They are looking for an ex-FBI guy or gal.

Strange company. I was employed by them for 2 months. I had the Boss From Hell, and I chose to tell him so one day. Not a good career decision, but what the heck--he was the closest definition of an a**hole I've ever met.

I did get to learn much about the theme parks and the inner workings of the company. Of the former, they have tunnels everywhere, and a basketball half-court in the top of the Matterhorn mountain. Of the latter, watch your back--I've never seen such vicious politics in one company. Everyone is a prima donna, and is constantly clawing for power.

Geez, that sounds familiar. Now where else do these conditions exist?
JJK

I worked for Disney World in Florida for over ten years as a sound engineer. During that time, I saw it go from being about as cool a job as you could have to being an absolute nightmare.

When I first started, there were live bands and pit orchestras everywhere. If you did sound for a show, you were mixing a full show with lots of live mics, direct instrument feeds, cart tape show cues, etc. It was so much fun. The shows were simply awesome. The singers and dancers were wonderfully talented, the material was well written, the show was challenging to pull off, and it was really fun.

Slowly everything changed though. They got rid of almost all the musicians and replaced them first with tapes, then with CDs and minidiscs. Vocal tracks started slipping in with the background music and entertainers started lip-synching instead of really singing. The talented performers contracts weren't renewed and in their place where put some pretty average kids with no real talent who would work for seven or eight dollars an hour.

Since doing audio and lighting was now a matter of running CD player A and CD player B, people with no technical training or gift were put into audio and lighting positions. Wages stagnated and hours were increased. These McDonalds style shows could be done on the hour. You could do two eight hour shifts and have 16 shows.

When the season slowed down, Disney would put you on a shift where you got in early in the morning, had a three hour unpaid lunch break, then send you home late in the evening, still only paying you for an eight hour day. Try doing that as a single father!

It is hard to express the difference between working on three kick ass shows a day which were real performances and 10 or more of these lame ass talent free monstrosities that pass as shows. I was absolutely sure that this approach would backfire and that the crowds who thronged the parks each day enduring hours of wait time would hate the new format but I was wrong. Disney just added some new fancy roller coasters and attendance and profits rose higher than ever.

I have a joke that isn't funny to most people but is just hysterical to anyone who has worked for Disney:

Heaven and Hell are actually the same place: a theme park. If you go to Heaven you go there as a guest but if you go to Hell you go there as an employee.

Yeah I know that Disney is Mickey and family fun and all that, but I really hate that place.

M~I~C
K~E~Y
why? because we love you

I'm planning to retire to Orlando to work at WDW in a cheesy gift shop in about 20 years; you guys are a serious buzzkill.

Now I'll just have to work in the post office, where things are a lot less stressful...

Walt is spinning in his grave!

Laurence, my EX-sister-and-law then thru the a similar experience at 6 FLags about 10-12 years ago too. She worked(management) in choreography of the stage productions and parades, loved it for the first 6 years, then something changed, not sure of all the details, but stage production was no longer exciting. She quit, took a job,at 1/6 of the pay at best, planning and executing theater dining or what ever its called in Indianapolis, IN, but loves her work!.

Walt is spinning in his grave!

I don't think so.
I've had more than a few conversations with people who used to work there (position at the time deliberately not mentioned) and they all told me that Walt was one of the biggest SOBs that ever existed.
His public and corporate persona were very, very different.

They describe the company as one to which every person in their field dreams of working at - until they actually get a job there. Then they can't wait to leave :-(
The company work philosophy was something along the lines of "you work for us so we own every single thing you do for us, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem to you or us".

Mike

Wasn't he reported to be a CIA operative, one of those ugly, secretive people who spy on their own countrymen?

I think it was giving up show biz names during the Joe McCarthy red-scare era (rather than be ostracized from Hollywood for asserting his First Amendment rights). Sort of like collaborating with the Nazis.

Reminds me of the carousel in Griffith Park near where I live now. It was bought and put there by Disney, who removed the colorful zoo animals and replaced them with all horses of the same design and color, so all the kids could ride exactly the same horse.

Disney can be seen as one of the originators of "corporate culture," that mindless trend which takes away a few more personal liberties every year.

P.S. A friend of mine works in Dreamworks' animation division, though, and loves it.

Disney Pictures came to my town two years ago to film Wild Hogs.
In keeping with the theme of this thread, I'll confirm that Disney Pictures were probably the rudest crew I've come across.

Throughout the Bahamas there are Disney Island and such things, and everyone I've talked to who worked there said it is was an awful experience.

Here in Abaco, Disney came into an island to put in a generic cruise ship stop over place. It was recommended that they not do that, due to the notoriously dangerous channel that they would be using.

Well, it was dangerous. A couple years later, one day after a bad entrance and some injuries, they just left. Left everything behind: jetskis, sound and lightening equipment (all out in the salt air and rain), bulding materials, vats of leaking desiel, even trailers filled with pay slips and paper work, which become scattered all over the island (windows and doors were not locked and some weren't even closed). It was a real mess.

They moved to this other island, (far off the public radar of course) and pulled out all the reefs. Then they contacted a local group who builds reef balls because they wanted something for their guests to snorkel over.