MKCP 1985
Well-Known Member
That @ParentsOf4 post was just what I needed on a Monday morning. Thanks for that!
It takes me back to my cast member days in the summer of 1985. I was just a college program kid, a "CT" living out a dream of working at the place that had been such a big influence on my childhood. In those days, the future of what the Walt Disney Company would become was very much up in the air. Our corporate seminars discussed at length the stress placed on company leadership by the Saul Steinberg hostile takeover attempt and the Roy Disney power play that kept the company from being sold off for parts. In the break rooms, permanent cast - many in their early 20s but unlike me, planning to make a career of their job - worried that Epcot Center would have to be sold off because of its great expense and planned ticket price hikes to $26 per day would run off the loyal guests that kept the place going.
But the thing we heard over and over was that working at Disney was unlike working anywhere else. Providing the guests a safe, quality experience would be the model after which other corporations would only give lip service but only Disney would truly demand it. I had the good fortune to personally experience WDW Parks and Resorts President Nunis (his first name is always blocked) in the park, on busy days, DEMANDING food and beverage quick service staff put the guests ahead of anything else, and I couldn't imagine that working for Disney's could ever be any other way. I wish some of you could have had that same experience. The memory has stayed with me to this day and affects the way I approach my work.
It takes me back to my cast member days in the summer of 1985. I was just a college program kid, a "CT" living out a dream of working at the place that had been such a big influence on my childhood. In those days, the future of what the Walt Disney Company would become was very much up in the air. Our corporate seminars discussed at length the stress placed on company leadership by the Saul Steinberg hostile takeover attempt and the Roy Disney power play that kept the company from being sold off for parts. In the break rooms, permanent cast - many in their early 20s but unlike me, planning to make a career of their job - worried that Epcot Center would have to be sold off because of its great expense and planned ticket price hikes to $26 per day would run off the loyal guests that kept the place going.
But the thing we heard over and over was that working at Disney was unlike working anywhere else. Providing the guests a safe, quality experience would be the model after which other corporations would only give lip service but only Disney would truly demand it. I had the good fortune to personally experience WDW Parks and Resorts President Nunis (his first name is always blocked) in the park, on busy days, DEMANDING food and beverage quick service staff put the guests ahead of anything else, and I couldn't imagine that working for Disney's could ever be any other way. I wish some of you could have had that same experience. The memory has stayed with me to this day and affects the way I approach my work.
