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Week 8

This week at Blizzard Beach I did my training in ticket selling. Before I could do my OJT I needed to take a class at Disney University called "Ticket Talk." This was an 8 hour class, which I was paid for, and it went over the basics of how to operate the ticketing program. It was only meant to give us a bird's eye view of tickets knowing that most of our learning would be done during OJT. This class to get us familiar with everything.

When I started my OJT I was again given the "Earning My Ears" ribbon to attach to my name tag. This was solely done to "protect" me from guests so they wouldn't yell or scream at me. I was given 3 days of OJT with ticket which wasn't nearly enough. While I felt the two days of OJT training was enough for working a turnstile there are just so many different tickets and different situations that arise when working a ticket booth for 3 days to be enough. Some things I learned how to perform: selling a ticket with cash or credit card, redeeming a voucher, reissuing a ticket, upgrading a ticket, cast tickets, annual passes, looking up lost ticket, and explaining all the different Disney tickets to our guests. Each one of these involves at least 5 steps and you have to know where to go and what to click in each situation. It was very confusing but at the end of the 3rd day I felt like I wouldn't be totally lost working on my own but knowing full well I didn't know everything that could come up.

I also got to experience something that rarely happens at the turnstiles, guests yelling at you. It is understandable when you consider just how much money a family will spend on tickets that they will be angry when they don't have an option they thought they did. Also, trying to explain the complexity of Disney tickets to the public is quite a challenge, and that increases 10 fold when the guest doesn't speak English. It was important to remember that the guest may be yelling at you but they aren't really yelling AT you, they are just needing someone to vent to and unfortunately that is Guest Relations.

I feel that the training and time spent inside the ticket booth will serve me well in the future. Not only do now have ticket selling experience at one of the most visited tourist attractions in the world, but I also learned more valuable guest service techniques. We are instructed to let a guest vent a bit and then respond with, "I am going to help you." This shows the guest that you were listening and that you care about their situation and are going to do your best to help them out.

I also learned about Disney Magic. It is a database that Disney has created for guests that receive any sort of comp from the company. Every guest who has had a comp issued for anything, tickets, room, dinning, or anything else is in the database. We can pull up the individual and see all of the comps the guest has received their entire lives and why they were given what they were. This is used to keep track of any guests that may be trying to take advantage of the Disney guest service and are just out to get free things from the company. The more comps a guest has received the less likely they are to receive one in the future.

My second Disney Leadership class was this week as well. We learned about how a successful business starts with making sure that the employees are happy. We then turned our attention to the Disney Leader Basics: I demonstrate a commitment to cast members, I know and manage my operation and teach it to cast members, I lead and monitor cast performance and operational improvements.

What we saw in this class was the very first thing that a new leader will learn when they are being trained by Disney. I was instantly able to see these basics in action when thinking of my manager Heather at Blizzard Beach. Heather is always visible and she knows the tickets and turnstiles inside out. She told me early on that if I ever had any questions on how she handled a guest situation the way she did to just ask. She has always been very open when it comes to dealing with difficult guests and why she did what she did.

I like the fact that my manager is always visible. I have worked many jobs where if a manager was seen coming it was a sure fire sign that something was wrong. At Disney though the managers are always present and sometimes they are just there to talk with cast members. They are always close by if you ever need them for something and I feel totally comfortable around my manager to the point where I don't even notice that she is there any more, that's how often she is around the turnstiles. This is something that I would like to do when I am in a manager position. I want to always be visible to my workers and not have it be a sign of bad things if they see me around.