I have a friend that works at TDS in Woodfield Mega Mall here. She is a survivor and works just enough hours to pull her bennies for her annual trip to WDW. She said it is a revolving door. While sounding fun to most their scheduling is nasty and one sided. Their on-call where you have to come if called so you can't plan anything on a day off but they don't have to call, but if they do you're AWOL....they are short staffing to make up the margins but still expect product to be out and replenished but not to neglect the guests but get it done. She really hates it but can't let loose of her bennies after all these years. TDS has closed many more stores throughout the country, another one in N. IL bit the dust last year. Thinking they are down to 4 now and two of which are downtown Chicago close to each other, one is tiny but near Union Station the other amazing. Woodfield one is painful.
As I've posted before, I coverd many other CMs shifts that called out, if I wasn't scheduled somewhere else, just to pay the bills. But, we weren't on call, and there was no penalty for refusing the shift. You could, however, be written up if you went even one second over 40 hrs. In a work week. I went over by about 30 mins. one time covering other CMs shifts, but, our SM liked me so much that she coverd for me and I wasn't written up. And, it never happened again.
We only have the one store in our local mall (the 2 other mall locations here closed years ago), and one outlet location about 8 miles northeast of us in the town I went to HS in.
It could be kind of a revolving door sometimes with certain CMs, but, there were also many of us there for several years. It was Disney, but, it was also a business. Those of us that got it were able to provide the "Disney Difference" to Guests, and take care of the business aspect, as well.
We hired many with that Disney gleam in their eyes that thought it was going to be their dream job, only to be smacked straight in the face with the 2x4 of reality, and call it quits shortly thereafter.
Even after the firm hired me back full time I hung on at the Disney Store for about another 8 months with special permission to work Friday (Half-day Friday) closers and Sat. and Sun. Shifts. Those bennies did indeed come in handy for our June of '13 trip.
And, even then, I still stayed on as a CM until mid-Oct. of that year.
For me anyway, it was a gig that was hard to give up after being that far into it. But, now that I look back on it, I'm glad I let it go when I did.
