It's hard to believe, but it was 35 years ago today that I started my brief summer career as a cast member at Disneyland. Just for fun I thought I'd give you a little look back at what that was like. Pardon the wordiness, because this one will be long.
I had just finished my freshman year in college and needed a job for the summer, and a friend recommended Disneyland where he'd just been hired. They normally do their summer hiring in the Spring, but there are always open positions right up to the beginning of the summer season, and I was one of those late arrivers.
The day before I interviewed I went and got one of the shortest haircuts I'd ever had, and during the interview the personnel guy looked me over pretty good, and then told me that my hair was just about as long as it could get and I'd probably need a haircut soon (yikes!). I didn't get another haircut, and it was so short I didn't actually need another haircut until the end of the summer. In those days you couldn't have facial hair, no sideburns past the bottom of the ear, and the hair had to be really short. They were very, very picky, and that time could afford to be since they had many more applicants than they had jobs. It's not that way today, especially since California Adventure opened and they had to fill all those jobs as well.
I originally applied to work in security, which was an interest of mine at the time, but because I was only 19, I couldn't get that job. You had to be 21 due to the fact that security officers sometimes had to appear in court. My friend told me to request whatever I wanted for my first choice, but be sure to request Janitorial for the second, because they usually had openings in that area. That's how I became a sweeper (the guys that walk around with the pan and broom and pick up trash). Looking back on it I wish I had requested ride operations, because I probably would have had a more enjoyable summer, but at least I had a job.
My first day consisted of an orientation at "Disney University" where we were taught all the do's and don'ts of being a cast member. They took us all out to the Hungry Bear Restaurant for lunch, and then gave us a bit of a behind-the-scenes tour of the park. About the only thing I remember now is going into the control room for Small World and seeing the master computer that ran the whole show. They isolated some of the individual soundtracks to show us how everything was synched up.
This was the sign that greeted me every day as I arrived at the park:
A typical work day meant arriving at about 1:00 pm, putting on a clean uniform, and heading into the park. Almost every day as I walked in through a gate near the Tomorrowland Stage (and the Space Mountain construction site) I'd hear the Kids of the Kingdom singing "Thank God I'm a Country Boy". I grew to genuinely hate that song. I'd head over to the Janitorial office which at that time was located right behind Carnation Gardens, drop off my time card and head out to my territory.
My shift for the summer was 1:30 pm to 8:00 pm Friday through Tuesday during June & July, and 1:30 pm to 10:00 pm during the busy month of August when attendance nearly doubled. I was assigned my own territory for the summer, the Haunted Mansion, and spent nearly every shift working there. My area basically ran from the New Orleans Square train station, down to the water, and up to the entrance to what was then Bear Country. One of the die-hard rules of being a sweeper is that you're never supposed to stop moving. The boss wants the sweepers constantly in motion so problems don't build up. Consequently, after a little practice, I got pretty good and picking up stuff on the fly. To keep it interesting and put on a show for the guests, I got to where I could shoot trash between my legs or behind my back and never slow down. The tourists got a kick out of it.
The Janitorial department consisted of several possible positions: sweepers, bus boys, trash, and heads. There was also an overnight crew which did the heavy cleaning to get the park ready for the next day. Believe it or not, sweepers had the glamour job in the janitorial department. As a sweeper you were assigned a patrol area and you spent your day keeping it tidy. Bus boys worked in the various restaurants cleaning up after the messy guests. The trash guys spent their day going from one trash can to the next emptying them out and hauling the trash back to the disposal stations backstage. The worst job in janitorial had to be heads, which as the name implies, meant that you spent your entire day going from one disgusting bathroom to the next. I worked trash a couple of times, but spent most of my summer as a sweeper. I never had to do heads or work as a bus boy. Here's a couple of shots of me at work back in 1975.
Of course, being a sweeper had its moments too. We had buckets of "barf dust" stationed around the park to take care of woozy guests, and the guys who worked Main Street would give me a running count of how many horse dumps they had to clean up during the day. Such is life as a janitor.
I'll never forget one of my first days on the job was July 4th. I was not supposed to work that day, but because of the expected crowd, I was asked to come in and work a different area. I worked all up and down Main Street, and I've never seen a crowd like that before in my life. At that time the official park capacity was 55,000, and I later found out that we'd had 83,000 people come through the turnstyles that day. At 9pm I was working up in the hub when the fireworks show started. Although I wasn't supposed to stop, I was literally frozen in place by the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd that had stopped to watch the fireworks. It was a madhouse.
Every day at 3:30 pm I would leave my area and head out to the hub (the area where all the different lands connect) where I had parade duty. That parade would head down from Small World to Town Square, and the last couple of floats were mountains that shot confetti out the top. As soon as the parade passed by, my foreman would fire up a big vacuum cleaner and a bunch of us would head out ahead of him sweeping all the confetti off the sidewalks and onto the street for the vacuums to pick up. It seemed like a lot of trouble for the thrill of shooting off a little confetti, but that's how Disney does things. (UPDATE: I found a YouTube video with 8mm film of the parade that was running while I was there.)
Because of my singing schedule, there were several Sundays during the summer where I switched shifts with another guy. On those days I would start work at 7:30 am, 30 minutes before the park opened. I worked in New Orleans Square and covered the area all the way to Bear Country until the Haunted Mansion guy arrived around 10:30. It was pretty weird to walk through the completely empty park when everything was pristine after the work done by the overnight crew. What was really strange was to see entire flower beds that had been changed out overnight and looked completely different than they had the day before. At 8 am sharp the first guests would come running through the area on their way to their favorite rides.
Working all afternoon during the heat of the day was kind of tough, though I must admit I've probably never been in better shape than I was by the end of that summer. To try and cool off, I would head into the Haunted Mansion through an emergency exit which would bring me right out into the hallway that leads from the bottom of the elevators to the "doom buggies". It was always fun to do that during the day, because the guests would have just come out of the bright sun and into the dark elevators and hallway, and when I popped out of the side door in my all-white uniform, some of the people would scream because I looked like a ghost to the half-blinded tourists. They thought I was part of the show.
My favorite time of the day was around 7:30 pm as the sun began to set and the temperatures cooled. Back then there was no Fantasmic! show or Splash Mountain, and as soon as the skies got a little darker the guests would start gravitating like moths to the brighter lights of Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. Consequently my area got nice and quiet and during the last part of the my shift I walked around a pretty empty area. It's not that way today. Thanks to the new shows and rides, that area is now one of the most congested parts of the park from about 6pm on.
During August I spent an additional two hours each day in my territory, and it was pretty easy duty. Most of the people had gone to other areas of the park, so the big job was cleaning up the bullpens at the Mansion. Because of the crowds you couldn't get in there during the day, and you wouldn't believe all the crap we'd sweep out of there at the end of the night.
Fifteen minutes before the end of my shift I was allowed to leave my area and head for the lockers. If you got caught leaving early they'd get after you (as I found out once). After you changed out of your dirty uniform, you'd turn it in and pick up a clean one for the next day, and then head out the employee entrance where you clocked out.
There were some perks to working there. Employees were allowed to sign themselves and a guest into the park anytime they wanted, and although they weren't supposed to do it, if the ride operators knew you, they'd let you on the rides without any tickets. It made for a cheap date. And back then they still had live entertainment on the Tomorrowland Stage. I remember hanging around after my shift to see artists like Ray Stevens and others on the big stage. Big bands were still appearing at Carnation Gardens every night, and you could see some of the top big bands just outside our office.
My brief career came to an end shortly after Labor Day when Disneyland cut back their staffing and let the seasonal employees go. I could have stayed on as a seasonal employee, but that would have meant working Thanksgiving, Christmas/New Years and Easter week without a break. I had other plans for Christmas that year, so I elected to leave the Disney fold. It was fun while it lasted, and I have many fond memories of my time there. My family has had annual passes since shortly after we were married, so we go over there quite a bit. My kids have grown up at Disneyland - my daughter went there for the first time when she was 3 weeks old, and we've watched a lot of changes take place. However, even after all these years it's still hard to walk by the Mansion and not look around for trash to pick up.
A lot has changed in the park since then, and I documented most of that in a previous post that you can read here. Thanks for taking this walk down memory lane with me. It was fun to reminisce a little.
I'll never forget one of my first days on the job was July 4th. I was not supposed to work that day, but because of the expected crowd, I was asked to come in and work a different area. I worked all up and down Main Street, and I've never seen a crowd like that before in my life. At that time the official park capacity was 55,000, and I later found out that we'd had 83,000 people come through the turnstyles that day. At 9pm I was working up in the hub when the fireworks show started. Although I wasn't supposed to stop, I was literally frozen in place by the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd that had stopped to watch the fireworks. It was a madhouse.
Every day at 3:30 pm I would leave my area and head out to the hub (the area where all the different lands connect) where I had parade duty. That parade would head down from Small World to Town Square, and the last couple of floats were mountains that shot confetti out the top. As soon as the parade passed by, my foreman would fire up a big vacuum cleaner and a bunch of us would head out ahead of him sweeping all the confetti off the sidewalks and onto the street for the vacuums to pick up. It seemed like a lot of trouble for the thrill of shooting off a little confetti, but that's how Disney does things. (UPDATE: I found a YouTube video with 8mm film of the parade that was running while I was there.)
Because of my singing schedule, there were several Sundays during the summer where I switched shifts with another guy. On those days I would start work at 7:30 am, 30 minutes before the park opened. I worked in New Orleans Square and covered the area all the way to Bear Country until the Haunted Mansion guy arrived around 10:30. It was pretty weird to walk through the completely empty park when everything was pristine after the work done by the overnight crew. What was really strange was to see entire flower beds that had been changed out overnight and looked completely different than they had the day before. At 8 am sharp the first guests would come running through the area on their way to their favorite rides.
Working all afternoon during the heat of the day was kind of tough, though I must admit I've probably never been in better shape than I was by the end of that summer. To try and cool off, I would head into the Haunted Mansion through an emergency exit which would bring me right out into the hallway that leads from the bottom of the elevators to the "doom buggies". It was always fun to do that during the day, because the guests would have just come out of the bright sun and into the dark elevators and hallway, and when I popped out of the side door in my all-white uniform, some of the people would scream because I looked like a ghost to the half-blinded tourists. They thought I was part of the show.
My favorite time of the day was around 7:30 pm as the sun began to set and the temperatures cooled. Back then there was no Fantasmic! show or Splash Mountain, and as soon as the skies got a little darker the guests would start gravitating like moths to the brighter lights of Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. Consequently my area got nice and quiet and during the last part of the my shift I walked around a pretty empty area. It's not that way today. Thanks to the new shows and rides, that area is now one of the most congested parts of the park from about 6pm on.
During August I spent an additional two hours each day in my territory, and it was pretty easy duty. Most of the people had gone to other areas of the park, so the big job was cleaning up the bullpens at the Mansion. Because of the crowds you couldn't get in there during the day, and you wouldn't believe all the crap we'd sweep out of there at the end of the night.
Fifteen minutes before the end of my shift I was allowed to leave my area and head for the lockers. If you got caught leaving early they'd get after you (as I found out once). After you changed out of your dirty uniform, you'd turn it in and pick up a clean one for the next day, and then head out the employee entrance where you clocked out.
There were some perks to working there. Employees were allowed to sign themselves and a guest into the park anytime they wanted, and although they weren't supposed to do it, if the ride operators knew you, they'd let you on the rides without any tickets. It made for a cheap date. And back then they still had live entertainment on the Tomorrowland Stage. I remember hanging around after my shift to see artists like Ray Stevens and others on the big stage. Big bands were still appearing at Carnation Gardens every night, and you could see some of the top big bands just outside our office.
My brief career came to an end shortly after Labor Day when Disneyland cut back their staffing and let the seasonal employees go. I could have stayed on as a seasonal employee, but that would have meant working Thanksgiving, Christmas/New Years and Easter week without a break. I had other plans for Christmas that year, so I elected to leave the Disney fold. It was fun while it lasted, and I have many fond memories of my time there. My family has had annual passes since shortly after we were married, so we go over there quite a bit. My kids have grown up at Disneyland - my daughter went there for the first time when she was 3 weeks old, and we've watched a lot of changes take place. However, even after all these years it's still hard to walk by the Mansion and not look around for trash to pick up.
A lot has changed in the park since then, and I documented most of that in a previous post that you can read here. Thanks for taking this walk down memory lane with me. It was fun to reminisce a little.
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5 comments:
Thanks for sharing!
Love all your reminisces - many of which I share.
My husband worked two different stints at Disneyland, first in fast food at "Fan 2," a now-defunct Fantasyland food stand, and then in janitorial. Occasionally he was a sweeper, but usually a busser, which is how we met -- he was bussing in front of Casa de Fritos/Casa Mexicana and I worked inside for four years. (He occasionally was sent to bus Hungry Bear, too.) We met in the break area between "Fritos" and Carnation. Like you say, Disneyland makes a cheap date! By the time we dated there were no more ride tickets, either. (We celebrate 26 years of marriage on Wed.) Used to love seeing the musicians that would play at Carnation!! My dad would sometimes come out in the evenings to hear the big bands. I think they had a special deal then for going in just in the evening hours.
I used to like doing parade duty as a break from the routine -- for restaurant employees it consisted of helping with crowd control and keeping traffic moving.
Best wishes,
Laura
My mother (and maybe my father--I was never sure) loved The Electric Light Parade and was heartbroken when they moved it to Florida.
two of my daughters worked at Great America in Santa Clara (One in Cash Control, one in several jobs (Rides a couple of times ending as a Supervisor, Guest Services -- interesting philosophy there, and the last time as a manager in Food Services, see http://members.cox.net/larrysheldon/ -- scroll down a ways.)
Interesting watching the oldest one when she was in as a guest--stooping to pickup trash in a fluid motion as she walked.
I was at a conference at the hotel in 1986--we might have been the first ones to be served alcohol inside the park (we had it to ourselves for the evening).
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