Seventh week reflection March 22-March 29

[This week is more about me personally, then my actual experience] What a miserable week at work. Saturday I ended up working a 10 hour shift with no food, water, or even a break. I got to work at 7:45, clocked in, and off to work I went. I got done with 6 check outs and 100 occupies by 3:45 pm. The manager asked if I wanted to “buy” any rooms and I said yes. When you “buy” a room, this means that they pay you $7 or $8 to clean an extra occupied room and $13-$14 for a checkout. I replied that I would love to, given I had only 2 days of work that week. I ended up staying 2 hours after and cleaning 25 rooms overall. I got $53 for the rooms plus overtime but I could barely walk let alone keep my eyes from weighing down. Luckily, there was a bus that arrived 5 minutes after I got to the bus stop but by the time I got home I just wanted to pass out. I ate dinner, talked to Danielle for a little bit, and went to sleep.

If I thought Saturday was bad, I really had another thing coming to me on Sunday. DF, me, and another CP Steven, were supposed to be runners instead of housekeepers. This means that we were not supposed to clean rooms at all, in fact, all we would have had to do, was bring housekeepers items for the rooms. A bunch of people called out, so Steven and I ended up getting horrendous boards. I ended up with 10 checkouts and he ended up with 9. Luckily for DF, she was support for the day, which turned out to be very difficult as well. By about 3 o’clock, all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and cry. I was not even done with my checkouts and I had zero help in any of my rooms. There were 3 checkouts left and my amazing manager Santa came to help me. She stripped all of my beds and took out my trash. Around 4:30, I still had 5 occupied rooms left and I could barely move. I was ready to just walk down to the office, throw my hands up, and leave my ID. DF came and helped me with my last 3 rooms and kept telling me that it was going to be okay. This was new because that is normally what I end up doing with her at the end of the day. This truly made me appreciate the family aspect of working in housekeeping. People help out each other in their time of need at work. After we finished my last rooms, she helped me clean my cart and I helped her with the last couple things. By this time, it was 6:15 PM and we just wanted to go home. I went and turned in my board and Santa asked DF and me to go check some rooms. 2 were clean and 2 were dirty so DF texted Santa. We clocked out and returned our keys. Steven had also just gotten done, so we all roe the bus home together.

Monday and Tuesday, yet again, were my days off and I milked them out for everything there was. I slept and relaxed to no end after a hard week. Wednesday, both DF and I had 10 checkouts and goodness was she upset. They had given here mandatory overtime of a whole day! She was only given Saturday off and was so torn down all week. I finished all of my rooms and came to help her out. She could barely move, she was in so much pain. Every time we talked, I just wanted to try and make her laugh, in order to get rid of the negativity. It was hard but every day, somehow, I make her smile in the end. This day, in particular, has given me a little more hope about this program. The fact that I can take such negativity, and turn someone’s day around, makes me believe that I can get through this program.

Someone posted on the Disney College Program page “I have been reading a lot of the Disney college blogs and have seen a lot of either want to term their selves or they had many points or were sick. I know sometimes that people do get sick, but do people realize that if they not want to be there why even apply. Did they think Disney college program was going to be all fun and games? Many people would like to be in the Disney College program and work many hours just to get the experience and knowledge Disney can offer you. Yes you may have to work many hours but if had read from the past cast members should have known it would happen. Not all things in life are all fun and games just have to take the good with the bad.” I respectfully replied to this statement with “I thought the exact same thing after reading what people had to say about things here at Disney. I have had difficult jobs and definitely did not think that this would be all fun and games but I was hoping for at least a little bit of happiness here. I thought everyone was dramatic and overreacting. Then I got here and realized that I judged everyone for no reason. I feel like self-terming every day but I push through it. You cannot judge people, no matter how old you are and how many experiences you have had, until you are here. It is really easy to just say everyone is overreacting because that is what I did. Give us an update once you've been here for a month or two.” I made it clear that, before I got here, I though everyone was over reacting to the work situation here at Disney. Some people may be annoyed while reading my weekly reflections because they think “I have a hard job, why are you complaining about working in the ‘Happiest place on earth’”. I have learned a lot being here and on my own for the first time and the biggest thing, is that you must never judge other peoples situations because one day, you may be struggling in the same way.

My mother has been extremely supportive, telling me that I can make it through and that she knows I am strong enough. Monday, I was ready to pack up all of my things and catch the next plane home. Well, there are two reasons that I did not do this. The first reason is that, obviously, I have $0 to do so. The most important reason is my mom’s inspiring words. She said that I could do it and that she believed in me. She said that she knows that I am a strong and hard working person and that I have the strength to get me through this program. This talk really gave me the drive to make it through the week and lead me to my next positive experience, which made me realize my purpose here at Disney.

I want to quit housekeeping every day I do it but seeing how I can, not only affect the guest’s experiences, but also my fellow cast members, makes my experience worth it. I can have the worst work day of my life and no one would know, except my momma or maybe finance, because I keep it to myself. I prefer listening to other people’s hard times and thinking that my life is not so bad, rather than making myself a burden on other people. Talking to DF every day is really hard because of the negativity. I actually learned on Friday that, back home, DF was a full time student (18-21 credits a semester), who graduated with her associated degree with a 4.0 GPA, was a TA for a psychology class, which she taught solo most of the time, and also worked 40 hours a week. I thought to myself, if she is having a hard time with this job, while not doing class or anything else, maybe I am not being dramatic when I complain.

Anyways, back to the week. Friday, I only had 4 checkouts but someone checked out early so, it ended up being 5 checkouts. This was not too bad I thought but I did not end up taking a break, yet again, and I did not get done until 4:15 pm. This was crazy to me because I finished all 10 of my checkouts on Wednesday, by 2:30pm. This goes to show, you must always be prepared for the worst. On Friday, the rooms were just horrible. There were 6 rooms with at least one tray of private dining and one room took me over 15 minutes just to clean up garbage! After I was done, I clocked out, returned my key, and went home. When I got home, I saw on the DCP Facebook page that we had two celebrities in Disney World, Steven Tyler and Steve Carell. I wanted to go out and see them but my bed was calling my name.

Saturday was the same as Friday, the rooms were just horrible and I only had 6 check outs. I remember a little under 2 months ago, checkouts would have been the death of me and it is crazy to think that I would refer to it as, “only 6 checkouts”. I got done just before 4:30 but I caught the bus on time!

Sunday DF was back, from her one day off. She told me that Ricky Martin, singer of livin la vida loca, was staying in the resort on the fourteenth floor. I was scheduled to do support and figured both of us could get an ER, Early Release, and make our way up to his floor and maybe see him. When we got to work however, they wanted me to do fly and I had not been trained, nor had S. the other CP. They gave me one of the other female CP’s board and let her train S in fly squad. My board had 4 check outs and a suite on top of that… I was not pleased with this. None of my checkouts were done until 11 AM, which made it very difficult to finish on time. I actually ended up getting done early at 3:45 PM, as well as DF. We changed our clothes and went into the service elevator to the 14th floor in the tower. I did not truly think this through because when we entered the floor, the woman at the desk gave us a nasty look and we scurried back in to the service elevator. Had we have been in our costumes, she probably would not have thought twice about it. After having a day off, DF was all smiles and giggles, which made the day a lot easier. We hopped on the bus and went home. C, one of the female CP’s invited us to go to Hollywood Studios with her and her friends for her birthday celebration but both DF and I fell asleep while contemplating whether we wanted to go or not.