Pros
-You get to go to Disneyland and basically any Disney park (except Tokyo) for free and get pretty good discounts at the resorts. -Get to make "magical memories" for guests and that was probably the best part of the job. I got to make people smile for a living for about a year and a half.
Cons
Where to begin...get some popcorn, this is gonna take a while: -PAY. This should come as no surprise to you. They pay us in dirt...looking at my pay stub with California taxes taken out of my pay, I made about $7 an hour. Living in the OC is probably one of the most expensive places to live. So you do the math. Check on the homeless Disneyland cast member rates, they're astounding. Fun fact: Disney gives us 16 tickets to let people into the parks, AND they take that out of our pay. Do we have a choice? nope. -Inconsistent and AWFUL hours. Typical shifts were ending at 3am or even starting at 2am. I got a range of 30-60 hours a week (see what I mean by inconsistent). I was working FULL TIME HOURS with nooooo benefits. No healthcare, 420k, nothing. That's fair right? -Point system. We are treated like elementary school kids, if we cant come to work, we can no longer give shifts away due to the "helpful" union. 3 points per call out, and if you get 12 in a month, you get a written, and 36 in a year and they can fire you. This is also if you call out for a family emergency. They just don't care. -Scheduling DOESNT GIVE A FLYING FRICK ABOUT YOU. Have school? Too bad. Have a family emergency? Too bad. Have the flu? Oh well. Come to work or you'll be disciplined on your record card. If you have any bit of a life outside of Disney, they will do whatever they can to make sure your life revolves around them. I've had friends quit because they wouldn't stop scheduling them when they had a second job or school. Even I tried working a second job for about a month and they made me choose one. Sound like a cult? Well.. -Little room for growth in all departments. In stores, you have to work there for at least a year to be promoted to a lead/trainer (which I did) and you get a $1 raise...and another 4 years before you can move up in the company if you can. They rarely hire outside the company for higher up positions. And the corporate job I want and applied to so many times required at least 5 years at the company...it's a hopeless trap. -Incredibly rude guests and annual pass holders (who we called pass-holes for good reason). -World of Disney in general...huge store with so much going on and always so crowded. You never get used to it. That alone gave me anxiety. -Somehow I was able to put up with that for over 1 year, but just about the WORST part of the job was the management. I have never had to work with so many managers (WOD has about 12 stage managers). I could write a book on how many times the managers screwed me over. I've had instances where I've asked them for help on a particular issue that they caused in my promotion, and it took them 4 weeks to take any sort of action, and a month later it was not resolved. They're fine if you never need their help but sometimes you have to go to them, and when they do they don't like it. It ties into favoritism that is HUGE in this company, and it is totally unacceptable. -This company favors money over cast members. So guests (who bring in the money) are favored over any of the workers. However, in my year of service there, I've seen prices on park admission, parking, food, and merchandise RISE. It's crazy and not fair to anyone.