A Reply to "Are Disney's Secret Rules Stupid?"

By now I am sure a lot of you have seen the posts or the videos about all the "secret" Disney rules. Well as a cast member I am going to give you the 100% truth about all of them. I am not going to sugarcoat it. I will let you know exactly how I (and other cast members) feel.

Here's a video detailing them. I will comment on each "rule" below.

1) Are we employees or cast members? Actually, the list is correct on this one. We do refer to each other as cast members. Everyone. Sometimes the coordinators will describe the workers that they are overseeing as their "cast".

Now if memory serves me correctly that wording is used to avoid certain "legal" situations. Say a black female sues because she wants to be Cinderella. All the Mouse has to say is that we are all "cast' in our roles and she didn't meet the qualifications. Tricky huh?

2) Ah, the whole "no single finger pointing thing". This is actually true too, out of courtesy because in some cultures (that's what they tell us, but never say which ones) that pointing with one finger is considered rude.

Then they always say that's how Walt pointed. Well yeah, but the reason for that was that he normally had a cigarette in his hand which caused him to use a two finger point. Good luck finding a pic of Walt with a cigarette (hello airbrushing).

3) Autographs? Taught to sign all the same? Are you kidding me? I'm here to tell you, well, that's totally true. The video says it right: commitment to details.

4) Trash - From day one we are all told that we ALL work for custodial and it's everyone's job to keep the parks clean. As for the swoop thing? No, just pick up the damn trash (or walk by and pretend you don't see it). Some cast members won't even pick up trash unless they have latex gloves. No really.

5) Code V - Yep, puke. Can you guess what a Code Brown and Code Yellow are? I bet you can.

6) I don't know - I work in an area near the entrance to the park so we're basically expected to know everything since we are the first people guests see. Our nametags should just read "Google". We will do our best to answer normal questions or direct them to someone who can.

However, there are just certain questions that cannot be answered (though I could help a little bit with the dark matter question in the video). Notice I said "normal" questions above? Here's a common scenario: The trains shut down for bad weather. It never fails that a guest will ask when the rain will stop. I mean I want to say "Hell if I know lady, thats a dumb-ass question". Instead I will say something funny (and a tad sarcastic) like if I knew stuff like that I would be in Vegas and not here. So we say I don't know by using another phrase. Personally I am honest with people and tell them I don't have a clue.

7) Shaved eyebrows/growing a beard - I will lump these together since we have a thing called the "Disney look". Now these are basic appearance rules that most companies have. Ours are just enforced by Nazis. They don't want anything to distract from the "show" and cleanliness of the parks. Not a bad thing. So shaved eyebrows would obviously be a distraction. That person would prob be sent home until they grow back. No really.

The beard thing is pretty recent. We were only recently allowed to have goatees in like the last three years (I was the first one in my area. Booyah!). People pushed for the beard thing too and they got it with that exact rule. You have to grow it on your time, not the company's. If you show up with stubble you are going to be either sent home or sent to a breakroom to dry shave.

Personally, I hate the beards. It make some people look like mountain men and/or homeless. All this facial hair is supposed to be neatly trimmed to 1/4". Don't make the Nazis get out their rulers.

So that's basically it. I hope I cleared up some of the mystery. The "rules" are just basic business practices at Disney. Every company has to have standards of some kind. Disney's are just more "wholesome".