We were people on a mission

A couple of years ago, news reports said that Americans hated their jobs more than ever before in the past 20 years, with fewer than half saying they were satisfied.

If whatever survey produced those statistics had been taken at 1313 Harbor Blvd. in the early 1980s, the figures would have been strikingly different. When I worked as a Cast Member then, I loved being at Disneyland, and most of the people that I knew felt pretty much the same way.

I'm not saying that things were fun all the time. When attendance hit around 80,000 on a hot August afternoon, for example, the Park could be feel like far less than the Happiest Place on Earth. But those times couldn't last. The Disneyland show back then just wasn't like a typical job, where days are consumed by quotas, meetings, ongoing projects, and often constant stress. When Jack Wagner announced that the Magic Kingdom had ended its normal operating day, whatever tensions might have built up evaporated along with the guests headed down Main Street. If our job involved money, we dumped it into mechanical sorters, tallied up our bills, and dumped it at a Cash Control window. It wasn't our reason for being there. In the pre-Eisner and Wells days, Walt Disney Productions didn't need to stress over it. Had corporate raiders not launched a takeover attempt, those days might well have continued.

Our mission then was creating happiness. Whether we pursued it by taking guests to Mars or just pointing them to the nearest restroom, we worked hard to get our visitors to the place they had come to visit. I think that even on the hard days, most of us really did believe in the values—and the value—that Walt believed in bringing to people. That's what made us who we were then, and who we have become thirty years later.

It took people to make the dream a reality

If you clocked into a role in the Disneyland show during the 1980s, you were a part of something extraordinarily special. Something that exists now only in memories and old photos, images of a time when a job at Disneyland meant being part of a huge extended family, all working together in a showplace of beauty and magic. The next few posts will salute some of those family members.

All of us knew that the work we made look easy was anything but. It could be awfully hard to create happiness for others, especially when something in your life wasn't going right. Once you passed through Harbor House, though, you could start leaving whatever the problem was behind, at least for an eight-hour shift. As you headed to Wardrobe to sign out your costume and back to the locker room to change, getting ready to go onstage took over. And as you stepped through one of the many doors or passages connecting the backstage world to the Magic Kingdom, Disneyland transformed negative thing might have been taking up space in your mind.

As a Cast Member then, you were as much icon as employee. You were Disneyland. Sure, you faced irate guests, rude teenagers, people who resisted giving in to the happy feelings that permeated our beautiful Park. But they were in the minority. Most people sought Disneyland magic eagerly, and they expected it to emanate from you as soon as you emerged, in the form of smiles, laughter, and uncommon courtesy.

You had to make that happen regardless of personal circumstances. There's nowhere to hide unhappiness onstage, so you were forced to leave it outside the berm. And that was when the magic really occurred. As you worked to create happiness for others, you created it in yourself. If you went to work happy, you ended up feeling even better.

As guests looked "to the name Walt Disney for the finest in family entertainment," they were looking at us. Whether we stood on the PeopleMover's loading platform like these two, worked in Outdoor Vending like I did, or performed any of the myriad other roles in the Show, we looked back from behind smiles, vented behind the scenes, and finished off at Acapulco's, Denny's, or HoJo's. Then did it again on the next day or night shift.

Maybe the real proof that those days at the Park were something else is that writing about them now has almost the same effect on me as working during them did. As I recall those memories and look back at those old photos, I feel almost as happy as I did standing in Town Square holding a bright new bunch of Mickey Mouse balloons.

If this blog creates a similar feeling for you, I feel even better.

Tune out, turn on, get with it

The Best Possible Job's very first post featured the University of Disneyland's Showmanship...Disneyland Style. When I was a Cast Member in 1983, I learned the principles that Walt, Van, and the rest set out as they were explained in that booklet. Disney training enhanced both my Park performance and my life outside the berm, making those years a wonderful time to recall.

The Disney way as it was then is still valuable today. In some ways, it's even more so. So as we all step onstage into a fresh 2010, here are some good old words from Showmanship. I hope that they help my fifteen(!) loyal readers and everyone else have a happy new year:

Take a look at this morning's paper...at least six stories of bad news. This...and other personal and world troubles are what we want to tune out when we get ready to play our roles in the show. This is why our "stage" is surrounded by an earthen berm...to tune out the outside world.

And then, we have to turn on to the atmosphere...the fun...the magic of the show. It's a fresh show every day for our guests...and this requires fresh attitudes on our parts. We're not saying it won't be hard work...it will also be exciting and challenging work. After all, that's what show biz is all about.

To "get with it" is a show business term. It means getting in the mood of the show...the feeling of the play...or the "theme" of the play...or the "theme" of the area. This is no place for a Grouchy Gus...a Sad Sam or a Harried Harriet. We don't want these type people in our cast. Disneyland is a fun show...not a sad story.

If you tune out the outside world...turn on to Disneyland and get with it, you'll find that you'll be helping to create a very important thing in life.

I'm looking forward to this year, and to sharing more Cast memories with you all. Cheers.

Purpose

Many of us reflect on the purpose of life when Decembers come around. Walt was born today, and one of his quotes about his most famous creation seems like both a good tribute to the man and a fine thought to inspire those resolving things for the next year and beyond:

All we ever intended for him or expected of him was that he should continue to make people everywhere chuckle with him and at him. We didn't burden him with any social symbolism, we made him no mouth piece for frustrations or harsh satire. Mickey was simply a little personality assigned to the purposes of laughter.

The simple purpose of bringing joy to others. Happy birthday, Walt. And thank you from all of us for the gift.

Holidayland

Now that we're past the official "busiest shopping day of the year," it's time to make your list and check it twice. Here are ten of my Disneyland holiday wishes. Feel free to add your own!

A new Tomorrowland inspired by science and filled with silver and blue optimism;

A PeopleMover or similar advanced transportation system for a leisurely tour of said new Tomorrowland;

A Skyway over Fantasyland to the new Tomorrowland wished for previously;

A magic shop in Fantasyland;

A One-Of-A-Kind antiques shop in New Orleans Square;

A Keel Boat trip around the Rivers of America;

A Plaza Gardens stage with big bands;

A new Circle-Vision 360 theater with a film on something that could make particularly good use of the format, like global climate change;

A return to the Disneyland look; and

A special "classic" month at the Magic Kingdom, with the old characters, costumes, merchandise, music, parades, etc. If the National Hockey League can play outdoor games in historic uniforms every season, Disneyland could pull this off for sure.

Build me up Buttercup

The Best Possible Job has been off the clock for a while due to family matters. We all have to face certain issues, but that doesn't make them any easier. Sometimes you need something to build yourself back up before things look all right again.

At times like that, nothing's cheerier than flowers. Even artificial ones like the blooms and blossoms that one spilled out onto West Center Street off Disneyland's Main Street. The flower market made it through the first half of the eighties when I was a Cast Member, and I remember vividly the pleasant feeling of stepping onstage through the door tucked in the back. Evicted by the unstoppable force that squeezes commerce into every once-quiet spot in the "Resort," the "small plants and unusual artificial flowers" are gone now. Most modern guests probably don't even notice.

Those who grow up with today's Disneyland are steeped in a Park where period graphics on stores selling everyday plush have taken over the themed experience that Main Street was once. Then, it wasn't just printed signs with nostalgic type and curlicues. Walt's Main Street had a flower market, a bank, a general store, a Carefree Corner because they helped create the state of mind that we imagine existed in bygone days. How many kids with their own iPhones pick up the receivers in the Market House and listen in to 1890 party line conversations?

Probably not many. Fortunately, the Market House still stands. I haven't been to Anaheim since nearly as long ago as 1890, and I hope the old phones are still there, too. Things like the phones and places like the flower market provided a foundation for suspending belief that created the theme experience once so easy to find in the Magic Kingdom. Foundations like that help build you up when you'd rather be in another time.

Thanks to the Best Possible Job's (four) loyal readers and new friends whose kind words helped get this show back on the road. A smile and a song to you all.

Know the answers

Lesson three. Walt's innovation in guest relations wasn't the result of some hotel management program. It was basically an extended version of the Golden Rule. Simple, but never done better . . . as long as the effort was put in at every level, every day, every interaction with guests:

A question from a guest is never an interruption in our Disneyland VIP Plan. You're a walking, talking information booth . . . with a smile. It's no easy task to answer the same question 68 times . . . in the same patient and friendly way. You must remind yourself that most of our guests are strangers to our stage and as a rule they don't read directional signs. In fact, many of our foreign guests can't read English.

When people travel, they enjoy many things, but the most important factor is the human one . . . it's the PEOPLE THEY MEET that make the difference. It's you . . . our walking, talking information booth with a smile . . . who makes the difference.

Next: Accept people as they are