No it's ridiculous to pick out one person and put the responsibility of a 60,000 person workforce on them without at least making an attempt to see where there is an issue within the whole structure.
If I screw up at my job, I don't tell my boss, "Well you know, our CEO sucks, what am I supposed to do?" :shrug:
If you are going to be hypercritical of an organization, don't you think that the whole structure from top to bottom should be scrutinized?
I'll chime in here to say absolutely the entire structure should be scrutinized and held accountable. But that's also Meg Crofton's job as well, to make sure everyone is doing their job correctly (or to tell them how she thinks they should do their job). Every employee at WDW who is underperforming at their job is partially responsible for contributing to the decline we've seen lately. The thing is, a good head of operations would put a stop to this and either force them back to doing their job or fire them and hire people who are willing to do so. She is also directly responsible for budget approval or disapproval for management projects and other affairs. Basically anything that helps the upkeep of the parks, makes sure cast are properly trained and doing their job, etc are all in her hands. She's the decision maker.
In a well run corporation, if you were performing poorly at your job and could do better, a good boss or CEO would fire you without a second thought. Either that or put you under close observation and threaten to fire you if you don't do your job better. There's a slight chance this may be what Iger and Staggs are actually doing with her, but i doubt it. Probable that they like her work ethic of cutting costs. Which is why a lot of blame should also be placed on them as well, another couple of people letting their subordinates wreck something.
If the internet is to be believed WDW went to crap in the mid-90's, long before Crofton was in charge.
So let's not act like Meg Crofton just isn't a substitution for TDO here. Her recent position change just gave a face to TDO and people are going after that face now.
Look, guys, have your little Crofton-bashing fun all you want. I'm just telling you that from a business standpoint Disney is laughing at you. Nothing will make you loose credit in a argument more than speaking about a topic or a person you know nothing about, and beyond Meg Crofton being the president of Walt Disney World, you have no idea what her job actually entails.
The line between "Lights are out at the Grand Floridian. It affected my enjoyment and makes me less likely to spend money in the future." and "Lights are out at the Grand Floridian. It's Meg Crofton's fault, but I'll be back next year." is pretty clear.
Yeah, everyone here should know that the decline began in the mid to late 90's. I was there personally and saw some of the beginning of it. Responsibility of that was in the hands of the people in charge at that time. Under her rule however, Crofton has done nothing but continued if not escalated the issues that were already present before her. At the very least, she has done almost nothing to help fix the problems she inherited (which in turn, only got worse with lax attention). Ranting about people long gone would be pointless, but calling out those presently in charge is at least time relevant to the present situation.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the heads of the company are laughing, or perhaps indifferent. And likely many people will continue to go for quite some time at least (unless things get so bad that more people actually get hurt or killed due to mismanagement mistakes). That's the case with a majority of large corporations, they don't listen to their customers unless their wallets or true reputation as a company are presented a danger, no matter what anyone says on an internet forum. BTW, i do in fact know what Meg Crofton's job as president of WDW entails. You seem not to, despite being told in every post response what it does entail. She is at the highest position of the WDW parks only, and makes all management decisions whether they be approvals or disapprovals. In essence, she's responsible for deciding how every aspect of how the park is run (including the people within it).
If you wished to know how i tick on the situation (whether you do or not, here it is)- I'm giving Mrs Crofton a little over a year and a half to prove to me that with a new vote of confidence from Iger and Staggs (and perhaps with a little more supervision and motivation), she can clean stuff up and get her act together. It's a personal audit. I'm presently an annual pass holder. I intend to renew when my next time to do so is here once more, but if she continues to undermanage the parks, i am very likely going to decline to renew my pass. Assuming she makes a decent attempt to step things up, i'll likely continue my pass in the near future (as long as she continues to strive for quality). We shall see. Obviously my one vote won't make a difference to Disney, but as i do genuinely care about quality, i myself may not wish to spend money there anymore. It all depends on how well she does. A sort of pros vs cons, the more pros than cons there are, the more likely i am to continue renewing and going. Satisfied?
Devoy is right as well. For Disneyland, all it took was a target of specific heads of the parks and things turned around for the better (even if the fans didn't make any difference, Disney removing and replacing the presidents of that park ended up bringing Disneyland back up to par). The source and highest part of the problem is always the place to start, change will follow with the proper leadership. Instead of making complaints to all the smaller people who don't have any authority, you go to the leader and make changes there. The president has the power to change almost anything they like in terms of how parks are run (for better or worse). Blame has been on Meg for quite a long time, i don't know how you got that it was new (unless you've not been paying attention to any criticism for the past several years since she was brought in).
