My Birthday Week

Sorry this didn't come out yesterday it was a very busy day for me. But let me tell you be happy that I am posting now instead of early yesterday because yesterday was one of my most action packed days of work yet. That will come towards the end though, let's start with the beginning of the week. Work Tuesday was pretty uneventful although I do continue to get better and better at making balloon animals. I can't wait until my family comes down to visit so I can make Haylie a balloon elephant. On my birthday I was talking to her on the phone and after the CUTEST rendition of happy birthday I've ever heard I asked what her favorite animal is and she told me "An elephant, but a girl elephant not a boy elephant". So I'm practicing making an elephant with a pink balloon for her. I've been lucky and blessed to already meet some good friends down here that I was able to celebrate my birthday with. At work on my birthday they had an employee appreciation day and we got free BBQ from a place called Babaloos BBQ. Steve I know you're going to be jealous when you read that. Then on Friday we went out to lunch and had a delicious, All-American, all you can eat BBQ skillet meal at Wilderness lodge, followed by a round of golf at another of Disney's beautiful golf courses, Magnolia. Every October the PGA comes to Disney world for an event and the best golfers in the world play on the course that I played on Friday. Since it's a month away they're preparing for the tournament and getting the course up to tournament conditions. This means two things: one, the course is absolutely beautiful and pristine, it also means that it's extremely hard! So needless to say I did not play very well, it was actually probably my worst round of golf in my life. It was still fun though and it was only $30 dollars so that's fine with me. Not to mention the free bucket of balls I got to hit on the driving range from the nice lady at the pro shop. The coolest part of the round though was the fact that they were already starting to build the grandstands and other structures involved with the PGA event. Overall it was a very good birthday celebration. Thanks again to everyone that wished me a happy birthday and helped make it a wonderful event ushering in my 22nd year of life. Saturday night however was the night that I was looking forward to more than any of the others. I love Ireland and everything about Irish culture, I do have Irish heritage but I wish I had more, and Saturday night was halfway to St. Patty's Day. At the Irish Pub in Downtown Disney called Raglan Road there was a halfway to St. Patty's Day part and I was so excited for it! It didn't really live up to the hype though. The place was packed for a U2 tribute band and I am not a huge U2 fan. There wasn't anything really special going on besides that and their usual live band that I love wasn't playing. The Irish step dancers weren't around either. I've come to the conclusion that Raglan Road is more fun on an average Tuesday night. Anyway on to the important stuff, work stories. Every year the Disney Vacation Club puts on a member's cruise where they buy out on of Disney's cruise ships and everyone on the cruise is a Vacation Club member. That cruise is going on right now and it departed on Sunday. Since Old Key West was the original Vacation Club resort a majority of the members stay with us the night before the cruise. Since we take care of all the luggage transportation and people transportation to Port Canaveral Sunday morning was crazy busy. The bellman were constantly busy, the phones were ringing off the hook with questions about luggage pickup and a lot of the guests were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Despite all this the process went extremely smoothly and from what I know there wasn't a single problem that morning. Just another testament to how well Disney conducts their operations! One of the funniest lines of the day came when a guest who was leaving on the cruise came up to my young cute leader Kristin and told her "I have an empty suitcase you can curl up inside and I'll take you with me". One of the weirdest things I've ever heard, but like a true Disney leader she took it in stride and we all had a good laugh about it later. Despite this being one of the busiest days I've experienced so far at Disney it was also one of the most fun days at work I've had so far. Now for the day you've all been waiting for, Monday. Most people hate Mondays but this was technically my Friday so I woke up looking forward to the day. I had my first class of the semester in the morning and it seems like it will probably be a very good class and I'll learn a lot of valuable skills. Then I came home took a short nap and left for what I thought would be another uneventful night of closing at OKW. I was wrong. As you should know my dream is to work for Disney for the rest of my life. Since I'm working directly under a lot of people whose roles are the exact roles I wish to have in the coming years I decided to reach out to them in hopes of gaining some advice and instruction on how to get where they are. I sent an email to all of my leaders asking to meet with them and find out how they got to where they are in their careers and what I could do to get to the same place. I anticipated at least a couple days before anyone got back to me maybe even a week. Within the hour the highest ranking of my leaders, Sharon, emailed the whole group back with two statements that made my day. First of all she told one of my other leaders to have me immediately trained on the Front Desk. This is the position that I really wanted when I applied for the program and would get me a much more extensive view of the every day operations in the hotel so I was very excited about this. Then she said something better, "Family, I highly encourage you to take a few minutes to and speak with Mickey to share your stories and give advice. Lynn, please set up some time on my calendar to meet with him as well." This got me extremely excited because not only was she going to meet with me but as a result all of my other leaders would meet with me. Since then at least two of them have reached out to me in response to this email and I really feel like I'm starting to take steps in the right direction for my career. After receiving this email my day got really interesting. One of our guests' luggage was lost by the airline when they were in transit to arrive on September 17th. I won't bore you with the details but basically the luggage was found and no one knows by who or where it is now. So yesterday from about 5:30 until half past midnight I was reaching out to every outlet I possibly could to try and find the bags for this guest. I clocked out at midnight when my shift was supposed to end and stayed an extra half hour because I was expecting a call  back from the airline. I even texted one of my friends who works at one of the other resorts where we thought the bags might have gone to find out if she knew anything about it. In the end the bags could not be found and I had to leave it up to the next person to try and figure it out. It was easily one of the most frustrating work experiences I had ever been a part of. It was the first time in my career in the Hospitality industry that I had exhausted every possible resource I had and still couldn't accomplish what the guest needed. It was one of the most disheartening things I've ever gone through. Disney is known for going above and beyond for their guests and making magic happen and I couldn't do it yesterday. The guest wasn't angry with us, that wasn't what was motivating me to find the bags. I just wanted to find them for so that she would have the best possible experience. When after all that effort I still couldn't find them I learned what I think will be a valuable lesson to me in the future. Sometimes things will happen that are just out of your control. That's in your career, with your friends and family, and just in life. Being successful and happy in all of these areas isn't always going to depend on all of the right things happening, but instead how you react to the things that do happen, especially the bad things. Yet another week has passed and yet again I'm amazed at all I'm learning and being blessed with through this opportunity. Until next time,