Your final grade was an A (97.7%).

You did a wonderful job during your internship.

It was very evident that your manager’s really enjoyed your work.

You did a very good job getting to me all of the required reports and paperwork.

TC3 will be sending your certificate to your school sometime in late March/early April.

Best of luck in the future.

I enjoyed working with you…

Respectfully,

Tim McCabe

At this final report, I’ll talk about the skills, knowledge and personal growth that I acquired during the internship, and I will reflect about the whole experience as a Cast Member (being a Lifeguard, at the Bay Lake Region) and how I think this will affect my future.

During the past 6 months I acquired such a variety of skills that is really hard to talk about them all.

Probably, the most important ones, are the sense of responsibility, time management, problem solving, respecting diversity, guest service and communication.

About responsibility, during the last months I learned how to be a really responsible person. Living on my own, was probably one of the most demanding and challenging situations of the whole program and this helped me to became very responsible. No more “automatic food on the fridge”, no more “dinner ready around 8PM”, no more clean sheets every time the housekeeper comes, no more clean bathtub every time it’s dirty, no mum or dad to say “hey, it’s time to wake up”, etc. etc. etc.. This particular situation helped me, and most of the ICP’s becoming really responsible. Since I got to Orlando, I had to learn how to do everything by myself, how to handle with every situation from making sure that I had enough food to prepare the dinner when I was coming back from work every night, to making sure that I had clean clothes to dress everyday. Living by myself is far more challenging and demanding that I ever though it would be and I realize now how many things I went through and how many things I accomplished in order to make it all the way ’till the end.

Being a waterpolo player back home, I already know how to manage my time very efficiently. Because I have seven practices a week, plus a game every weekend and I still have to go to college following the same schedule as everybody else, I was already very strict with my time and I knew exactly when to do everything. So, I think that after the first week I was already able to schedule my whole week in advance and I had enough time to do everything: go to work, study, hang out with my friends, go to the laundry, go to classes… I really think that I did fine in this because in the last month I was still watching friends of mine struggling to have some free time, saying “I don’t have to do anything!” and they were working the same amount of hours as me.

Learn how to solve my problems wasn’t also that hard for me. Even though I was used to have some mum and dad backup when I was home, I was also used to solve most of my problems and I usually I just ask for help because I’m lazy. The only problem I wasn’t able to solve was with my Internet signal. About a month before the end of the program, I lost the signal back home. I called the Internet provider eight times (they send five different technicians to my place, none of them could figure out what the problem was), I called the housing management and wrote a letter complaining about it and finally I called and wrote to the Disney International College Program Office complaining about the issue. I also asked for my Internet money back, once I was paying for it and I wasn’t getting it but unfortunately, I never got as answer. This was the only problem during the whole internship that I wasn’t able to solve. Every other one, regarding work, housing, bank or any other thing, I solved it and, the majority of them, the way I wanted.

Teamwork is one more thing that I can say I was used to and, even though it was harder than I though it would be, I did just fine. As a waterpolo player, I’m used to perform a teamwork in order to win. The one thing I’m not used to is work with people that are not capable to perform their job. And that happened sometimes during my work time as a lifeguard. Not talking about my lifeguard co-workers (because, as me, they were not first choose d because their skills as a lifeguard – for the most of us, it was our first time as a lifeguard) but talking about my coordinators and managers, I can tell that I did just fine with the ones that actually knew what they were doing but I had some hard times with the ones that didn’t know anything about, pretty much, anything! Obviously, and I know that I’m not supposed to say this, you can tell that something is not right when you work 20 years as a Disney Recreation Coordinator, in one of the Disney World Resorts. So, I can tell that the ones who were working in the same position for the last 20 years were the ones that weren’t capable of moving forward and, most of the times, weren’t even capable of performing their day-to-day work in a efficient way. With those, I had some problems! On Christmas day, on my rotation, I had ten stands (means that I had to stay at the pool deck for five hours, lifeguarding) and another lifeguard, who was working the same amount of hours as me, had four stands. When I asked the reason why I was having so many stands, the coordinator responsible for the rotation answered that she was trying to paint the rotation as a Christmas tree (usually, our rotations were black and white but on that particular day, they were painted red and green) so she had probably messed up and didn’t realize the error. That could be an acceptable excuse if she had fixed it immediately: the problem was that, at the end of the day, she came to apologize because she had forgot to fix it so I stayed five hours in the pool deck and the other lifeguard stayed for only two hours. It’s not hard to understand that, from that moment on, I felt reluctant in following her orders because I was feeling that she wasn’t the right person to coordinate my work. This is just a particular situation but I had many other including some of my coordinators and managers. Besides this, I always performed a great teamwork and I won a great service fanatic just because of that.

Guest service and communication were probably the most important skills I learned in Disney. The Traditions class and all the others that taught us how to deal with guests were really important and I learned a lot about it. Being able to speak with unknown people and help them was awesome and I really enjoyed this part of my work. Right now I feel far more comfortable when I’m talking to strangers (in the supermarket, in the post office…) and I feel that I’m more friendly to people that I was last July.

Growing up and study in a democratic country helps you to realize the differences between cultures and how to respect them. Because I’m Portuguese, before I went to Disney, I was already able to respect and treat everybody the same way. So, during my program, I just learned more about the different cultures and different habits of people from different cultures and religions and I was really pleased about it. Learning more about different cultures was always one of my goals in the program.

During my program, I took two different classes: People Management and Marketing, both of the were “How Disney Does It” classes.

During the People Management ones, I learned how Disney manage the huge amount of people that works in the Walt Disney Resorts & Parks. The way Disney trains people (“The Training Process”), the Work Force Planning, Benefits and Compensation, the Cast Activities Events and Recognition and the Elements Of Managing People were just some of the topics that I study and learned about in this class.

The Marketing class was my favorite one and there we learned the whole Disney World Parks strategy, the way Disney keeps their brand strong and next to the public, the Disney Vacation Club Marketing Plan and The Magic Behind Disney Events (such as Christmas or Halloween parties).

Because my field of study is Marketing, I really enjoy these classes and I learned a bunch of nice details about how Disney manage and actually do their Marketing campaigns.

I took some other classes just because I was curious to learn about that particular subject: I read some Harvard studies about management and I took a Financial Fitness class that helped me to save money and to understand credit in the USA.

Apart from my classes, I learned a lot about how Disney operates for being a Cast Member. And, as far I can tell, Disney is like a huge robot: everything has a plot and every single aspect of every single job in Disney has a script that each one of the cast members just has to follow. Even the problems have ready solutions: all the cast members need to do is go to some book, read the answer and apply it to the real situation. This is how Disney works! The big problem is when something that nobody ever though about happens: and then is were we can see that most of the people that work for Disney doesn’t think by themselves – most of the times, it gets more time that it’s suppose to to have a solution that actually is appropriate and actually works. Besides this small detail, Disney is awesome and the way they’re ready for almost everything is really impressive!

About Personal Growth… To be honest, I think that right now I still didn’t realize how much Disney changed me and how much did I learn during the whole program. I do know that I changed, I do know that I really learned lots and lots of very important things and I right now I will talk about the ones that I was able to recognize right away or that I’ve been recognizing during the last week, since I got home, back from the USA.

The very first thing: I learned that my parents really raised me and taught me really well. During the whole program I didn’t have any personal problem because I’m really polite and, every time something happens, I try to understand the other side of the problem, in order to reach a fair solution. In Disney, I was really careful and I tried always to learn first and then act. I’ve always been respectful to everybody and I always remembered what I was taught as I child about how to be polite and nice.

The one thing I never thought I was able to do was lifeguard. I knew I could do it but in Disney I learned everything about it and I was amazed how fast I learned and how fast I could apply all the knowledge to real life situations (even tough I never had to rescue somebody that was actually in a life dangerous situation).

My big weakness was all about shaving: to be in Disney Look, guys have to shave everyday. As a young man, I’m not used to shave everyday and that was really hard for me. I think that during the whole program I didn’t shave just a couple of times and in just one of them my coordinator told me to shave during the day. Even tough it looks silly, if in the future I have two similar job opportunities and just one of them don’t make me shave everyday, I’m going to pick that one, for sure!

My goals were study abroad, learn about new cultures, learn how Disney do things, work for the biggest “dream-generator” company in the world and live by myself among some others and I can say that I’ve reached them all.

The overall experience matched my expectations. The only thing that I was expecting to be different was the speed of everything. Living in New York, you certainly know what I’m talking about. All across Florida, things develop really slowly and everything in Disney happens in slow motion. Disney gives you 1h to perform a 15m task and I was not used to it and I wasn’t expecting it. I do know now that’s a Florida state problem and not an American problem and I’m really glad about it.

I really think that the fact that everything goes pretty slow was the biggest problem that I had in Disney just because, after a while, it’s frustrating to work like that. When I’m at work, I like to work and not just spend my time. In Florida, it seems that most of your time at work is spent pretending that you’re doing something, not really doing anything. For me, that was the hardest part of the whole experience. After the first few weeks, I found myself doing three different projects during the time that I had to do one (a project consists in cleaning a boat, performing games with kids, sand-pro the beach, picking leaves out of the way, etc.) and that was the way I found to do something instead of pretending that I was working.

About the whole program, I enjoyed most working when the resorts were full. By then I was really working and interacting with the guests and the time was passing by flying! The part I enjoyed the least were the days when I was lifeguarding with nobody on the pool all they long. During those hours, I was feeling that I was just loosing my time.

Looking back, I don’t wish I had done anything differently. I’m really proud of everything I’ve done and I know that every single day I did my best so I don’t think I should  have done anything differently.

From one to ten, I think the whole program worths an eight. Two reasons for not give it a ten: I should be allowed to have more classes than the two I took; everything in work should be faster!

About my future… Being able to spend almost half an year outside of my country made me think that I really have to study abroad and go to different countries meet different cultures and realities. Right now I’m back home and I’ll probably stay here until the end of the year but I’m looking forward to study abroad again, this time in Europe. Being part of the International College Program made me see how fast time goes and  realize that I don’t want to stay home “forever” just watching how time goes by.

To future TC3 students, I just have one thing to say: Disney pushes every single Cast Member well beyond their limit. If you’re not ready to be commanded by Disney, don’t even think in going there. If you think you’re able to spend half an year following every single Disney direction and instruction, you should definitely go. It’s a unique experience.

In this very last report I talked about the skills, knowledge and personal growth that I’ve acquired during the internship, the various aspects of my experience and my future after Disney.

Comentário Tim McCabe: Good job!

At this fifth report, I’ll talk about my internship so far, my experience of working on a seasonal business, the end of my program and the challenges I’m expecting to face once I get back home.
During the last few weeks, we’re as busy as usual. As a lifeguard, our work volume isn’t based in the same high-low season peaks, as in the rest of the business, but on the weather. And, as far as I can tell, this December was one of the hottest of the last couple of years so, we’re as busy as during summer time.

Unfortunately, as a lifeguard, we do not experience a lot of changes in order to better prepare for Christmas season. The only thing I can really tell we did different, was the fact that the fuel ship was coming twice a day to the dock, because the majority of our boats were out all day long. More than that, and mostly because of the weather, we had some of our pool parties and games back and, as far as I’m concerned, that was it.

No extra people, no extra supplies, no extra cares. We just perform as in summer time and we did great (of course I did experience the huge amount of people all around, the traffic lines to get to work, the “one million same question a day”, etc. etc.).

Even though I did not experience such a change in my line of business, I watched the other guys working (resorts and parks): Disney almost doubled the number of cast members in the parks (some of my friends got 80h/week of work!) and the supply trucks were always coming in and out of the resorts (during November, they were only coming twice a day – at sunrise and sunset).

Probably there are a lot of challenges about managing a seasonal business that I’m now aware of but I believe that the only “secret” is to prepare everything in advance, and expect “the worst” scenario.

About the end of my program: yes, I’m almost done here! And, I can tell for sure that this “is the end of something special”, as Sweitzer and King said. Right now I really feel pride in everything I’ve accomplished.

I’m very happy to be able to say that I really don’t have nothing else to take care of. I did everything on time, I already delivered all my papers and, right now, the only thing that I’m missing, is the W-2 form (in order to receive my taxes back) but that’s something I can only do after receiving my last paycheck. Everything else is done and I’m just starting to pack in order to move back to my country.

As to everyone else, the most difficult part of ending my internship is say goodbye to the ones we met back in August and become my friends. I really appreciate living in such a multi-cultural environment and I’ll miss it for sure.
To ensure I end my program the way I want to, I’m just performing as usual: showing up to work and be professional, deliver my reports and papers on time and follow the apartment complexes rules.

About my leaders. Well, this is a really tough question, one I was planning to talk about in my very last report. About the positive side of it, I can say that our leaders are always available to listen. I think that’s awesome. On the dark side of my leadership experience, I can tell a lot of different things: probably, the worst thing for me is the fact that most of my leaders were always smiling. And I really don’t think you can smile that much when you’re talking about serious stuff or when you’re trying to discipline somebody. (for somebody who wasn’t there, read that the “smile thing” is the one I most disagree with, must be hard to imagine and a bit silly for me to say it but I always learned that your posture and image must follow what you’re saying, otherwise you’ll look like a clown – you can’t reprimand one of your workers by saying “you’re such a great person, I like you so much, here you have your reprimand, have a wonderful day”).

The one thing I would like to say to most of my leaders (and being aware that I can’t say that they’re not the right person for the job) is that manage people has nothing to do with Mickey Mouse (or, by other words, manage people comes first, work for a dream-generator company comes second).

About going back home, I don’t think I’ll have a hard time. Probably, the only difficulty that I’m going to experience is the fact that I’ll not be living by myself anymore. Being able to decide everything 24/7 was a great experience for me and I’m sure that I’ll struggle in the first few weeks.

About my future, I think that most of the things I learned here can be applied in any line of business.
I can’t actually separate training, classes and work because everything is connected. Here, during the whole internship, I learned so many things that is hard to choose a couple of them. Yet, I think that I couldn’t had a better first job experience: Disney is hard as an employer, it pushes you to the limit and then, pushes you a little bit more and I do think that if I manage to complete my program here, I’ll be fine anywhere. Regarding to classes, I learned some of the Disney “secrets” (the way Disney handle their cast, the way Disney build value, the way Disney keeps moving forward, the way Disney anticipate the future and get ready to face it, etc.) and that’s great stuff to apply in a business, after I graduate. On my training, I learned how to deal with guests and that’s awesome because I’ll by facing people during all my life and here, I  had the opportunity to practice and to get better on it.

Living by myself was also great because I learned how to manage my accounts, set budgets and spend my money. Going to work versus have fun, earn money versus spend it. This was a great lesson for me and I’m sure this will help me a lot from now on.

In conclusion, at this report I talked about the last weeks at work (how Disney manage such a seasonal business like entertainment and recreation), the end of my program (everything I’m facing and feeling now), going home (the difficulties I’m expecting once I get back to Portugal) and how I think this whole Disney experience will help me from now on.

Ainda assim, irei colocar aqui os últimos relatórios, e respectivas classificações, e o diploma/nota final do programa, que deverá ser lançada em meados de Fevereiro.

Ir ao banco, preparar as tralhas para enviar pelo correio, fazer as malas e dar um mergulho na piscina, foi tudo o que fiz!

À noite jantei, pela última vez, uma carne estufada, graças ao Tomé que é um excelente cozinheiro :p.

A minha casa já está vazia e o Machu Picchu fez questão de deixar tudo como se voltasse dentro de 5m. Arroz nas panelas, pratos sujos, lençóis sujos na cama, sapatilhas velhas, toalhas no chuveiro, computadores espalhados pelo chão, papéis, garrafas de água, etc. etc. etc.. Eu e o Mason arrumámos a cozinha e a sala mas o quarto dele continua caótico. Uma grande lição: nunca mais viver com Peruanos!

Amanhã será o último dia. Temos de sair de casa até às 11h, rumo a Atlanta!

Carro Alugado – National Cars – Partida 09/01 11h – Chegada 17h

Atlanta – Washington

Vôo 1701 – US Airways - Partida 12/01 9h27m – Chegada 13h11m

Washington – Nova Iorque

Vôo 6672 – Delta Airlines – Partida 15/01 10h45m – Chegada 12h02m

Nova Iorque – Porto

Vôo 114 – TAP – Partida 21/01 17h10m – Chegada 08h

O Wilderness Lodge está vazio pois a maioria dos guests foram embora no domingo, o que torna o trabalho muito mais fácil e tranquilo.

Hoje esteve mais um dia de calor e eu tive a sorte de ter Water Basketball às 14h. Pela primeira vez desde que estou lá meia dúzia de adultos quiseram jogar, o que tornou tudo mais interessante e competitivo.

O jogo foi bastante renhido e no final estávamos todos realmente cansados. A única diferença foi que dali, eu fui trabalhar e os restantes jogadores foram dormir para as espreguiçadeiras :p. A minha equipa perdeu por 2 pontos pois a outra equipa tinha um daqueles rapazes de 200kg que, quando se punha por baixo do cesto, apanhava toda e qualquer bola :p.

Cá por casa já só vivo eu e o Machu Picchu, uma vez que o Mason já empacotou (literalmente) tudo e já só dorme em casa da namorada. Agora é tempo de acabar com as provisões (eu já nem leite e cereais tenho!) e dar todos os acessórios e coisas que vão ficar para trás a alguém.

Amanhã, pela última vez, vou para o Wilderness Lodge. O Chris Tom (o meu coordenador favorito) até me perguntou que jogos queria fazer amanhã (se queria a festa da piscina ou jogar futebol/basquetebol) e prometeu que me ia dar uma boa rotação de despedida.