Reflections on my Previous CRP Ep. 1
I woke up feeling like I wanted to write, but I have nothing much to say about my upcoming interview for now. So, instead, I figured I'd take some time to look back on my experience working in the Canada pavilion from 2023 to 2024.
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Today, I thought I'd start by explaining what it was I did last time I worked for the Walt Disney company.
On my last CRP, I worked as a non-tipped food and beverage cast member. That means I worked both out at the maple popcorn cart, and in Le Cellier as a greeter, seater, and setter.
There were 7 different positions you could pick up when you clocked in for work and here they are, from my least to most loved:
Stocking was HARD WORK. I respect anyone who was scheduled this shift on the regular. I however, avoided it like the plague. Stockers would clock in at 10am and work all the way until 6:30pm. So it's a great role if you want more hours. But it's grueling in the summer. As a stocker, my job was to make sure that the popcorn cart always had enough ingredients, beer kegs, and other various products to ensure they could continue sales smoothly. When things were running low, I'd make a handwritten list, grab a cart, and head backstage to retrieve it all from various storage containers and walk-in coolers. Sometimes, that meant pushing around carts that weighed 150-200lbs in 40° heat. Yuck. Being a stocker also meant you had to have excellent time management because you had to make sure you took your 1h break early enough to be able to accomplish all your afternoon tasks. And that brings me to what I thought was the most stressful part of stocking: "bread and ottawa". When I was the stocker, I was responsible for preparing Le Cellier's pretzel bread for the next day and for preparing batches of Ottawa Apple. To prepare the pretzel break, I had to open up boxes of mini pretzel breads that had been shipped in from Kitchener, Ontario and I then had to set them all out on trays. You may be asking yourself "Well that doesn't sound so bad! How many trays did you have to prepare?". THE ANSWER IS 24-30 TRAYS! And then when that was done, I had to prepare batches of Ottawa Apple, the signature cocktail we served at the popcorn cart. Ottawa Apple is made up of maple whiskey, cranberry juice, and apple syrup. Sounds easy right? Incorrect. The mixing of the drinks was pretty simple if you could do the math to find the right proportions of ingredients. The hardest part for me was handling all the garbage and recycling that came after making all these drinks. It was messy messy messy and I strongly disliked the whole ordeal. Hence why I would try and trade away any stock shifts I was assigned. I think I only worked 3 or 4 of them the whole year I was there.
Of the three roles at the popcorn cart, being at the register was probably my least favourite. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it was quite fun. But most of the time, it was quite monotonous. Being at register is exactly what it sounds like, you would stand at one of 2 cash registers at the popcorn cart and would process the sales of maple popcorn, beer, bottled beverages, pre-mixed cocktails, and popcorn buckets. Let me tell you something about American money: it stinks so bad. I don't know where people are keeping this money for it to develop such a pungence, but good god it can be truly awful. Sometimes, being on reg was wonderful. When we weren't in the craziest rush, I was able to have some really lovely interactions with guests. I'd chat with them about Canada while I rang them up. Plus, we used to use these fun hand signals to let the other people behind the popcorn cart know what to start preparing. We'd make some antlers to tell people to pour a moosehead lager, and we'd make a shark fin on our head to tell them to pour a "la fin du monde". So it wasn't all bad. But man did I ever get bored. It would get quite monotonous to be running through the same script for 3 hours at a time. "Hi! How are we doing today?" "What can I get you today?" "We have coke, diet coke, water, and red powerade" "Nope. No blue. Just red." "Yes, its sweet popcorn." "No sorry, we don't have salty popcorn". "Did you want the single serving of maple popcorn or the bucket?" "The bucket is 15$ and after that, refills are 2.25$." "We have 2 beers on tap: moosehead lager and la fin du monde." "Moosehead lager is a pale ale, similar to a budlight while La Fin du Monde is a triple style golden ale with citus-y undertones." You get the picture. Very repetitive stuff. And since I was in a very guest facing role, I didn't have much freedom to chat with my coworkers at cart, which was my favourite hobby.
Another role at the popcorn cart was preparing and serving the alcoholic beverages that people ordered. I'd stand towards the end of the cart and pour the beers, trying to get the least amount of head on them as possible. I'd also have to grab bottled drinks from the cooler and prepare the Ottawa Apples with the right ratio of ice to pre-mixed cocktail. It wasn't terribly complicated work, but it was more entertaining than being on reg. I used to like to challenge myself to eavesdrop on people ordering so I could have their drinks ready before they even finished paying. It was a fun game to play. When there was a backlog though, and people were lined up all the way to the merch cart, it was significantly less enjoyable. Have to double check people's receipts and have them watch me prepare their drinks in front of them wasn't always a good time. More than once, I had to endure older gentlemen's comments about the amount of foam in their beers (I'D LIKE TO SEE YOU DO BETTER CHAD). Since it was so hot, the coolers couldn't keep the beers cool enough to not be foamy and so people got a little annoyed sometimes. And god forbid a keg tap. Then, someone would have to abandon ship and head all the way back to the walk-in cooler backstage to grab a new one while guests all wait (im)patiently. Good good times.
If I had to work out at the popcorn cart in the Florida heat, my favourite place to be was in the corn itself. I loved being able to chill behind the popcorn kettle and chitchat with my fellow coworkers or my coordinator while I filled single serve containers and buckets. I also take great pride in the fact that I never burned a single batch of popcorn my entire year in Florida! (I did, however, once forget to add the maple sugar to the popcorn and just popped regular, bland popcorn... OOPS!). I loved the process of making the popcorn and the satisfaction of watching it come out all sticky and steamy and delicious. I liked that we had to hammer away at it with our scoop when it cooled and hardened all stuck together. I also liked that it was simple. If I had a headache, or just wasn't in the most magical mood, I'd always request to be "one with the corn". It was my version of a quiet corner at work.
It won't come as a surprise to anyone who knows me that my top 3 roles are all in the restaurant. Seater, however, was my least favourite by the end of my program. As a seater, your job is to guide parties from the Le Cellier lobby to their assigned table, give them a welcome speech, share a fun fact about Canada, and then return to the greeter podium to repeat it all over again. When I first started my program, this was my absolute favourite role. I loved the challenge of memorizing the restaurant's seating chart and the thrill of making guests smile with your fun facts. Once I'd mastered the standard spiel, I started looking up my own fun facts about the different provinces to share with guests:
British Columbia: I loved to tell guests that in British Columbia, it is illegal to "hunt big foot".
Alberta: I'd tell guests that Alberta is our wild west, with the largest population of wild, undomesticated horses in the wild.
Saskatchewan: Saskatchewan produces over half of Canada's wheat. And then I'd make a connection to the bread service they'd be receiving shortly.
Manitoba: I loved to tell guests that Manitoba is home to Churchill, the polar bear capital of the world.
The Territories: I loved to tell them that our northern territories have parts of the year where there is sunlight all day long.
Ontario: I would tell them that Ontario is home to our capital city of Ottawa and is where our Prime Minister (Justin Trudeau, at the time) worked!
Quebec: I'd tell them that Quebec is the only completely French province in Canada and the birthplace of poutine.
New Brunswick: New Brunswick is our only truly bilingual province.
Newfoundland: I would tell them that Newfoundland is home to a large puffin population
Prince Edward Island: Whenever I sat anyone in PEI, I loved to tell them of Canada's favourite redhead: Anne of Green Gables.
Seating was actually most fun when the restaurant wasn't too slammed because I could really take my time interacting with guests and asking them about their experiences with Canada. By the end of my program, I barely ever shared section specific facts anymore, usually opting to ask people if they'd ever been to Canada before and taking the conversation from there. Sometimes, they'd ask me about my home province, sometimes I'd recommend places to visit, and sometimes, I'd even teach them some French!
For a huge chunk of my program, setting was my favourite position to be in. As a setter, my job was to stay in the dining room, prepare trays with cutlery, bread, and napkins, and set tables for new guests once servers had cleared them. I loved rushing around the dining room, wiping tables and setting them as fast as I could. It was hard work, but I liked that I could just put my head down and zoom around. I also loved the validation I got from the servers and the assignors when I was quick. It felt so good to be helpful and be recognized for it. When assignors would request to have me be a setter for them, HUGE ego boost. The more I set, the more I learned how to read the dining room and anticipate which tables were going to be getting up soon. That meant I could be ready to help the servers bus their table and I could have a new tray ready to go in advance. It was like playing a big strategy game. The one downside to setting was that on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, you were responsible for unpacking the shipment of clean linens for the restaurant. That meant I had to go outside (often in the scorching heat) and heave large bags of cloth around for about an hour. Sometimes, it was nice to just listen to some music and get a workout in. But other times, it was quite yuck. Thats probably the only reason setting wasn't my #1.
Oh how I LOVED being a greeter at Le Cellier. It was by far the most stimulating, challenging, and rewarding part of working in the Canada pavilion as a non-tipped CM. When I was greeter, my job was to check guests in for their reservations, communicate any discrepancies or changes to the assignor, and (god forbid) let guests know if they'd have to wait for their table to be ready. I think what I loved most about greeting was that it was both more complicated and more guest-facing than the rest of the roles. There was a very specific order that I'd have to ask guests questions when they went to check in:
Party size (confirm Adults and Children)
If there are children, ask if they need high chairs
Ask about any accessibility requirements
Any allergies (indicate if adult or children and how many
Are they intending to use a dining package
And most importantly, are they all there? (if not, you had to mark them as NAH and indicate when they all arrived)
But that wasn't all. There were so many individual scenarios that I had to deal with as they came up. Like what to do if a guest was late for their reservation and wanted to have it restored. And what to do if a guest had made a reservation for 4, not thinking they had to count their 2 infants (so a total of 6 people, not 4). Figuring out how to handle these cases and how to communicate tough realities with guests in a way that kept their experience magical was a real challenge for me and left me feeling so fulfilled when I succeeded. I also loved getting to work directly with our reservation system on the iPad. It always made me feel so special to be the one working the computer. I think thats why I thrived most in the greeter role. I loved being challenged and always having to have my brain turned on. I liked being pushed to problem-solve and to stay on top of things. If they'd let me go back and just be a greeter for the whole year, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
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And that's that! Thats what my day to day work life consisted of! Obviously, sometimes we had some other various tasks. We'd occasionally get asked to fold napkins, to go pin trade, or to assist the stocker. Sometimes, we'd help servers complete their side work (filling water pitchers, bringing out clean cutlery, bringing out fresh linens, etc). But mostly, it was these 7 tasks. Often, in a day, you'd get assigned to 2-3 different tasks during your shift. And the rotation was nice. It kept things fresh and fun. I loved being a Canadian CRP.
