I passed.

My training is over!!! Yeah! Let there be much rejoicing. Since Sunday I have been training all my 8 hours at Toy Story. It has been a lot of new information to cram into my head but today was the big test and enough of it stuck that I was asked to remove my "earning my ears" badge and am now a full operations cast member. I was "assessed" all day today. Starting with a 150 question test over just about everything I'll be doing. It would have questions like: If you are working at the Load 1* position and there is Signal 25** what is your FIRST responsibility? Or it would show me a picture of one of the buttons on the main console and ask what the functions of that button are/what goes on in the track when it is pushed. All kinds of things.

I can say with full confidence that you are SAFE at Disney. I actually am impressed by how much emphasis is put on safety and in the training and throughout the job. I know that there have probably been accidents, but if you consider how many people go through each of the rides...it's impressive. To make my day even a little more stressful...the entire ride was being inspected while I was taking my tests. So my assessor was being assessed on how well he assessed me! I spent about 20 mins at each position running it by myself, then my assessor would ask me more questions about the console I was operating or the emergency evac procedures.

I don't remember if I explained this or not, but everything at Disney develops from a story. All the rides (and even the stores/most eating places) have stories that you experience as you go through them, some of them are more obvious than others, but they all have one. It is how the designers organize the theme. Instead of just putting a ton of toy story stuff into a ride, they tell a story as you experience it. Our Story is this: Andy, (You'll remember from the movies is the kid that owns buzz and woody and the gang) has just gotten a new game, Midway Mania, and while he is gone all the toys are trying it out. The guests are "transformed" into a toy when they enter the building. The que line is a maze through Andy's toy box, complete with 5 foot crayons, 7 foot card houses and a life size, talking Mr. Potato Head. When they make it up the stairs and out of the toy box they get a turn to try Andy's new game. You board the vehicles and then ride into the box that the game is kept in and that is where you play.

It is very fun for me. I really enjoy it. The way my ride is set up everyone is trained on everything and we work our shifts in continual rotations, this way we can trade shift with each other easily and if if management needs to move us around quickly they don't have to explain our new job to us. It's cool I think because I'll be doing the same things as the people who have worked on Toy Story since it opened last June. Rotation includes a lot of things. Here is a short list of a few of them.

Preparing the 3D glasses for cleaning. Yes, at Disney they are cleaned and disinfected EVERY time they are used, so don't be grossed out.

Work the load/unload consoles. Put guests into cars and secure the doors and lap bars on the vehicle.

Greet guests as they enter the Pixar Studios. This includes everything from helping with the fast pass machines, parking/watching strollers, and just being around to help with questions and getting people into the correct lines.

Create a Magical Moment. Seriously, sometimes our rotation will give us 30 mins to share some pixie dust.

Operate Mr. Potato Head. He is a "life size" interactive animatronic that entertains guests while they wait in the que lines. We control him from another room using touch screens, cameras, and microphones. It is all preprogrammed, but it is also interactive, I had the cutest little girl talking with him yesterday. They traded jokes and danced together and she even picked Mr. Potato Head as her favorite toy (over Buzz and Woody). I really enjoy operating him.

So, there are a lot of words and no pictures...sorry my computer is still down, but there is at least an idea of what I'm up to. Like I've said over and over again, i love it here. Last night my room mates and I were talking and all the sudden one of them started giggling. When we asked what was so funny she just said, "I can't believe it guys...we work for DISNEY!!!" It's true, occasionally we just get giggles (sometimes pixie dust does that) because we are loving it so much. Sorry again for so many words and no pictures, but hopefully it won't last too long.

Comment and tell me what you wanna hear about. Later.
Karen


*The main passenger loading console. (No one can get out of the station unless the Load 1 says they can)

**Signal 25 is a fire, which you should not confuse with a Signal 22 (a guest altercation) or an Operations 101 (Ride is not working) or Operations 102 (Ride is back to functionality). You also shouldn't confuse it with about 12 other terms that I was specifically told I could not talk about with anyone but cast members.