Internship Tycoon (The Disney College Program: Part 1)

Let's start from the beginning:

In the Spring of 2011, I decided to apply for my first internship. It was based in Anaheim, California. The deal?: Take at least one Disney sponsored class and work at Disneyland while living in a Disney funded dorm. Sounds perfect, right? Having never lived in a dorm until then, I was ecstatic. I lived on the 5th floor of a place called "Carnegie Plaza" with 4 roommates, 3 of which I was lucky to live with.

The majority of these hundreds of interns didn't choose their roommates ahead of time. No one chose their apartments. You just show up, and take what they give you. You either live in a place with 4 other guys, or 2 other guys-- that's it. It's a ten minute drive to Disneyland. Rent was roughly $150 a week, no matter how many guys you lived with (which is siphoned from your weekly paycheck). Altogether, we paid almost $3000 a month for a living room and two bedrooms. I wouldn't have complained about it if we made more, but the starting salary was something like $9.03 per hour ($9.33 if you stay with the company after the program).

During the phone interview, I expressed my love for the Jungle Cruise and told the interviewer that being a skipper would be my dream job. I didn't the Jungle Cruise, but I did get the next best thing which was Storybook Land in Fantasyland. The whole reason I got into Disney in the first place was because I loved the animated movies, and my job was to tell people about those stories while I drove them around a canal in a little boat. There were obstacles, no doubt. When I was working on the dock, grouping overzealous guests up to 14 per boat, there were times where I lost track of time and hours felt like days. Then there were folks who entered through the special assistance line with ECVs. Now, if you don't know what an ECV is, it's an electronic wheelchair/shopping cart hybrid that wasn't designed to maneuver in any proper direction but onto innocent victims feet.

These are ECVs. They're apparently harder to pilot than an F-16.

All in all, I considered myself lucky to work at Storybook Land-- I was lucky to work attractions in general. I've had friends in the custodial program, fast food, shops-- these jobs were all way more stressful and in many ways, less fun. I was pretty much playing with over-sized toy boats, taking strangers on tours through a magical, miniature world. Still, there was always drama no matter where you worked. In attractions, there was something called a "Safe D" which I was terrified of getting because it basically meant you made a hazardous mistake and can't move up in the company for at least a year. I never got one, but I've heard stories of people accidentally ramming boats, or hitting a red light on the canal (which would derail your boat from the track). That'll grant you a "Safe D". Some paranoia came with the territory, and it wasn't uncommon for employees to be suspicious of others trying to report them something as severe as negligence or something as minuscule as pulling out a cell phone to check a text. Pulling out a phone is taboo at Disney parks, no matter where you work.

Ultimately though, I was really lonely working at Disneyland. I had some great roommates, like I said. But our schedules were usually opposite, so we rarely saw each other. My family visited often enough and I met a lot of good people in the dorm, but something was missing. I hung out with different cliques, like the three blonde girls down the hall, the boozers downstairs, the saintly underage kids on the other side of the building. I've always thought my loneliness derived from my being spread out too thin, but it's more than that.

My job exhausted me mentally. I worked an average of ten days in a row, but that's not what did it. What got me so tired by the end of a week and a half of work was constantly seeing different faces, greeting strangers from all over the country, all over the world, wishing them well and never seeing them again. It's not a good feeling. There were times when I made kids and adults really happy simply by complimenting them, saying "happy birthday", cracking jokes, and after my 7 minute boat ride, I'd tell them it was nice to meet them and that was it. Sometimes, they'd wrap their arms around me, thank me for my kind words and actions, but with the looming quota of passengers per hour strictly enforced by area managers, the bonds lasted mere seconds before I had to load my next boat of paying customers (Do I have to spell the word?).

I'd see my co-workers often, but even a lot of those relationships were contrived. Even though I was usually happy just to be working where I was, we as a whole had to appear happy when we were on the clock. Management would often come down on all of us because certain employees didn't smile at times and the park guests actually went to Main Street City Hall to complain about that. Big brother, much?

The internship flew by. It lasted from mid-August until January 2nd, and on moving day, it felt like the walls were slowly collapsing as our rooms were getting their final monthly inspections. The administrators were gradually shooing us out, room by room. I vividly remember gathering in the hallway with some friends I'd met throughout the months, and we embraced one another. It was the last time most of us would ever see each other. These interns were from all over America, from Hawaii to New York. The four months we'd spent together created lifelong friendships.

I'll tell you what hurt, though: Remembering certain days of sheer bliss that just won't be replicated like they were. There was an indescribable feeling that came with the freedom of waltzing around Disneyland with some of those guys and girls during August when we first got our free passes, September when it wasn't crowded, Halloween and Christmastime. Even our classes had a specific charm. It felt like a fraternity in a lot of ways (minus the paddle). It didn't even hit me until I was well on the freeway, heading toward my house in West L.A.

I worked there for another 6 months, commuting for hours a day until I just couldn't take the commute, the low-yielding pay, and the unending sense of loneliness that came with working at the Happiest Place on Earth...