Just a Rookie Trying to Make it Out of Camp

The first few days at a new position within Walt Disney Company are about orientation. No surprise there, I guess, but then again this isn't the usual cut and dry "this is your desk and there's the bathroom" office introduction. The opening salvo at Disneyland was a blur of walking tours, company history & policy, and cheeky moments like having everybody's favorite costumed mouse hand you your ID badge. ESPN may skimp a little on the theatrics (I doubt they're gonna pay Mickey's per diem to fly out to Bristol every two weeks), but like everything else that comes in contact with the Disney culture, there's a firm (and completely accurate) belief that the employees are part of a grand, some might say cosmic, plan to produce the very best at all times. Orientation is the first step.

Welcome to Rookie Camp!

Now, the good news is that this is one camp that you can't get cut from...although I suppose you could. It would be pretty hard, but I'm sure there are a few who've wandered into it and decided that it was all just a little too Stepford-ish for them and booked it out of town. The two-day "camp" was structured in much the same way as "Traditions" is done for Parks & Resorts, which made even more sense when I was told that one of the grand architects of it had previously worked in Hotels for WDW in Florida (that's Walt Disney World for those of you who aren't into the whole brevity thing). To some of my fellow Cast Members, I'm happy to report that such Traditions classics as the Disney "sizzle" video were displayed, plus familiar standbys "Working with Integrity" and the "Legal Standards & Practices" video. Other time-honored favorites such as "The Disney Look" and the sexual harassment video unfortunately did not make the cut.

On the whole, the point they were emphasizing, and having prior knowledge of Disney practices leads me to think it was no coincidence, was that working here is not just any old job. It's interesting as I start to move further and further into the world of a "career" such as it were how certain places will emphasize a top-down atmosphere and others will go in the opposite direction. Disney, in every division I've come across, at least wants its employees thinking that the place is made from the ground up, that the tone is set by the content and those who produce it, whether that's a national nightly sportscast or a tightly-orchestrated show put on in 6 minute increments in Fantasyland. Where ESPN is concerned, that's an ethos that can come in very helpful for an organization that proclaims itself the worldwide leader of its field (and not without merit, mind you).

Sometimes it's really easy to feel like the big, indifferent machine just swallowed you whole, especially when working inside a company where profits by can drop by 46% (which they just did)...to a measly $600 million or so. The sheer scope of it leaves you feeling very, very small. Rookie Camp and the other programs like it have you primed to start work with the opposite feeling - you're not small, you're unique. Yes, a needle in a very large haystack, but that's what people are looking for, isn't it? As Don Draper told his clients in Mad Men: "You want to be the needle in the haystack. Not the haystack."