A Company Woman

It's 5:15. My alarm isn't supposed to go off for another fifteen minutes. Go back to sleep? No, probably should get up. Go for the bus early. Is that good? Don't want to seem uppity... but they appreciate initiative. 10 minutes early? 20? 15.

Sam and I board the bus before the sun comes up and talk about swimming and Jane Austen (she is pro and I am con but we don't let this come between us.) There is a general buzz on the bus despite the early hour and the fact that the sun has yet to come out. This is the day. Today we become official cast members. The sun makes its way up and illuminates the dream factory.

Aforementioned factory.

Move all the way through to the other side of the lobby. Ok, I seem dressed appropriately. That's good. There are so many of us and we're so close in here. She's calling out numbers. There's Aimee (another Fairy Godmother) but she's off with another group. Group 7. That's me. It's starting. This is real life? No, think it with confidence. This is real life.

We move through the university to our check in area and are promptly handed our Walt Disney Company ID cards. "The most powerful card in Central Florida," we're told shortly after. Thus begins our Traditions training. It begins fairly typically, basic job safety and common sense stuff that every company has to tell new employees to avoid a call from Edgar Snyder (or appropriate TV attorney for your area.) But then we are introduced to the four keys to the Disney way of doing things and, because it's Disney, the only way to really learn them is to head to the show to see them in action.

The most powerful piece of plastic in the entire Central Florida region. No, really.

We're in the Utilidor, under the Magic Kingdom. That's Cinderella. THAT. IS. FREAKING. CINDERELLA! She also likes Coach bags. I knew I had princess taste. Is this where I think it is? We have to be under the castle. Yes, there's the stairs to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. That's how we do it.  

There are three people in our group that have never been to the Magic Kingdom. They are Disneyland people and they are so completely not prepared for how the Florida Project has turned out. Our trainer pulls them to the front of the group as we round the corner and move from Backstage to On Stage. They are already blown away by the recent Main Street USA remodel. (To be fair, so am I and I am an old Disney veteran.) I focus on them as we turn the corner and the Castle comes in to view and their reaction is perfect. Jaws drop, eyes widen, and one of the boys sums it up perfectly, "This is awesome..." He means it in the original sense of the word.

I'm never going to remember all this history. We probably won't be tested. Still... This is going really fast. I'm not going to remember all of these guidelines. No, you don't have to. The rules for Disney conduct are how you have always lived your life. You are Disney. Right? No, confident. Right.

There's a knock and we all immediately turn to see who's at the door. We are primarily concerned that it is someone coming to quiz us on all the information we've just been bombarded with (in the most pleasant way possible, of course.) Then the door opens and it is the boss. THE boss. Mickey Mouse bounds in the door with a present in hand and the room erupts in the kind of cheering that would imply we hadn't spent the whole morning talking about how several people in the room were "Mouse Height" character performers. We all hug the boss (the company's sexual harassment policy doesn't extend to mice) and then comes the moment I have been waiting for since I was nine years old. We form a line and receive the badge of honor, the sign that we have arrived, the name tag. My hand is actually sweating as I reach for it. My hands never sweat. They never even get above freezing temperature.

Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't you cry in front of Mickey. This is happening. This is real life. That name tag says my name. Morgan, University of Pittsburgh. That's me. That's me! Be cool. 

...Or giggle audibly. Yeah, that works too...

They certainly do.