Haunted Fairy Castle ~ Installment 14

by Jessica

♦

Cinderella has become a kind of friend of mine. She gives me all kinds of advice about makeup and hair, and the other day she painted my eyelids with sparkle glitter. I can’t fire someone I’m friends with. That’s even worse than firing a random fairy princess with whom I’m not acquainted. So what I did was, I told my boss I fired her, even though in reality, I did not. Maybe my boss won’t notice. One Cinderella looks a lot like another, when they have all that makeup and those wigs on.

Disney gave all the new hires a job assessment form to fill out by the end of our first month of working here. There are some fill-in-the-blanks, followed by one short essay: “What have you learned in your first month of working at Disney?”

I’m not sure what to write for my essay. I’ve learned a lot about sedating seagulls, and breaking up fights instigated by belligerent honey bears, but somehow those don’t seem like sweeping enough themes. I’ll have to think it over.

 ***

Today my boss tracked me down in the hallway, and demanded to know why I never fired Cinderella. I explained to her that I couldn’t fire Cinderella, because Cinderella is a mistreated servant girl who scrubs floors and performs menial labor for a living, while awaiting her fairy prince. Why fire someone who works for free?

I think my boss was impressed, but still, she told me that either Cinderella is out by tomorrow, or I’m demoted to picking gum off the bottom of Mickey Mouse’s sneakers, which get really gross from walking around the park all day. I really don’t want to choose the gum option. It takes hours. I told my boss I don’t see why we have to put ourselves out like that just for a bunch of tourists, when all they ever do is complain.

My boss spun around and looked at me with her intense, driven gaze, which always seems to bore through her cloud of cigarette smoke and pin me in place, like a stapler.

“Let me tell you something,” my boss said. “You may not be getting the full picture, working here. Do you know how many people visit Disney’s theme parks every year? Eighty million. Ninety-six percent of them never call our office. That’s seventy-six million, eight-hundred thousand people who don’t complain. It’s easy to focus on the negative when it’s all you ever hear about, but we are inspiring and delighting hundreds of thousands of people on a daily basis. We’ve created something magical here. And you should be proud to be a part of it.”

I guess that’s the thing about my boss. She has passion. (Continue…)

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