Ema Earns Her Ears: My Secret Walt Disney World Cast Member Diary (Earning Your Ears Book 2) by Ema Hutton Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Ema Hutton
Blue meant that a linen change was required, and pink meant that a family was checking out. There is more to do in a checkout room than in an occupied room, and so if you had a lot of pink on your board, you knew that it is going to be a rushed day to make sure you get all the rooms done in time.
On my last day shadowing Jenny, I was to sit for an exam-style, multiple-choice assessment as well as cleaning a whole room, as a checkout, on my own, which would also be assessed. I found the room cleaning part really easy. I kept a list of all the tasks I had to do to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I passed both parts of the assessment, which meant that the next day I could be completely on my own.
The next six days of training were called ‘ramp up’. This was a slow way to introduce a new cast member to Housekeeping. The first day I started with 8 rooms, then I got an additional 2 rooms added to my board on each subsequent day. On the sixth day I was scheduled to work only from 8:30am til 12:30pm, which let me get back to the apartment and chill.
Although I didn’t feel like I was a housekeeper, or belonged in the Housekeeping community, I had passed my tests with flying colors, and Ema had earned her ears. I could now remove the tell-tale red training sash under my nametag.
chapter eleven
A Meeting with Mickey
I knew I had read about people switching roles if they’d had allergic reactions to the chemicals, and I was certain I’d read some stories about other college program participants who had transferred roles after being successful at an Entertainment audition.
There is an International Service Centre at Vista Way. The people there had spoken to us during our orientation meetings, and they were to be our Floridian “parents” during the program. I thought I’d take my chances and pay them a visit. I’d planned out what I would say and thought I could try and win my case to be transferred to a different role. Even thinking about expressing how much I didn’t enjoy Housekeeping made me tear up, and telling myself “I’m not gonna cry” made it worse. I couldn’t fault the service center for trying their best for me; they fed me cookies, coke, and chocolate, as they could see I was very upset. However, what I wanted was out of their hands. I filled out a form which briefly explained my issue, complete with a tear-drop stain from the one I couldn’t hold back that had rolled down my cheek and onto the paper before I could stop it.
I waited 5 minutes. In that time, a fresh batch of cookies had come out the oven, and I was the chosen tester for the batch (warm cookies are my favorite, especially when the dough is gooey and the chocolate still melted). Then they told me I could go and see Mickey. This confused me. I was emotional, and they were telling me I was going to talk to the mouse himself about my problem. Of course, it wasn’t Mickey Mouse. This guy was even better; he was bubbly and full of life, and even when he was telling me the worst news, he still tried to keep me smiling. The general gist was that my visa restricted me from transferring and the stories I had read were probably all accounts from American participants (who therefore had no visa restrictions). Although this bad news meant no transfer, Mickey did try to help and contacted an Entertainment manager for me to “meet and greet” on my next day off. I was really disappointed that I couldn’t transfer, but I was excited at the prospect of talking to someone doing a job in a department where was dying to work.
The moral of the story is: Do not tick or accept a role you aren’t 100% sure you’ll enjoy!
Mickey also told me to speak to my managers, because I might be able to get an internal transfer within my role which wouldn’t jeopardize my visa. Since my visa application required me to list a specific role, I’d have to update it with any change in that role, and that would give the government an option to take away my visa,
On my last day shadowing Jenny, I was to sit for an exam-style, multiple-choice assessment as well as cleaning a whole room, as a checkout, on my own, which would also be assessed. I found the room cleaning part really easy. I kept a list of all the tasks I had to do to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I passed both parts of the assessment, which meant that the next day I could be completely on my own.
The next six days of training were called ‘ramp up’. This was a slow way to introduce a new cast member to Housekeeping. The first day I started with 8 rooms, then I got an additional 2 rooms added to my board on each subsequent day. On the sixth day I was scheduled to work only from 8:30am til 12:30pm, which let me get back to the apartment and chill.
Although I didn’t feel like I was a housekeeper, or belonged in the Housekeeping community, I had passed my tests with flying colors, and Ema had earned her ears. I could now remove the tell-tale red training sash under my nametag.
chapter eleven
A Meeting with Mickey
I knew I had read about people switching roles if they’d had allergic reactions to the chemicals, and I was certain I’d read some stories about other college program participants who had transferred roles after being successful at an Entertainment audition.
There is an International Service Centre at Vista Way. The people there had spoken to us during our orientation meetings, and they were to be our Floridian “parents” during the program. I thought I’d take my chances and pay them a visit. I’d planned out what I would say and thought I could try and win my case to be transferred to a different role. Even thinking about expressing how much I didn’t enjoy Housekeeping made me tear up, and telling myself “I’m not gonna cry” made it worse. I couldn’t fault the service center for trying their best for me; they fed me cookies, coke, and chocolate, as they could see I was very upset. However, what I wanted was out of their hands. I filled out a form which briefly explained my issue, complete with a tear-drop stain from the one I couldn’t hold back that had rolled down my cheek and onto the paper before I could stop it.
I waited 5 minutes. In that time, a fresh batch of cookies had come out the oven, and I was the chosen tester for the batch (warm cookies are my favorite, especially when the dough is gooey and the chocolate still melted). Then they told me I could go and see Mickey. This confused me. I was emotional, and they were telling me I was going to talk to the mouse himself about my problem. Of course, it wasn’t Mickey Mouse. This guy was even better; he was bubbly and full of life, and even when he was telling me the worst news, he still tried to keep me smiling. The general gist was that my visa restricted me from transferring and the stories I had read were probably all accounts from American participants (who therefore had no visa restrictions). Although this bad news meant no transfer, Mickey did try to help and contacted an Entertainment manager for me to “meet and greet” on my next day off. I was really disappointed that I couldn’t transfer, but I was excited at the prospect of talking to someone doing a job in a department where was dying to work.
The moral of the story is: Do not tick or accept a role you aren’t 100% sure you’ll enjoy!
Mickey also told me to speak to my managers, because I might be able to get an internal transfer within my role which wouldn’t jeopardize my visa. Since my visa application required me to list a specific role, I’d have to update it with any change in that role, and that would give the government an option to take away my visa,
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