When it comes to work, I've been much less burnt out than the last time I posted. On the contrary though, I've been kind of getting "burnt out" when it comes to Florida. I'm missing home. My family, my friends, places, things. I'm missing everything about Illinois. But I keep telling myself that I'm here now. I'm not saying I'll be here always, but I'm here now. And I want to see this through. I miss a lot of things at home. Parties, weddings, anniversaries. I have cousins that I've never met. I have family members who have had babies and I never saw them pregnant. But this is really a once in a life time opportunity. When else in my life am I going to get the chance to move down to Florida and work for Disney? I'm here now, and we're going to see what happens. It's an adventure, and it's better to have an adventure when I'm young, and then settle down. So, even though I miss everything and everyone, I'm going to stick this out and enjoy my adventure.
To become a trainer there are two main things one must do before he is able to train by himself. First and most importantly, he must shadow a current trainer for an entire training process. Second, he must attend a four hour class called Train the Trainer. My shadows were weeks ago. I got to shadow one of my favorite Toys. I learned a lot and we had a bunch of fun doing it. Our trainee was very smart and such a great guy. Fast forward to now, and he's doing really well at Toy Story. I hope he sticks around, because I can see him becoming a trainer when the time is right!
Train the Trainer is a simple class. The first part of it is electronic. The second part just reinforces the first. After the class you get your trainer pin, which is Jiminy Cricket. Then you wear it on your costume, as a way to signify that you're a trainer.
Last week, I had my first trainee by myself. It was a bit nerve-wracking. But it was fun. Again, I had a good trainee. She got a little overwhelmed every once in a while, but she was super smart and now is on her own and seemingly doing well! Everything went smoothly, and I'm getting my bearings as to what to do when, and for how long, etc. I've started my second trainee this week. However he only has Fri/Sat/Sun availability, so I saw him Sunday, but I won't see him again till tomorrow. Sunday did not go so well. Not my trainee's fault. My trainee is super smart. Circumstances just did not work out well, mainly that we had 5 new people start on the same day so we were continually bumping into the other training groups. Now tomorrow we will have to review quite a bit and then try to get in all the new stuff I want to cover as well.
A normal training schedule is four days of training and one day to assess. The first day is a closing shift. The second, third, and fourth days are opening shifts. Opening starts at 7 am (when we open at 9 am), so the training groups come in at 6:30 am so they have a half an hour to walk through what's going to happen. We are required to train to of our opening positions (out of seven). But here's the problem coming up. Star Wars Weekends start tomorrow. We open at 8 am for the events, so opening starts an hour earlier. Except none of the trainers were scheduled an hour earlier. So for those of us it effects, we had to get our schedules changed. I am now coming in at 5:30 am several mornings! It's gonna be a little rough, but we'll get through it! I just hope my trainees are okay with us changing their schedules, and with coming in an hour earlier. Plus side, it means we get to leave an hour earlier!
Otherwise, everything is going well! I just recently moved. My lease at my old place was ending, so I've now moved to a new place. I moved in with two friends from Toy Story and will be here for the next year! I like my old apartments better, mainly because they are just newer/nicer. But I love the location here better. It's closer to work and/or easier to get to different places.
