Typical Post DCP Depression: 12 Things I Learned during/after My Disney College Program
It's true. It happened. I am back in Buffalo for the time being (-4 is too cold for my liking), and the reality of leaving Florida has begun to hit hard.
No more Space Mountain. No more angry guests. No more playing in the parks whenever I feel like it. No more space travelers. No more Patterson. No more Florida friends by my side.
Wow am I depressing! But let's be real here. I lived in a bubble for the past 5 months, and now it’s back to living with mom and dad, getting a big girl job, and bringing home the bacon. AKA moving on with my life.
All I can say is that even though the college program was a roller coaster of emotions, it brought me more joy and happiness than I can begin to describe and I would recommend it to anyone.
Now to the nitty gritty of the situation. Here are 10 Things I realized I learned during/after my program:
1. The first thing you miss is the people, that became your best friends and who you grew to love. We all took 5 months off from life to enjoy the program. We lived in the same apartments, worked for the same people, wore the same costumes, worked the same hours, shopped at the same places, and did the same things for fun. You were bound to make connections and good relationships. But after we all dispersed around the country? Skype and your imessege is all you got! Let me tell you it is a hard thing to process. Going from spending every second of every day with these people going through the same struggles as you, to not seeing them at all and not having that cast member life to share. THE STRUGGLE IS REAL.
You think to yourself: Are we still going to be friends? Should we Skype? Are we even on the same page anymore? I mean we both have those cool space mountain tshirts and drunken stories, butttt...
2. My social skills are out of this world. I got home and suddenly it was like I was the mingler of the century. You have to be able to communicate effectively in Disney as a cast member. You are always meeting people from all over the world whether it be guests or other cast members. Eventually it just comes naturally to start up a conversation with the guests in line because it is awkward otherwise. It truly is a wonderful experience to help make a guests' vacation better! And even though sometimes it is difficult, you learn to want to help people because it makes you fel good! Now at home, I am a social butterfly! I talk to everyone and am very good at communicating. Because of my newfound experience at pointing out those handy numbers (3 and 4 if you forgot because everyone forgets that they REALLY ARE TOGETHER), I even got a promotion when I got home to work the front desk at the daycare I teach at. Woo. Thanks Disney for giving me the edge on make believe and the fake Spanish I acquired.
3. Are we kidding with these Disney habits!? It is permanently stuck inside my head. I hiss at someone to get attention, I point at things with two fingers, and I could tell you if your child was above or below 44inches 20 ft away. Useless skills here, but at Disney I used them every day. I am even hissing at my parents to get their attention. For those of you who don't know, many cast members use hissing at certain locations so that we do not have to scream over the noisy guests to get their attention. This is to avoid: "JOSHUA THIS KID AINT TALL ENOUGH MAKE THEM EXIT" because frankly that's rude, and also you don't want the guests knowing you are secretly using code to talk bad about them.
4. Transtar will always be the devil. Bring a car. Mine missed me so much. It was mutual. It was always a pain in the butt if you were running late because that made it near impossible to catch the right bus when the wrong bus didn't come for another hour after that. It was even worse when you were completely ready and waiting for the bus with all the other Disney slaves, but of course the A or B bus that went to the Magic Kingdom area were late. Of course we are the most populated park so these buses were usually on time simply because there were a lot more of us who could potentially form an angry mob. It was either that or I was convinced the drivers were trying to kill us with their crazy driving or broken down buses. I made friends who had cars thank goodness! But I still needed to get my ass ready to get to their apartment on time. LAME. I wish I would have taken the auto train and brought my car. Be grateful if you have one, because not being able to provide your own transportation, sucks.
5. Sharing a fridge with 5 other people might very well be easier than sharing it with your mom. Since I got home, my mother has been doing what she does best: smothering me. Independence was at an all-time high when I lived in FL, especially when I had to carry my groceries a mile back to Patterson from Publix because the devil was never on time for that either. [This one time I was struggling so much to walk home a girl who also lived in Patterson stopped to help me carry them the rest of the way and I was forever grateful. My advice? Rent a cart from the front desk, or make friends with cars. Even better? BRING YOUR OWN CAR.] But anyways, being at home is sometimes worse. My roommates were pretty good at filling up the fridge and leaving no space, but they left my stuff alone. I can never find anything to eat now at home and my parents are always touching the food I buy! Enjoy the independence of buying your own groceries even if you have to ride the struggle bus when sharing the fridge, or actually riding the struggle bus that is Transtar.
6. The Walt Disney Company is not all pixie dust and happy endings. This company is so huge! I was cast member 900,000 something! You can get lost in the sauce very easily. Especially if you work at a place as populated as I did (Magic Kingdom). I knew my managers, but most of them didn't know me. I mean we had 13. I was close with some of my coordinators, but only the ones that worked nights with us. Getting time off near the end, was impossible and trading for earlier shifts was a joke because of a lovely thing called double back (double pay for working a shift within 8 hrs of your last), and we 'cps' were only scheduled at the wee hours of the night. Not to mention I wouldn't have survived without the mandatory min wage increase! I felt broke 99.9% of the time, but worked a ridiculous amount of hours at a place I grew dislike going to. So a big 'kiss my butt' goes out to the Walt Disney Company for those particular struggles.
7. You miss your hometown food and sports and comradery. You know how you never really truly miss something until you don’t have it? Well that was the case here. I was always going on about buffalo pizza. I couldn’t stand the flat pizza Florida had to offer. There were many food items that I missed from Buffalo, and realized it only after I left, and now that Im back I cant get enough of it! I was in a world of Chic fil a and Wawa and was a little lost. ( we don’t have those in NY!) It was good, but not familiar. The community was another thing I missed about Buffalo. Everywhere I go here now during the winter I see Bills jerseys! It is practically illegal to not be a bills fan and love good pizza and wings from Picassos. If you miss anything about home when you are there, it is the food and things you do along with it. So don’t take the uniqueness of your home for granted! Make sure you bring some of those comforts with you to make the transition easier.
8. You. are. so. bored. Even with a pile of work on your desk, you wish you could ride Space Mountain one more time. No more ‘hey I feel like Epcot for dinner’ or ‘hey we’re bored so let’s head to Magic Kingdom early and blow some of these paper fastpasses we have before work.’ Now it’s should I eat before I watch the bachelor by myself or should I eat while I watch the bachelor by myself? No one understands the level of boredom unless they have done the program and went home to practically nothing to do. Not to mention everything reminds you of those times you had in Florida but can’t share with anyone because NO ONE UNDERSTANDS.
9. You eat healthier because bingeing at 3am isn't the norm anymore. It was like a ritual to leave work, get a ride home with my friend James, and stop at McTaco (Which is when you go through the drive through at taco Bell because the dining room is closed and eat it at Mcdonalds) while the black market of trading paper fastpasses for different parks and rides ensues. When you go to work at 6 and have your dinner at 10, your eating schedule gets very off. So by the wee hours of the morning we were starving and the only thing open was McTaco! So it was great to hang out and joke about the day while shoving fast food in your face. Until you wake up one day and realize you feel so crappy and have gained 45 pounds. At home there is no one to binge with at 3am, you settle for a turkey sandwich at lunch at a normal hour and a cookie before dinner and call it a day. I miss the company and laughs, but not the weight gain. Sad, but true.
10. You can wear whatever you want and not adhere to the 'Disney Look'. I live in a warm state where it is practically summer most of the year, yet I am not allowed to have on anything but nude nail polish and natural hair color. Oh also I have to wear my super flattering space traveler costume with pants and shirts that NEVER FIT RIGHT. Now I am free. I can wear whatever I want to work within the guidelines, and all the clothes are mine. I don’t have to wear something that 900 other cast members have worn and dirtied before. Can I mention that this is still haunting me? I just got a letter from Costuming that said I never returned a pair of those damn pants ( How do they know where I live!?). Why not you ask? Because someone picked them up in the break room one day and decided they wanted to keep them forever. I don’t understand why. But now if I do not return said pants with the return label I was given I am FORBIDDEN to work with the company ever again. Moving down into the underworld of Disney with those terminated or have negatively affected rehire status. I don’t have the pants so I will have to yet again empty my pockets to Disney 200 miles away. PERFECT. However since I am sneaky and somehow missed scanning one of those eternal grey Tomorrowland shirts when leaving costuming one day, one still sits in my closet on Buffalo as a free souvenir from all the space traveling I did. Shhhhhh. Don’t tell.
11. There are things I miss, that I never would have imagined missing. The hissing, its so convenient! The costume, I never had to worry about buying clothes. That ugly water bottle, because I was part of something bigger. The west clock bus, because only cast members ride that bus. Costuming, it was a privilege to wear the nasty thing. Publix, because it meant I was in the south. House of Blues, because it was a place to have fun with other cast members. Main gates, I had the honor of going to the parks for free. An apartment, small and cramped, but my own. People who get your Disney references, I JUST WANT TO BE A PART OF THAT WORLD. Calling everyone a space traveler, because that was more than okay, it was expected. Telling guests where the best place to watch the fireworks or get a pretzel or letting the cute little boy who loves anything to do with space ride again and not wait in line, because that was what being a cast member was, going above and beyond to make that vacation magical. By the end of my program, I was so excited to be free of all of those things , now I wish I had them back.
12. With all the tears, hard times, good times, and messy times, you're a better person because of it. Even though you cried because you didn’t want your brother to leave after he visited. Even though sometimes you dreaded going to work because you didn’t want to be at load for 45 minutes. Even though you complained when it was too hot or sweaty or sometimes too cold. Even though you hated the devil buses. Even though the guests drove you bonkers. Even though not all cast members are people you like. Even though you hated the company as a whole sometimes because you didn’t make any money. Even though your best friends on the program sometimes annoyed you because you spent every second together.
I am a changed person because of this program and I do not regret any part of it. I have been changed for the better, and for that I will forever be grateful. Working for Disney above all taught me to love the life I have and cherish every moment.