First Few Days

Monday and Tuesday were my first two days on the job without a trainer. I’m pretty sure, subconsciously, I dedicated Monday morning to screwing up as much as possible. Those of you who know me well know that I am usually not that hard on myself, but I was dropping the ball left and right. For example, going in reverse for anything is considered pretty embarrassing, like if I didn’t get close enough to the dock. Long story short, I had to back up twice. Yikes. I believe every safari I did that day had something I did incorrectly. However, the afternoon went much better. Also, all the other drivers are pretty quick to forgive when they realized it was my first day. Lots of advice was also distributed for my convenience.

Yesterday went much better. I felt much more comfortable and can’t really remember doing much wrong. Right around parade time everything gets a little slow, which is kind of nice. Also, until the end of the month, we’re gonna be open till 7 since dining reservations dropped the ball and overbooked a butt ton. The park usually closes at 6, so between 6 and 7, it’s been super slow. I was driving a departure 3 truck (handicap accessible) and on three trips had zero, four, and six people. On a side note, the departure 3 trucks are a bit tricky to dock and therefore made me nervous these past two days. Things will be good when we get back to normal, though.

To be honest, I wasn’t immediately psyched to work at DAK, since it’s not really ‘classic Disney’. However, between the awesomeness of my job and the fact that I get down waaay earlier than any of the other parks is very cool. Also as a bonus, safari drivers get paid about $.75 more per hour and get longer lunches; when I work over 8 hour days, I get three 15-minute breaks and a 45-minutes lunch. Not a bad deal. However, the best thing about safari is that the cast members control the ride. Every single ride here on property is on a track of some sort and operated electronically. But with safari, the drivers are in complete control, which makes it that much more difficult because there are roughly 23984762 things to remember.

I went out last night with a co-worker and her roommates and had a pretty good time. I’m meeting people here and there and am keeping myself busy. Pretty soon I’ll be applying for a professional internship here and I’m grilling everyone here to find out how they got here, what they’re doing to try to move up, and any obstacles they’ve encountered. So far, the optimists outnumber the pessimists and you really just have to bust your ass to get noticed.