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!