Abandoning post

[BreakerVolant1081]

Some CMs are just a little more prone to create stupid employee tricks than others. A good example would be one girl, let's call her Juanita, who's working at the Fantasyland classics with me.

Our basic rotation starts with a position at the dispatch of one of the dark rides and then moves on to unload. Now, as I pieced together later, "Juanita" was at the dispatch when another colleage came up to grab pan and broom. Juanita thought she was bumped, and without looking around she moved on to Unload. The other girl didn't notice and went on her way with pan and broom.

When I was coming in from my break several minutes later, I found the dispatch abandoned, guests waiting, the LEDs showing a huge queue of vehicles in the last scenes of the ride, and a confused Juanita at Unload, wondering why on Earth the vehicles weren't moving!

Good thing I arrived in time to avoid an automatic e-stop and subsequent 101 (which happens after a few minutes of vehicle back-up). The cause for that one would have been hard to explain to Control.

[BirdMom]

ugh - hate it when that happens. You just brought to mind this be-atch r.o. we used to have on the West Side who thought she was too good for the rest of us. It was nearing the end of summer, busy afternoon at Mansion - about 10 to 4:00 p.m. I was on Load one and we noticed that there were starting to be gaps in the line coming up. Load two called the foyer to find out what was going on and he said he was completely backed up out the gate. We called the mid-shift lead, and he goes around the ride to find an abandoned E.R. at the bottom of the hallway. He did a quick head count and found that MARINA, yeah that's her name - she was a bitch, and I'm not protecting her at all - had left the ride. Someone upstairs had seen her walking off with her purse and books. So the next day she comes in and everybody is saying "what were you thinking?!" and she said "It was 3:45 and my time to walk!" So the A-lead, who had been left a note about her gaffe, told her "You aren't supposed to abandon your spot in the rotation unless someone came to bump you," and she snapped at him, "I'm in school, I have more important things to do than wait around for someone to bump me off the ride!" She didn't last too long after that. Gawd, we all hated her guts.

[LostMalfoy]

I had something like this happen to me on a day I was visiting as a guest with my friends. The group of us had decided to go on Tower in DCA and waited through the line, all the fun stuff. When we get in there, our ride operator gets everyone in the shaft, but then he seems to have disappeared...

Everyone there is belted in, locked mind you, and the gate has closed, but he didn't dispatch our elevator. We must have been sitting there for what seemed like ten minutes before we see another cast member...not our original bell hop...and he discovers that we've not yet gone. He asks what happened to our first guy, and none of us has any idea where he'd gone.

We eventually get sent up, but I still don't know what had happened to that guy. My friends and I thought he might have gone on his break without letting anyone know, but why wouldn't he have sent us up first at least? Oh well...that was a rather interesting day.

[CBeilby]

I'm sorry, but this is a MAJOR safety issue. In the case of the girl at Classics, it's a stupid, but understandable mistake. However, the girl at Mansion who did so intentionally should have been terminated IMMEDIATELY. In all the parks I've worked as a RO, it's been drummed into our heads that we NEVER abandon our positions unless we're relieved.

[BirdMom]

I'm sorry, but this is a MAJOR safety issue... the girl at Mansion who did so intentionally should have been terminated IMMEDIATELY

Dude - this happened back in 1990, so there's a lot of water under the bridge there. And it wasn't a safety issue in this case, it was a capacity issue - our line was going out the gate at a time when it normally didn't. We have two E.R.'s at the California Haunted Mansion, so that only one E.R. was operating here, so guests were still being brought downstairs. The only S.O.P. thing she did was switch off power on the E.R. when walking away from her spot in the rotation without being bumped. Also, the way our rotations used to work, we would lock the doors open, switch off power and momentarilly leave an E.R. empty after bumping the foyer person off to break, taking the E.R. downstairs and bumping Load One to Load Two, the Load Two person then taking the empty E.R. position in the rotation.

So unless there was the off-chance that some guest who had been in the portrait hallway had been a former R.O. on Mansion and trained on how to not only turn on the power, but take the E.R. back up to the foyer, no one could get hurt. And besides, unless you're down there all the time and your eyes have developed Vampire Vision (as we so lovingly called it), a guest just coming from daylight still had their eyes adjusting to the darkness and wouldn't have been able to see the subtle controls or know where the (hidden) control panel was anyway. And as I said, she didn't last too long after that - I still don't know if she was terminated or if she quit, because we didn't miss her and we didn't care.

But um, yeah. They always drove home the fact that we were not to leave our locations. We had one girl, when I was still in merchandise, who got terminated for walking away from a counter full of guests, leaving her cash register unlocked, so that she could get Michael Jackson's autograph. That was another no-no. Don't ask famous people for their autographs. That was also grounds for termination back in the day.

[Stduck]

Yes luckily enough the ER is not a safety position. Never had someone leave a post at Mansion. With CDS bumps come on little slips of paper now.

My favorite was when a fellow cast member forgot to pick up Load 2 after he brought down the ER (we were walking them down. For non mansion CMs you drop load 2 (a safety position) after it is clear of guests, walk to the ER take a load of guests down. Walk to Load 2 so that Load 1 can load the guests). I didn't load the guests, but they got really impatient standing there waiting for the cast member to get back from ER trip number 2.

[DLRFantasmic!Dan]

O k, this happened a few weeks ago, when I was on parades. We finished setting up out TL section, Matterhorn Way to The Hub, yes, that parade route is TL!! Anyways, I got bored just by walking around, so I went down to Astro to put some suntan lotion on me. I was greeted by Bob, a veteran of the Astro Orbitor. He asked me if I was going to bump him put to break, I told him that I was on parades, and he said, "o k." He was working with a new hire. He was deciding if one of us should go to End of Line, mind you, I am still on parades! So, he went to the hire to have her pick up end of line. I left Astro and I notice that new hire leaving the flight deck. I stood by a couple of minutes to see what happened, then I asked the new hire what she was doing, she said that she was going to pick up end of line, I finally told her that it would only be Bob on the flight deck, so she went back.

[SilverStyle]

I cant agree more, these are major safety's. However I have done this at tower, but have never left my elevator unattended. If I am dispatching to fast and waiting, I will go sit down instead of talking to the guest. I still come to dispatch in a few secs anywayz.

[screnwriter]

Some CMs are just a little more prone to create stupid employee tricks than others. A good example would be one girl, let's call her Juanita, who's working at the Fantasyland classics with me.

I worked Store Ops from 00' to 01' and worked with a variety of CM's who shouldnt even have been allowed to visit the park as guests, not to mention handling cash registers!

One standout was the weinie who I worked with at the old store at the exit of Rocket Rod's. I don't know what low self esteem workshop somebody was slumming at to find this prize but at one point, I had a long, WIDE line of guests buying merch as fast as I could ring them up. 'Rodney' (I don't remember his name or I'd give it!) just stood there at his cash register, being so lame that guests looked over at him and didn't even ask if he could help them! Every now and then he'd say (in a very weak voice - hardly above a whisper) "Does anybody need help?" I felt like telling people to go to him too, but I was so crushed I couldnt take even a second to do it as everyone just kept coming to me, very rushed. When I went on my break, 'Rodney' nearly had a coronary. I came back and he said he'd almost had to go home sick (with no backup? Without calling anyone?) because of the extreme stress that covering the store alone had caused him.

I wish!

Thank goodness I never saw the guy again. I'd love to know what genius in cast hiring put this idiot in a store.

[Maleficents Raven]

I've had this happen to me a few times in the hotel stores and it drives me nuts! One instance I was working at Mickey in Paradise (Paradise Pier Hotel) and got a call from Acorn's (Grand Californian Hotel) saying that "John" had to use the restroom and was all alone in his store. Well, there being more than one at Mickey's, I ran across the street to releave him and he just stands there, continuing to help guests (and his line was really long). Finally, when the store was just about empty, he tells me the reason he never left was because he had already gone to the restroom. "A guest came in who had been coming in and out all morning and said that she would watch the store for a moment until I got back."

And just last month we had yet another winner, "Chris". Chris wasn't all there and I'm amazed that he lasted as long as he did. I was alone at Mickey's, because that is just the way that store is (even though there should be more than one person there) and he came into the empty store. I was going home in not even ten minutes and took the time to let him know that he was going to be all alone. "If you need a lead, call here. If you need this, call this number." etc. Chris kept nodding his head and watched as I pointed to all the phone numbers. I gave him my lanyard and the keys and said goodbye. I'm right across the lobby backstage talking with with a freind of mine, when the door opens and here is Chris. "Did you leave your lanyard?" he asks. I don't think I even answered him, I pushed him back to the store and yelled at him for leaving it unattended.

John learned his lesson and is still with us. Chris...well, he didn't last much longer and there aren't many of us who miss him.