But I don't think the highly skilled or educated CM's deserve more pay simply due to that fact, if they are performing the same work that unskilled or uneduated workers are provided. They aren't owed anything based on their education.
They certainly should be, because a greater level of education should - in principle - have produced a smarter, more capable employee which will be reflected in their superior job performance. A college education, such as a general liberal arts degree, should help open doors and provide opportunities more readily than your fellow co-workers who lack such educational experience. Even within low-wage, low skill requirement jobs (such as service industries) the employer still benefits from a more productive employee who potentially has more to offer the company, and this should be reflected in compensation ("you get what you pay for", and that saying also applies to employers seeking to provide superior service).
Simply paying employees more for jobs that don't demand higher compensation have other hidden and more damaging consequences. I won't go into them here, but let's just say Disney is doing what any other company needing to hire tens of thousands employees HAS to do.
Disney once paid far better, and could do better today; Low wages are a serious problem in service and related industries nationwide. When employees are unable to make ends meet at a full-time job (there have been and will always be low-wage jobs), that also leads to unintended and very damaging consequences. But just what were you referring to? It certainly seems pertinent to the discussion.
The unfortunate reality is that most of these jobs are rotational and a means to an end. They were never meant to be "careers" and treating them as such will leave you poor and disappointed.
Again, there have always been lower-paying jobs and there always will be, and service-related industries such as Disney require thousands of workers in those positions, and many of them will necessarily spend most or all of their careers in a similar position to the one they started. While they never paid "well", people could formerly make a modest living off low-wage jobs, and specifically at Walt Disney World.
I've never seen a job classification differentiated as jobs which are meant as a "career" versus those which "are rotational", yet every time there is such a debate this claim is made. Whatever happened to the notion that any job is worth having? While people should absolutely aspire to something better in life (at any age), who gets to decide what jobs are "appropriate" for a career? Where is this done, because I've never seen it.
What does he mean when he says 'There are entire GIANT closed areas of the park that Disney is too cheap to keep open (including an entire pavilion and a half at Epcot) which will probably continue to rot away.'?
I think he means there are large portions of the parks which are closed off to guests, because Disney is too cheap to keep them open, and that such closures are likely to continue as the shuttered facilities sit abandoned (or used seasonally/for special events).
More seriously, we have such inexplicable situations as a lack of dining capacity in the Magic Kingdom, while the Adventureland Veranda sits closed. Then in Epcot Wonders of Life is completely closed except for special events, the upstairs of Imagination is closed, and the Odyssey has been shut down for so long many posters here probably never ate there or even remember it.
However, the economy is in pretty good shape so a good degree in a decent city is a good place to start.
Where, one might reasonably ask, is the economy in good shape? Perhaps in a corporate world with record profits for executives and investors, but certainly not on mainstreet America.
A good degree should always provide a good start, of course.
Most of those kids are getting bad advice and worthless degrees. Companies don't need history, art, communications, sociology, psychology, and music majors. I didn't want to study finance, but I did because it makes money.
If companies are rejecting most liberal arts degrees out of hand, they are missing out on many highly qualified and talented candidates. Such a degree should be applicable to a wide variety of fields and prospective employers. If it is not (or perhaps more accurately, not seen as applicable by prospective employers), there is a problem either with the degree requirements (coursework and training) or the hiring selection process (perhaps both, but I'd tend to put greater blame on mistaken hiring practices).
You don't have to give up your dreams and your free will and do a law/medicine/economics degree to make money. I'd rather be penniless than work at a job i hate just because i would be rich.
Too many people "follow the money" (or prestige) when choosing a major in higher education, and end up in fields for which they have little interest and sometimes even less aptitude. Money can buy neither happiness nor true success, and persons who have made what is for them a poor degree/career choice aren't going to make the best employees either. The better job candidate may well be the one who has what we're told is one of those "worthless degrees", as opposed to the one who has the "right" credentials but is ultimately less successful. Obviously you can't put a history major into your vacant nuclear engineering position, but apparently someone who started out as a weatherman can make a good corporate CEO.
I think alot of people go to university because they think they should. That is a problem. However, there are many skills you get from an arts degree that can be applied to many jobs. I personally know many people who have gone into many different jobs with their arts degrees - librarians, teachers, Business Heads
Thank You. Yes, a more general arts/liberal arts degree can open doors in a greater variety of fields that a more specialized degree cannot.
I do stand by that there are far too many kids studying subjects that will not give them the best opportunity for sustainable, high earning careers.
Again, not everyone is chasing the money when choosing a career. Many people find fulfillment in life through something other than the balance in their bank account. Not nearly everyone will have a degree or higher-education at all, and they too need and deserve reasonable compensation for their labor. Any advanced degree only solves the economic problem for the individual; What is needed are reasonable, sustainable economic solutions to low-wage jobs for society as a whole.
Let's face it...many kids pick those degrees because the classes are easier and the schools are easier to be accepted.
Which degrees have easier classes? People have different aptitudes and talents, and what you or I may find easy (or difficult) may be just the opposite for someone else.
Even degrees like biology and most educational fields are useless unless you're going to higher education like a phd to be a professor or study medicine to be a doctor.
Why are educational fields useless unless you have a phd? You have no use for public school teachers, I gather? I think they might disagree with you about that useless degree thing...
I went to 2 of the top business schools in the world for my masters and MBA. Most of my classmates make 6 figures right out of school not just because they're smart, but because of the opportunities the degree from Wharton and U of Chicago lend them.
You said it yourself - the doors were opened for economic success based not on the ability of the applicant but rather the name on the degree. That's sad, maybe even disturbing.
Also may be true but you won't even get a call from my company without an MBA or Finance degree from a top school.
I'm sure your company gets many good applicants from those schools, but you have to realize that an even more qualified, more driven, and ultimately more successful candidate could well come from a no-name school or with a more general degree. You are free to limit yourselves like that, but its your loss.
even artsy professions need business guys like me to run things. Disney is a perfect example...above all, it's a business.
Given the ample evidence that top executives at The Walt Disney Company today rely far too much on the financial ("business") aspects of the company and pay too little attention to the creative direction of a content-driven enterprise, I'm not sure that argument really supports your case. Certainly Disney needs "business guys" to help run things (things like $2 billion for MM+ make sense to them), but the pendulum has swung much too far in that direction; You need the creative ("artsy") people, too.
I was at a gas station the other week and it was a busy day and a lot of people were waiting at the counter as the store appeared to be rather short staffed. One customer got angry and started abusing one of the staff members and the staff member in question politely asked him to calm down or he would be asked to leave. This made the customer more angry and threatened physical violence; upon hearing this the duty manager came out of his office and proceeded to reprimanded the staff member followed by apologising to the customer and let him have his gas for free.
general coordinators and managers can be "push overs" and often shower guests with guest service recovery that they do not deserve because it is easy, it makes people happy, gets them out of their hair, and makes them look good. The logic is that often times it costs the company little or nothing to do it and it is better than an upset guest. However, this practice does have it's flaws.
What are we teaching people by performing "customer service" in such an idiotic manner? Besides the fact that a CM or staff member needs to know that their managers will support them when there is a problem (instead of making them out as the bad guy...), the guests/customers are learning the squeaky wheel gets greased. Want some free FastPasses? Just pick a random CM and cause a scene. How about some free gas? Get angry and be threatening to the poor staff person behind the counter; Seems like a small "price" to pay to get something free.
Except the price we all pay isn't small, its huge. When a manager gives in, it does solve the problem for them right then and there, but it creates far worse problems down the line. Had Disney possessed the backbone to enforce its own rules, soft drink (soda) refills would never have become an issue requiring spending millions on a silly system to save pennies on unpaid drinks. If you similarly enforce some rules and standards in the parks, problems with irate guests will eventually decline (with the inverse also true, when you fail to enforce such standards).
