I flew through the number 4 questions without hesitating, and so she asked me to do the 5 questions. In the end there was only 1 question I wasn't able to answer, but once she told me I remembered and was able to recall facts surrounding the event. So I moved on and found out my role. Drum roll please!
Harry Potter and the Escape From Gringotts!
Friday, August 5, 2016
Welcome To Transportation
As many time as people have tried to convince me otherwise, The Sassagoula River Cruise is no longer part of Recreation, it does belong to the Transportation line of business. So, I got to go through Welcome To Transportation. When I first looked at my schedule, I was so confused, because Welcome to Trans was 7+ hours, whereas Welcome to Rec was 2. I assumed something must have gone wrong with my schedule... but no.I walked into DU, asked about Welcome to Trans and one of my facilitators, Steve, was standing there, and greeted me with "It's our Recreation friend!"...what? So we get into the room and I realize, there are only 3 of us in the class and I'm the only female, so of course they knew who I was. This should be fun. It gets better. Both of the boys in the class with me are very young and very shy. I am not. I am a very loud person when I want to be, and so I think I ended up making them nervous. Oops.
We sat in the room for 5 minutes, got a new water bottle [Hallelujah, my old holder was so ratty] and immediately hopped up and got on a bus driven by a lovely woman named June. Mode of transportation number 1. We headed over to the TTC where the monorail was down [boo] for testing, which it always is, and we hoped on the Ferry Boat. There are 3 ferry's, and they can hold several hundred people at a time. The training for those captains take's about 6 months, so I consider myself lucky for not ending up there [even if they do get paid more].
Then we walked into Magic Kingdom [how I've missed it. I need to go back soon] and saw all of the old school car's that drive up and down it during the mornings. We walked into the theater, and then backstage, and just chitchatted about guest relations, etc.
After that we hopped on a bus over to Old Key West [where I have never actually been] and took the Sassagoula River Cruise up to Disney Springs. Hopped on the bus again and it was back to the TTC to talk to our COT and then lunch! After lunch we rode the Epcot loop of the Monorail, where our other facilitator, Ralph, assured us our driver was currently going through training [which no one wants to hear], Then we headed over to transportation costuming for the boys, and they told me I would have time to get my costume during my Day 1. I got to talk to June, who is just a sweetheart, and then they drove me by Sassagloula's office's so I would know where to go!
After that it was back to DU for fire safety training, and we were done! I was not nearly as painful as Welcome to Opps or Welcome to Rec, which are both very necessary but long classes full of video's and e-learning. I enjoyed the class, and I'm excited to get started with Sassagoula!
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Moving Day!
Okay, the best news I have for ya'll is that it's all over. Moving out of CP housing and into an apartment in the area was more stressful than I ever could have imagined. Until just a couple days before we ended up moving, I actually thought we were going to be several days between moving out of CP housing and moving into our new apartment... but more on that latter.We moved to a beautiful apartment complex in Kissimmee. As soon as we knew we were done with the Disney College Program, I started searching for apartments that would fit our criteria. There weren't as many as I had hoped. We have a 40 lb golden doodle that will be moving down next month, so we had to find a complex that would allow her to move in, along with someplace that has a porch/balcony and fit's within our budget. We narrowed it down to just a couple choice's, went and visited at the beginning of the month, and immediately decided to move into the complex we live in now.
Unfortunately, the agent who helped us was more than slightly unhelpful [And is now gone]. She insisted we would have to move in by July 15 at the latest, but our CP didn't end until the 28th. On top of that, my sister and I were out of town for most of the time between visiting and when they wanted us to move- that was a no go. So we went home, looked on their website, and saw they had an apartment that wasn't even going to be available until July 15. Then, when we got home from the Midwest, we saw another apartment becoming available on the 23th. So much for limited availability, huh?
We applied on July 15th to move in on July 23. Decided to wait a few days to call them so the background check and credit check could go through. Called on the 20th. No answer. Called on the 21st. "I can't help you, I'll have someone call you back." 22. 5 "Someone will call you back. 23. No answer. 24 - Sunday, office was closed. Now it's July 25, 2 days AFTER we were supposed to move in. Kallie [our roommate] and I went over to the apartment complex, only for them to tell us they couldn't see that our application had been approved or denied. We sat there for an hour and a half, refusing to leave until they figured it out. They found our approval, and like magic, we got the ball rolling.
I'm not going to lie; I was a nervous wreck. I was a complete and total bitch, I was rude to people, I was in full on panic mode. I don't do late. On time? That's late. Early. Early is good. So I spent the entire week in a fit of nervous rage, and it only settled once we actually made it into our apartment and had the keys in the door.
We had to be out of CP housing by 11am July 28. I had an am IST from 7:30-9:30. [Spoiler: we didn't get out on time]. I was supposed to work an afternoon shift that same day that I thankfully was able to give away. We couldn't move into our new apartment until after 2pm the same day. Our lease didn't come through to be e-signed until the morning we moved in. Once we finally got there, it took over an hour to get our fobs to work so we could get in the gates, and even then one of them ended up not working that night [mine] Everything was a mess. A meticulous planner's hell.
But it was worth it once we got into the apartment. We still don't have a couch [coming this week!] or a dinning room table [not here until labor day], and I'm sleeping on an air mattress until my bed gets here Labor Day weekend with my mom, but it's ours. Our apartment. No inspections. We can open the windows if we want. We can burn a candle. It's so lovely to be out of CP housing, because as much as I loved my CP, I did not love their housing.
Now we have the next month or so to get it set up how we want it, just in time for the rest of our stuff to get here and us to rearrange. I'm so excited, but for now I'm content to have a moment to breathe. So I'll sit on a pallet on the floor with a cup of coffee in front of the huge beautiful sliding glass doors in our living room, and I'll just take a moment to reflect. And when things get crazy again, and life picks up, hopefully I'll have the energy to meet it head on.
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Friday, July 15, 2016
Lifeguarding - Audit's
Let's take a minute to talk about the thing all CP lifeguards fear coming into the program - audits. If you know what you're doing, and you do it well, audit's are quick and simple. Basically, and audit is a test to make sure you're doing your job the way you should be, to the standard Disney and Ellis hold us accountable to. Easy right?Who does audits?
There are different groups of people who can do an audit. There are coordinators, Tier 2[Managers], Tier 3[Disney Higher Ups], and Ellis. Coordinator audit's don't count unless a manager is present (which usually makes it a Tier 2 audit), which means they rarely audit.
What is an audit?
There are multiple types of audits. The first, most common, is a VAT, which stands for Visual Awareness Training. Then there are visual audits, technical audits, and audit's that test your knowledge of the resort and the pool deck (a.k.a. the once a year Tier 3 audit).
What is a VAT?
A VAT is a weighted silhouette that gets laid at the bottom of the pool. There is a tan (light) side and a dark side. When a VAT gets laid you have to respond to it as if someone was drowning in the bottom of the pool. This means spotting it in 10 seconds, reaching it in 20, calling the coordinator, activating your EAP, everything.
What is a Visual Audit?
A visual audit is when someone come's out and watched you on stand. If it's a manager or a coordinator, they'll just watch you for a while and maybe take notes. If it's Ellis, they'll record you with a video camera. They're looking to make sure you maintain your 10/20, that you're not falling asleep, making sure you're in Disney Look, you don't hold extended conversations, that you rule enforce, everything.
What is a Technical Audit?
A technical audit is the big scary that hardly anybody ever has to deal with, also known as a 3 Whistle Audit. This is where you respond to a VAT, reach it, and someone says "This is an audit". At that point they start enacting one of our "worst case scenarios" and we have to treat it like it's a real situation. Clear the pool, do "CPR", the whole 9 yards. Technical Audit's are a big deal, and Ellis only does them once a quarter per pool. In some regions, the managers do technical audits, but those aren't quite as big of a deal (still a big deal)
That being said, most CP's spend a lot of time freaking out about VATs. VATs are usually relatively easy to spot (in fact, I've seen them in other people's water before...) and they only do the bare minimum each month. Once you've been on stand for a month or so, you'll be able to recognize your managers and coordinators in the pool and know a VAT is coming.
Personally, I've been through several audit's. I have been visually audited by Ellis, one of my managers, and a manager at Art of Animation. I was technically audited by a manager in my region. And I was Tier 3 audited at Coronado a few months ago (Did you know Coronado has the longest resort water slide on property?) Once you know what you're doing, audit's seem like nothing. In fact, there are days when you'll be on stand wishing someone would VAT you because it's so hot or you're so bored. Getting in the water is the quickest way to cool off, and no one looks at you funny when you do it to get a VAT!
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