Today’s guest Blogger: Kevin Hicks - HFO

I’ve always had a strict rule against blogging about work on my website. When deciding what I wanted to write about on DougMeade.com, I figured, it wasn’t my website, so I could blog about anything and it would be okay. The only thing worth blogging about right now is work, so I’ll do that. However, to prevent the obvious bad karma that could come my way, I’ll change the names of everyone and everything to protect the innocent. I’ll be using different ways to explain my problems, some may confuse you, and some might register. But here is my story….

About 4 years ago, I was hired to be a street sweeper at Disney Land, I enjoyed my job, and learned fast at how to sweep streets. After a year, I was contacted by “Mickey” at Disney World, the mother ship. Mickey said that they had an opening for a “ride technician” at Disney World, and so I took that step up and got to run my own ride. After six months as the ride technician, I realized that Mickey and I weren’t seeing eye to eye. I was hoping that this Mickey, who had been Mickey for several years, would step down and give his Mickey costume to someone else. My dream came true. A new Mickey was fitted after about 8 months of me being a Ride Technician. This Mickey was much much better. He taught me alot about what being a Ride Technician is all about, and he taught me about the type of character I want to be.

Being the type of person that this Mickey was, he knew alot about reading people, and how to get the most out of them, while still keeping them happy. He was a godsend in my eyes. After two years, Mickey realized that my potential was not being maximized as a Ride Technician, and my true calling in life was to be “Goofy”. He felt that being Goofy more fit my personality and once we found my replacement for ride technician, I would move into the Goofy role, and begin right away. He would train me on being Goofy, and I would be the best. This was very exciting to me and my family.

Right around the time that we were flourishing in “Frontier Land”, we were given a jolt when the head person who overseas Frontier Land was replaced by the person who oversaw “Fantasy Land”. We didn’t think that it was that big a deal, until we realized that Mickey and the Manager of Fantasy Land, (we’ll call him Captain Hook) didn’t get along. Captain Hook decided that he was going to change Mickey into the type of Mickey he thought Mickey should be. Well Mickey was having none of that, and last Monday decided to call it quits.

I still haven’t moved into the role of Goofy yet, even though I’ve been told a million times, that my time was coming. It was all Mickey’s idea to move me into the Goofy role, but now he’s gone, and I have to prove to Captain Hook, that I should be Goofy. Last week he told me that he intends on moving me into the Goofy position, but right now, he needs me to operate my ride with less costs, and maximum benefit to the patrons. He keeps informing me, in a threatening tone, that I need to concentrate on my ride, and not worry about being goofy

I think that I will be Goofy better than any Goofy to ever work at Frontierland. There is another Goofy there, and he’s good, but he’s been Goofy for 8 years, and is getting burnt out.

I’ll admit that my financial numbers as the Ride Technician are not the best, but my ride technician assistant injured his back on the job, and milked us for all the time he could. This affected my attitude and financial goals negatively. I’m not going to make any excuses for myself, I had a poor year in terms of meeting my numbers, but I tried hard.

Don’t you think that if Disney is in the market for making dreams come true, and everyone thinks I’ll be a better Goofy than Ride Technician, wouldn’t they move me into that position. We have a staff meeting this week to introduce the new Mickey, I just hope he sees that I’m Goofy.

I’ll keep you up to date