Amber Earns Her Ears: My Secret Walt Disney World Cast Member Diary (9 page)

I called my father, already choking on tears of panic that were threatening to burst out and render me incomprehensible. He told me to just get their insurance information, and other than that, follow their lead; as long as there wasn’t any damage to them or their vehicle, let them decide whether to file a police report. I hung up with him, and turned around to face the two men who were inspecting their car.

As I turned out, they also spoke English, and neither of them was hurt. Their car, too, was perfectly fine, though apparently the license plate had a dent in it. I tried to explain to them that I was hugely, hugely sorry, that I was running late for work and must not have been paying enough attention, and that whatever they wanted to do was fine. I was a horrid mess of rambling and tears. I’m sure I looked terrifying — and a little pathetic — in my Kim Possible outfit of a black tank top and worn cargo pants, with my mascara running.

I don’t know whether I was making them nervous or they just wanted to get as far away from me as possible, but they tried to calm me down and we headed to our cars to write down insurance information. I called work yet again to tell them that I was going to be even later, because I had now rear-ended someone. The manager who answered the phone assured me there was absolutely no rush. When I hung up, the driver’s friend was coming back to hand me their information, and the first thing he saw was that my busted ink pen had just squirted blue ink all over the card I was trying to write on, and all over my hand, too. That sent me into another little panic, because a blue hand is definitely not the Disney Look, so now not only was I running late for work, but Disney might decide not to put me on register duty because I had a freaking blue hand.

The guy lent me his pen so I could I finish copying down my information. When I looked up, the driver was also there, holding out his phone and telling me that his girlfriend (the owner of the car) wanted to speak with me.

She…was not a nice lady.

I realized that speaking with her wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I said nothing and tried to make sense of her torrent of profanity and threats. After a while, the girlfriend had expended her vocabulary, and apparently tired of listening to me breathe, told me to hand the phone back to her boyfriend. Which I did gladly.

At this point, a police officer pulled up to the corner and asked us to move our cars onto the shoulder. We complied, and he left saying that he would radio someone else in. This quickly brought all conversation to an end, as the men assured me there was no reason to have the police look over anything, because they were fine and the police would only charge me, and they didn’t want that. With no further drama, they quickly got in their car and headed off. I did the same.

I showed up to work late, of course, but at least I had managed to stop crying pathetically. It was one of those times that I was grateful for the Disney guidelines, because I knew that it was part of my job to suck it up and pretend like nothing had happened. My resolve lasted as far as the kitchen, where one of my coordinators, Sharon, took one look at me and told me I needed a hug. Which of course made me upset all over again. So I spent the first bit of work around the computer, rehashing various vehicle accidents with my area manager.

The blue hand was cool, too. I stayed in the kitchen all day.

I wasn’t the only one who had bad days, but for some people, their bad days started every time they clocked in. One of these people was the girl I had trained with on ovens, the future model who couldn’t stand the smell of grease. Disney, it turned out, wasn’t exactly what she had expected. Perhaps she had thought she would come to Orlando and spend her days coloring with the children, not lifting heavy boxes of fries and changing the sticky, five-gallon soda boxes. Within a couple of months, during which she had spent all of her time bussing because she couldn’t keep up with kitchen work, she had quit. It wasn’t that she was incapable of doing the work; she just hadn’t thought the work expected of her would be so hard.

This happens often. It’s not the number one reason people don’t last, but I believe that some people look at things like the cleanliness of the parks and don’t give a second thought to the work that goes into keeping them so clean. Even if you come to Florida knowing this is a real job, the workload and everything associated with maintaining the Disney name can be overwhelming. While on your program, it is likely that you will have bad days, even bad weeks. In our little apartment of four, there were days when one of us would slouch in, throw down our bag, and sag, defeated, into a chair. Cue the outpouring of sympathy and willingness to listen about that one hateful guest or the co-worker who enjoys making life difficult.

For a lot of people, working at Disney is their first time living away from their families, on their own, in a place they may or may not be familiar with. Buying your own groceries, managing your laundry to make sure you have enough clean socks, paying for gas, coordinating your schedule around bus departure times, and much more — it’s a lot to deal with.

Even roommates can cause friction. Whether by lack of communication or by some little thing that tips you over the edge of a bad week, the apartment can become fraught with tension — which is why it is a marvelous idea to come up with some stress relievers while you are on your program. Make sure to bring some of your favorite CDs. Watch a favorite movie. Play a video game (
Lego Harry Potter
was very popular in our apartment), or spend a day off just lounging around in pajamas, toting around a Breyer’s tub of mint chocolate chip, and watching movies.

We each developed our own ways of dealing with stress. I discovered the Basin store in Downtown Disney; their bath bombs became my go-to after a hard day of work. When my muscles ached from lifting and scooping, or from going to the gym just so I would be able to lift the soda boxes onto the top shelf without help, it was wonderful to fill the tub, put on some Michael Bublé, and read. Leah also enjoyed the delights of a relaxing bath, as her job at the Sum of All Thrills at Innoventions involved lots of heavy lifting, and Paige many times took her stresses out by blowing up aliens on her Xbox.

Leah and I also liked to dress up and go out. If things were stressful, and staying in the apartment was chafing at us, we would dress up, pick a park, and see what nice restaurant would let us wheedle a table for two. We didn’t even have to do much while we were in the park; sitting down and having dinner, catching up on what was going on with each another, was enough of a detox that when we came home, music blaring and the sticky night air blowing in from the open car windows, we were perfectly content.

Several nights I went out by myself, just to watch a fireworks show or because I was craving some kind of sweet that would help me decompress.

It’s important to take advantage of every opportunity to alleviate the inevitable stress. Your time with Disney is limited; why waste it in a bad mood? As soon as my program was over, I remember looking back on some of those wasted days and wondering: “Well, why didn’t I just take a trip to the beach?” or even “Why didn’t I just go to the gym and make myself too tired to worry anymore?”

Everyone relaxes in a different way. Know what works for you, what smooths out the wrinkle in your forehead and eases the tension from your shoulders. Something that lets you appreciate that, back home, others are studying for a calculus final or a Spanish oral exam.

As preachy as it sounds, it’s something I wish someone had told me before I went down.

THE SERENITY THAT EXISTED at Chatham, 22301, despite the occasional hiccups of annoyance that inevitably bubbled to the surface, did not last as long as any of us had imagined. Our nights of laughter and Fab Five ventures came to an end around Easter.

Jenni was having a difficult time at work. All of us had had bad days, had come home griping about our job and hateful co-workers. Jenni was working an egg roll cart in Animal Kingdom, and homesickness was starting to set in. She had never fully unpacked. Paige and I knew that she wasn’t having the best time; Leah, her roommate, and thus the one closest to her, was getting worried. Then one morning, as Paige and I were sitting on the couch, munching on toast and watching our customary
Family Feud
, we got a text from Leah telling us to go into the room she shared with Jenni.

Paige and I looked at each other after reading this rather cryptic message, but I think both of us had a fairly good idea what it meant. We put down our coffee mugs and pushed open the door. The room that had just yesterday contained mountains of clothes and half-packed boxes now contained an empty bed. Only Leah’s things, on her side of the room, remained. Jenni’s mother had driven from Texas to help her move back.

The entire Fab Five spent one last day together. We ate at EPCOT, and I remember all five of us sitting on the hot, sticky plastic seats behind the Yakatori House. There wasn’t much to say. Jenni had already turned in her IDs and told her managers. She was leaving tomorrow.

That night we went to Downtown Disney, where Jenni’s mother treated us to ice cream at Ghirardelli, and we tried to grasp how all of this had happened so quickly.

Since Leah shared a room with Jenni, and they had the strongest bond, she was hit hardest. Paige and I were also upset, and when the time came to say goodbye, we all stood — some with tearful eyes, others with a look of sad resignation — and hugged, bumping against the bleachers of the outside stage as we swayed little.

In the apartment that night, we were still shell-shocked. Paige and I were expecting it, so our reaction was more a sad acceptance. Leah, though, was completely shaken.

By the time Jenni and her mother had reached the Florida state line the next morning, Jenni was ready to come back. If only she hadn’t turned in her ID or given her notice, if only she had just taken a short trip home to visit her family, she might have made it through the program. If only.

A few months later, Jenni did make an attempt to come back. She found an apartment — or someone to stay with for a short while — and applied for some jobs at the local outlet. Her goal was to wait until she could apply for a job with Disney again; she wanted to get back on her feet.

She returned to Texas within a week. Paige and I didn’t see her at all during her short stay.

When Jenni left, we weren’t quite sure what would happen. Disney Housing only condensed apartments if half of the people were left — Housing would then either join the people in the apartment with the people in another apartment, or move them into a smaller apartment. Our questions were answered when, a couple of weeks later, we found a letter folded under our door, telling us to expect a new roommate. In preparation, we had to clean the apartment, and we also had to pick up new keys, since our locks were going to be changed.

A few days later, we met the newest addition to 22301: May, a sweet girl from Shanghai, who had lived on the bottom floor of our building with some other Chinese girls. She wanted to work on her English, and had decided that the best way to improve it was to live with native speakers.

Her arrival brought a mixture of emotions; Leah had just lost her perfect roommate, and we weren’t sure how a new arrival would affect the homey atmosphere we had cultivated.

While it definitely wasn’t the same as it had been with Jenni, things went well. May and I got along; she remarked upon my odd habits (such as wearing two different socks), we talked about our shared love of theatre and liberal arts, and I tried out my mediocre Mandarin that some of the girls at work were teaching me. I remember one night, soon after May had moved in, when I came home from a long day at work, showered, and grabbed my tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream and a spoon. As I took my seat on the sofa, May looked up at me, eyes wide.

“All for you?”

I looked down at my half-empty carton of ice cream, the spoon sticking out over the top like a flag of conquest. “Yup. All for me.”

She shook her head slowly. “Wow.”

May was working in EPCOT as well; International College Programmers (ICPs) who come for a year often change roles halfway through their program. May began working in merchandise at Plaza Towers in EPCOT. She enjoyed that job. After six months, however, Disney moved her to quick service at Sunshine Seasons. I’d often come home to find her slumped in a chair, dejected. Life in quick service was not poor May’s favorite; she didn’t get along with her managers, she was most frequently put on bussing (a plight with which I can totally sympathize, as I weaseled my way out of every bussing position I could), and, honestly, it’s kind of cruel to make the change from merchandise to quick service. Merchandise and quick service have different atmospheres, and make different demands on Cast Members. It’s likely that if you enjoy one, you won’t be as fond of the other — that holds true for me, at least, and for May as well.

It was fun having May around. Many things were new to her, and it was entertaining to see how other cultures view America, or how some aspects of our culture are confusing.

There was, of course, some friction accompanying her move into the apartment: her habit of leaving her rice cooker in the sink to soak annoyed some of us, and her chopsticks were always in danger of going down the food processor. We all did things that annoyed one another, but more often than not, we had fun.

Shortly after May moved in, Leah and I decided that another outing was due. I believe this was our Brown Derby night; we put on our pretty dresses and got ready to leave. Somehow, as we stood in the kitchen before leaving, the subject of Easter came up while we were talking to May. She didn’t know what it was, so Leah explained the basics to her: why it’s celebrated, the Easter Bunny, coloring Easter eggs…the whole thing.

May was incredibly excited by the entire concept.

“Easter tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“So, the Easter Bunny come tonight?”

Leah looked at me, excitement glittering in her eyes. “Yes. He’ll come tonight. Actually, when Amber and I come back, we’ll color eggs for him!”