Pin Trading Madness!!!!
Today was my first official day of training. It was extremely eventful and very long, although it only felt long after it was over. I learned a lot of things, and I was told that today was the easiest day.
The first thing that I did was get my costume. Compared to most it is pretty conservative. Just black pants and a short sleeve, button down shirt. Its not the most attractive thing ever but I love it.
I had kind of wished that my costume would be a little more interesting but I am just proud to be wearing one at all.
My trainer then took our group, there were three of us with her, into the Magic Kingdom, we learned how to clock in, where our lockers are, where our break room is, and a few other things. We also received our lanyard of pins for pin trading. We get one lanyard of 12 pins that we keep in our possession for the duration of our program. We can trade with anyone but each person is limited to two trades. Once we got our pins I really felt official.
Our trainer then took us out on stage to show us all of the locations we could be working. My first interaction with a guest was pin trading with a little girl! She was so cute, it was pretty exciting. After that the three of us were swamped with pin traders. We could barely get our training done because when one group was finished crowding us we would only be able to walk a step or two before we were approached again.
I learned something cool about pin trading though. See the tiny mickey mouse in the corner of this pin?
That is a hidden mickey. They mean that a pin is not sold anywhere, you can not buy it no matter how hard you try. That mickey means that it is a pin that can only be received from a cast member. That's pretty cool if you ask me. I bet that is why we kept getting swarmed. They could sense the three lanyards full of cast member pins.
It was pretty cool, a great first experience on the job. I also gave a lot of directions and answered questions. It is a good thing that I have been there many times and know where things are. Directions are something I am good at!
Right before we left it started raining, so by the time we got back to the parking lot there was a brilliantly beautiful double rainbow taking over the sky. It was a perfect full arch too, and it was too big to fit in one picture. It was a great thing to see at the end of the day.
I have three days of training and two days of classes at Disney University before I officially start work. I am excited to learn more, I'm having fun already!
