Day 12: More Meet & Greets!

Yesterday I was so tired from work that I ended up passing out at 7:30pm and therefore did not have time to do my blog last night! I will try to be more proactive with updating, as I know a lot of you enjoy the daily updates on my life/this internship.

Yesterday I had to go to Access Control - AGAIN - to hopefully receive my ID. I went to AC around 8:30am, expecting a line, but surprisingly I got right in with number I92. I had to speak to Loretta again and I could tell that she was a little hesitant to work with me since I had so many problems before. I was practically crossing my fingers in hoping that I didn't have any problems this time. Guess I should have crossed them a little bit harder.

Loretta pulls up my file and just says, "oh that's weird." Oh gosh, here we go again. I just sigh and say "what's wrong with my file now?" She expained to me that while they now had my location status correct - Disney World instead of WDI (Walt Disney Imagineering) and Disneyland - they now had my start date incorrect and had me starting on the 21st of June. The implications of this? I cannot get into the parks until Friday and I also will not be paid when I am supposed to be paid for traditions. Loretta went back to speak to her manager and after about 10 minutes comes back out, prints my ID and tells me to not even try to get into the parks because it will not work until Friday. Thankfully I have an "A" on the back of my ID, which means cast member discount. Staci had an "N" when hers first got printed, so she had to go back a third time as well to get that fixed.

Staci and I were talking a few nights ago and while Disney has top-notch marketing, entertainment, and operations, it seems as though the technical end of Disney is somewhat lacking. I'm not saying that they are the worst by any means, but I think that there are still a lot of kinks in the system that should have been worked out by now. I think the structure of some of the departments make it difficult to get a straight answer or solution to a problem.

Anyway, so I finally make it back to Celebration to start working and I begin my meet & greets with Sharon, who is a Social Media Community Manager for the multicultural markets. She is not only an advisor for those, but also helps with DDA, which is a program for about 100 minority students and allows them to come to Disney for one weekend and explore their career interests. Steve Harvey and other African American celebrities hand pick these students from essays that they write. She talked to me a lot of the segmentation of the market due to government restrictions, interests, etc. I will hopefully be chatting with her more about reaching the Domestic Hispanic segment, as well as our international markets.

The next meet & greet that I had was with Cynthia, the Digital Marketing Director, who I will be working directly with. She outlined a lot of my work and what will be expected of me, which was really helpful, since so far, my job duties have been pretty vague. I will essentially we working with a lot of data and metrics, but am also encouraged to be open about different opportunities I would like to be involved in. I mentioned to her that the social listening piece of digital marketing was especially interesting to me, so Cynthia is going to be including me in bi-weekly reports and hopefully I can be more involved in the future about optimizing the data.

I then checked in with Kim, my leader, who apologized for not being able to chat with me too much because of meetings & prior commitments, but wanted to take me out to lunch! I was beyond excited and at 12:30 we headed out and went to Mulligan's, which is right down the street from our offices. Mulligan's is essentially a bar, but the food there was amazing and most people don't realize that they serve lunch there. I got a turkey and cheese sandwhich with their famous "Pot-o-Gold" soup which is like a loaded baked potato soup. It was so delicious!

We got back around 1:15 and I then had another meet & greet with John, who is part of the Test & Learn team. Test & Learn's main duty is to explore new platforms that Disney could potentially be involved in and test whether they would work full-scale. When I got in, we talked a lot about my background and from then on we didn't really talk much about his job, but mostly about college football, british accents, and other random factoids from our lives. It was nice to just sit down and talk with someone.

My next meet & greet was with Jenn who is an Associate Marketing Manager and works primarily with special offers and discounts. It was really fun talking to her because she is also a dog person, so it was great to talk about Wrinkles and her dogs Nutmeg and Tank for a while. She explained that I will be working with Julia, who will be in charge with more of the strategy side, but I'm hoping that I can working with Jenn some more because her energy is honestly amazing.

I then had a meeting with Kama, who taught me how to use a campaign database system and she was really helpful. She also gave me awesome tips for the parks and hopefully I can utitilize those in the coming weeks!

My final meeting of the day was at 5pm and was basically just a status update on the Disney Parks & Disney Interactive. It was my first time entering a conference call on my own and after three failed attempts, I finally got connected!

Here is my office number & name plate:

One of the best things about working in Celebration is that they give you free food all the time! Here are some new Peep Rainbow Pops that we got to try:

A funny thing happened today - in the Disney parking lot, I found not one, but TWO people with some sort of Husker emblem on their car. It made me so excited to know that there are some fellow Husker fans among me :)

Further, there is a Panera Bread right on our property, so Staci and I decided to go to Panera for dinner and I got a super delicious sandwich and a chocolate cookie that was still warm!

Today I have two meetings and six meet & greets, one is even with the Senior Vice President!

Day 10: First Day at Work

6am: Woke up and watched an episode of The Office in preparation for the day.

6:30am: Got up and started getting ready for my first day! I had straightened my hair the night before, but after a restless night of sleep, it turned out to be more wavy than straight. It turned out fine, but after applying my make up and brushing my teeth, it was time to get dressed in my Disney Look and face the day.

7am: Went downstairs for a breakfast of a bacon, egg, and cheese Lean Pocket. I packed my lunch of pasta and two apples and filled a water bottle full of water and was ready to go to Access Control to figure out my whole ID situation.

7:15am: Left for Access Control, which is right behind Magic Kingdom. Traffic was surprisingly alright until right before the cast entrance, which I guess a lot of people start at 8am at Disney University.

7:45am: Arrived as the first one in line at Access Control. Soon a guy lined up behind me and it was soon clear that I made the right choice to come so early. By 8am there were at least 9 people behind me in line and as I only had 30 minutes, at the most, to spend at Access Control, it was a great decision to be so early.

Access Control - Like the Disney DMV

8am: We were let in promptly at 8am and I took the first ticket - F62 - and waited in the lobby of chairs until my number was called. My number was finally called and I told the woman my issues, that I needed an ID with a photo and she understood and needed my Personal ID number for Disney. I gave it to her and said that Access Control actually didn't do picture IDs anymore and that I had to go to WDI (I'll explain later) to get my ID. I asked where that was and it turns out that it was in EPCOT. I go on to ask her how I am supposed to get into EPCOT without an ID and she explained that I had to get security clearance to enter the parks. I was getting really confused as to why my leader at Traditions told me to go to Access Control, so I asked Loretta (the person helping me in AC) why I had to go to EPCOT to get my ID and she said it was because I was part of WDI. After hearing WDI too many times, I finally asked what WDI stood for - I guess it stands for Walt Disney Imagineering, which is NOT the department I'm in. After I explained to her that I am in the Digital Marketing Department, she looked further into my file and found that my "status" was set as me being in Glendale, California and not Celebration, Florida. Since they can't process California ID's I was pretty much out of luck until someone could change my status. Further, since most departments don't open til 8:30am, Loretta couldn't get a hold of anyone to get me clearance or any answers. By this time it was 8:22am and I knew that it took at least 25 minutes to get to Celebration, so in attempts to not be late, I had to cut my losses and leave Access Control with the situation unresolved, to get to work. 

8:50am: I arrived at 220 Celebration, where the Digital Marketing office is, and I was still pretty upset that I didn't have my ID and the fact that my status was set in California. I decided to call my recruiter, Melissia, and told her the situation and she was really helpful, so I'm hoping that I can get the situation figured out by tomorrow or Wednesday!

The front of my office building!

9am: I walked into 220 Celebration and sat in the lobby with other nervous Professional Interns until Kim Keller, my leader, came out and took me up to the 5th floor, where my office is located. The 5th floor is mainly compromised with marketing and sales folks for Disney Destinations, which includes the Parks & Resorts, Adventures by Disney, Disney Cruise Lines, and Aulani Resort in Hawaii. Kim took me into her office and discussed how the office was broken down and what I would be responsible for during my internship. I learned that Kim really wants me to be marketable after this internship, so I will be able to dip my feet into a lot of different departments other than my own. I will be working primarily with digital marketing strategy, but I will have the chance to work with activation (the team who carries out our strategy plans), community managers (the team who manages the Facebooks, Twitter handles, and other social media pages), and other departments within Digital Marketing.

A sign by the elevators :)

The same sign in the kitchen!

10am: Kim took me on a tour of the 5th floor and as we were in the "Black Couch Lounge" - named so because it has a huge black lounge in it - there was a cart coming up behind me and it had Panera Bread bagels, cream cheese, fruit, and a huge bouquet of pink heart & Disney princess balloons! The whole Digital Marketing team came around to welcome me to the team and had a quick breakfast with me. It was so nice to meet everyone and they were all super welcoming and funny! It was nice to see that they are pretty laid back and fun because there is nothing worse than a stuffy office.

My balloon bouquet :)

My computer and phone!

A bamboo plant, a card from Kim, and an Eeyore card holder :)

A poster in my office. Funny story - my roommate, Nick,
went to High School with the boy in the brown!

The cute little Eeyore on my desk :)

10:30am: After bagels & fruit, Kim introduced me to Melissa who is Kim's secretary and she helped me get set up on the computer and gave me a huge binder that was full of consumer insights for Disney Destinations, marketing plans (or as they call them Road Maps), and other confidential information. I was told that the binder had to stay in the office and locked up when I wasn't there because the information was really confidential. I only had a few moments to look through the binder, but I honestly was geeking out at all the information contained in this one binder. It made me realize that I was in the right job and maybe I didn't oversell myself after all.

11am: Kim told me in our one-on-one that she would take me to meeting at 11am and I was more than ready to get my feet wet, especially after looking at the binder full of helpful information. We went to the lobby and then walked to what looked like a nook, but it turned out that the front part of this huge room was a "dumbed-down' Starbucks, which had every drink you could order at Starbucks, but for cheaper and then a huge open space with bright colors and a wall painted with whiteboard paint. It was the coolest space I have ever been in and then I saw what they call "The Grid." The Grid is essentially this room with six TVs arranged so it makes one large screen TV. It turns out that this meeting was with Pixar. Yes, THAT Pixar and it was on our partnership with them and how we can be most effective in future partnership opportunities. Jay Ward was the speaker and he was actually very influential in the making of Cars and making it very authentic to how cars are actually built. He also was close with Steve Jobs, yes THAT Steve Jobs. To think that I was in the same room as someone who rubbed elbows with Steve Jobs truly blew my mind. I just kept thinking, "Wow, what is my life right now?"

In order to keep the Disney Look, they
have hairspray and lotion available!

An adorable lounge area on the 5th floor
that has Mickey and Minnie pillows!

12pm: After the meeting, it was time for lunch and I basically just ate in my office and looked through the confidential binder, practically eating up the information more than the barely-heated pasta. It reminded me of a Sex and the City quote where Carrie says "Sometimes I would buy Vogue instead of dinner because I felt it fed me more." I always thought that quote was so ridiculous because you were comparing knowledge to actual food for survival, but at that moment, I finally understood what she meant.

1pm: Melissa came back to walk me through setting up a bunch of programs and different things in order to get set up for Disney. It turns out that I will be doing a scavenger hunt on Friday of Disney, which will be really fun! It will be done mostly through social media, since that is mostly where I'll be working, so expect lots of updates on Friday :)

3pm: I guess that Mondays and Tuesdays are considered "Show Days" for the marketing team, which means that the sales/creative teams give updates on what they are working on. Kim invited me to two different "shows," one for Walt Disney World Resorts and one for Disneyland. The one for WDW Resorts was really interesting in their projections for the first quarter which goes from August to December, I believe. They have conference calls with the California office (supposedly where I was supposed to be) and everyone is really involved - it's great to work with such passionate people.

3:30pm: The next meeting was with Disneyland, where we were on the other side of the phone, but unfortunately the TVs were not working, so we couldn't see any of the creative. After 20 minutes, Kim and I logged off the chat, went up to her office and looked at the creative by ourselves and left it at that.

4pm: After the two "shows," I went back to my office and checked my email - I have an official Disney email y'all! - and found that I had over 50 meet-and-greets that Kim wanted me to go on, so for the next few weeks, I will be having one-on-ones with my team members from not only the Digital Marketing team, but also with those from California, and even the Senior Vice President!

This is what my schedule looks like for this week -
so many meet & greets!

5:30pm: I finally left the office and went on my way home with Day 1 completed, but not without taking the obligatory Mickey Mouse hat picture!

So much for straight hair!

In other news, Nick and I decided to go to Taco Bell as I have never had a Doritos Locos Taco before. My reaction? Meh. I think the shell was stale, so it was chewy. Not too impressed. I also got a Baja Blast as I have never really been to Taco Bell and after drinking half of it, I came to a realization with a gasp: damnit, this has Mountain Dew in it. So let's see if I can go to bed before 1am tonight.

My first Doritos Locos taco!

Also, here is your weird Floridian habits picture:

Yup, let's just chill with the door open.

Day 8: Traditions

Today was my first official day as a Disney Cast Member! In honor of Staci and my's first day as cast members, we broke out the Mickey Mouse waffle iron that Nick brought and we all had breakfast together with our Mickey Mouse waffles :)

What a perfect way to start the morning! It was then time to get ready for Traditions, as all cast members have to be in the "Disney Look." What is the Disney Look you ask? Here's the website that has it all outlined, but for those who hate to read long things (why are you on this blog?) then it is basically just dressing professionally. The one thing that is different about the Disney Look is that they are obsessed with the three inch rule: your skirt cannot be more than three inches of your knee, your shoulder strap must be at least three inches wide, etc. The Disney Look isn't hard to do, but it does take effort and most of the cast members who are "On Stage," or where the guests can see them, usually have set uniforms, so they don't have to worry too much about clothes. However, since I am working in an office environment, or "Backstage," I have to wear business professional attire everyday. Want an example? Here's what I wore today for Traditions:

Notice the cardigan - the dress had only one inch straps so I had to modify it slightly.

Alright, so moving on! Staci and I got to Disney University, where the Traditions class was being held, about thirty minutes early in fear of being late. In order to get to Disney University, you have to go through the park and I was in awe the whole time. Staci got a kick out of me being so nervous for seeing the park, but I honestly felt like I was five again! I could hardly wait. Here's a quick video of the trip to Disney University:

When we walked into Disney University, I couldn't help but fan girl all over the place. Here are just a couple pictures from the inside:

When Staci and I walked in we were one of the first few to get there and we had to sign in to get our Disney IDs, which get us into the parks for free and enable us to receive numerous discounts around Orlando. I was first in line and I signed in as the lady was trying to find my ID. It was nowhere to be found! She said that they might have moved me to a different room and didn't include my ID. I was crushed. Staci and I had planned on going to the parks after our Traditions class. I grudgingly walked into the classroom, found an empty table and sat until Staci joined me. She looked frustrated and it turns out that they didn't have her ID either! We ended up finding out that they needed a picture for the ID, so we have to return to Disney University some time this week to pick them up.

In the Traditions class we learn about Disney's past, present, and future, as well as the Four Keys: Safety, Courtesy, Show, and Efficiency. We learned a lot about Walt's vision for Disney and how it has come to fruition and more. Everything was about happiness and magic. To be honest, some of it was boring, but the most exciting part was upon us...

As we were learning about the Four Keys (Safety, Courtesy, Show, Efficiency), our Traditions instructors were trying to think of ways to help us remember them and they came up with the idea of somehow writing lyrics to the Cup song beat. We were all really confused, but eventually, they "came up" with the great idea to take us to Magic Kingdom and show us the Four Keys in action.

Holy balls was I excited.

We had a ten minute break and had to get downstairs to start lining up for the bus to Magic Kingdom. I was starting to almost panic with a big smile on my face. As someone who has never been to Disney World, I was beyond excited and I couldn't even contain my excitement!

Our lovely leader 

We walked to the bus stop and we ended up getting behind another group, so we had to wait a while, but it was really cool to see current cast members in their costumes coming back from work. Granted, many of them looked exhausted and less than happy to be working, but it was fun to see all the different types of costumes and people that work at Disney!

The bus that we took to the Magic Kingdom!

We went on a really short bus ride, maybe 10 minutes, and we arrived at the back lot where we go into the "Utilidor," which basically means utility corridor, or the infamous underground tunnels of Disney World! Yes, it actually exists and it is where all the "On Stage Cast Members" go to change into their costumes and get read to be show ready. Unfortunately cameras were not permitted in the Utilidor, but I did take a picture right outside that was pretty cool :)

After we walked through the Utilidor and under Cinderella's Castle, we went outside to Main Street where we stopped and our leader asked if this was anyone's first time to Disney World and it turns out that there was one other girl who has never been to Disney World! Our leader had us walk to the front and we went arm and arm up to Cinderella's Castle. Let me tell you - me and this girl were fan-girlling all over the place and when we finally saw Cinderella's Castle we almost started crying.

Main Street!

First Sights of Cinderella's Castle!

A closer shot of Cinderella's Castle

The first-timers at Cinderella's Castle!

Side View of the Castle :)

We left the Magic Kingdom - which I now know why it is so magical - and we headed back to Disney University where we finished our Traditions class, but not without a special appearance from Mickey himself!

 With Mickey we played a quick trivia game for these little Disney figurines called "Critters" and guess who got one?! Me :) All I had to answer was "Who was the founder of Disney?" Easy: Walt Disney

Goofy says "what's up?"

Finally, it came for the moment that we had all been waiting for - getting our official Disney name tags! When you are in the College Program or in a Professional Internship, then your first (read: paid for) name tag has your college on it. You can get another name tag with your hometown on it for $5, so I might decide to do that in time. My reasoning is that while it is cool to meet people from Minnesota, I would be more excited to meet someone from Lincoln or even Nebraska.

Even after all of this, it still didn't feel real. Seeing Cinderella's Castle, walking in the underground tunnels, and even meeting Mickey all felt like a dream. I don't know when it will hit me that I am actually working for THE Walt Disney World, but who knows, maybe I'll just be living in this dream for the whole six months :)

Also, here's an example of the type of stuff that you'll see in the wonderful world of Florida:

Yes, that is a car-truck.

Day 6: Casting

Yesterday I went through Casting, which basically means they take your fingerprints for background checks and make sure all your paperwork (I-9, W-4, etc) are in and correct. Staci, my roommate who is from Richmond, and I thankfully had the same "check-in" time so we carpooled to the Casting Center which is right by Downtown Disney. 

As I have never been to Disney World before, I was fan-girlling all over the place. There were Donald Ducks, Mickey Mouses, and magic all over and I knew that I was just at the tip of the ice berg. They even had a door handle to Casting that was exactly like the one in Alice and Wonderland - except for the fact that it didn't come to life.

Oh, I should also clarify one thing: "Casting" does not mean that I will be a character in the actual parks. All employees, whether playing characters or not are considered "cast members." When you start the application process, you are given a "recruiter" and everything. Everything in the wonderful world of Disney is about Show - from your work to how you act, make sure that you are professional.

For some reason, both Staci and I were really nervous for Casting - they really don't do anything, but it's just the reality of really starting to work for Disney that got to us, I think. As we were driving to Casting, Staci noticed that I did not cover up my wrist tattoo, which according to the "Disney Look" is against the rules. I started freaking out, but thankfully we came up with a solution to just cover it up with my lanyard (thankfully it was fine for Casting that I did not have it covered up, but from this point forward I have to either cover it with make up or wear long sleeves - yuck). We left the house almost an hour early because of our nervousness and sat in the car until 1pm to not be too early, but by the time we entered Casting, there was already a line, so it was probably a good plan that we left so early.

Going through the process was a breeze and everyone is pretty much open to a conversation and some light jokes to make the day go by faster. As I went to my first station I had to wait with one of the Full-Time cast members and he said "Wow, you must be good." I was really confused and asked, "Wait, what do you mean?" He casually showed me my folder and to me I didn't see anything highlighted or different, so I just looked at him with a confused face. He then responded with "Let me give you some perspective here - There were over 30,000 people who applied for these jobs and only 300 were accepted. You should be proud that you were one of them." Wow. I did not know that there were that many applicants and that there were so few accepted. I knew that it was a big deal that I got in, but that is crazy. Nick, my roommate who is from Detroit, and I did the math and that is 1% of all applicants who applied were accepted. Crazy!

I have recently experienced the Florida sun and it is now showing on my face and shoulders aka I have the sunburn from hell. It is getting better, but that still did not keep every single full-time cast member from  pointing out that I "got some sun" and that I "made real good friends with the sun." Yup. I'm aware. I literally look like T-Rex when I drive, so if I couldn't see it, I have definitely felt it.

After Casting we went back to our town house/house/condo, or as my roommates and I like to call it a tousedo, and just chilled with each other. We're already running low on money, so we are trying to find things to do that are free - which in Orlando are not many, however we DID find something that will be covered in tomorrow's blog - oh, just wait, it's amazing.

One funny thing happened today, we found that Nick has a hidden smiley face in his drawers, can you find it?