give em the pickle!

the past few days at work have been really great. i'm really getting friendly with many people who i work with, and i'm getting even more comfortable than i already was. today i'm really missing home, because it's the first day i haven't been feeling well. i miss having mum or dad twenty minutes away, that i can just bbm them and ask them to get me whatever i want that i believe will make me feel a little better from the supermarket or the gas station; and i miss having nan to send down some lemonade (the best in the world,) down; and i miss having mayfield to ask me what i need or just fill my boring moments with never-ending stories about a friend of a friend of a friend.

i had my second week of my des course (disney exploration series,) today. i chose to study guest service training. i figured it would be super beneficial for any career i have later on in life, especailly being trained by a disney professional. the class is two hours long, and so far i feel so happy i've chosen this class. i feel like i can better serve guests or customers already and it's been two sessions so far. we also watched a couple videos today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOpOhlGiRTM. this first one is of a little girl, lily, who got the suprise of going to disney for her birthday. it is so cute! the second one, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISJ1V8vBiiI, is of a restaurant owner who has customer service down-pat. this is not the full version of the video, but it's the best one i could find, and it does have the just of it. the gentleman in the video, mr farrell, has a restaurant, and when you watch the video, you'll understand why it's called "give em the pickle." in this part of the video, he mentions the first key of customer service is service itself. while this part of the video doesn't contain the other three of the four keys, he said they are attitude, consistency, and teamwork. within the full video, he told a couple other stories that i thought i'd mention. one, is when he went into a bank, and seven of the eight tellers were closed. when he finally got to the one teller who was open, all he had to do was sign a document, and he didn't have a pen. he asked her for a pen, and she showed him the one on the counter, which was chained to the counter. he asked her why, and she responded with "because customers steal them," and he got so angry, that he yanked the pen (chain and all) out the counter and said "well! then get your brand on more pens, and use them for advertising!" and then he went on to pull the same pen from the bank out of his pocket, with the chain still attached to it. another story came about when he mentioned how important it was to use customers names. how we do it, is if we see the name on their credit card, or if they have mickey ears with their name embroidered on the back of them, or if we overhear someone else in the guest's party use their name. anyway, mr farrell in the video, said that long ago, he used to work at a gas station and one of his managers told him it was important to use the customer's name, that it adds a personal touch, and makes them feel special. so one day, a customer came to get some gas, and mr farrell asked what his name was (because this was long before credit cards came around,) and the gentleman told him. without the customer knowing, mr farrell went inside, got some tape and wrote the customer's name on it. he then went back to the car, and stuck the tape on the inside of the gas tank, so that whenever the following gas attendants opened it, they saw what his name was so they could refer to him as that. i thought that was a great demonstration of teamwork.

i also learned a couple more fun facts about disney today. i'm going to just put a few on here. okay. here goes. within food and beverage, about nine million hamburgers, seven million hot dogs, nine million pounds of french fries, two hundred and seventy five thousand pounds of popcorn, forty-six million coca cola drinks and about thirty million packets of ketchup packets are sold annually. if you put all of the mickey ear hats that are sold annually together, they can go for one hundred and seventy five miles, or add up to be enough to cover every single man, woman and child in florida. there are over two thousand weddings in walt disney world and disneyland combined yearly. disney's animal kingdom has over three hundred species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibiams, and over three thousand varities of trees. that's a lot to wrap your head around, isn't it?!

last week in my corporate analysis class, one of the videos we watched was from the 'village of 100.' this is an organization who study the globe, and what they did, was reduce the population of the world to one hundred people. and this is the outcome:

-how many asians would be in the village? - 60
-how many would be europeans? - 12
-how many would be from the western hemisphere (both north and south) - 13
-how many would be africans? - 14
-how many would be from the south pacific? - 1
-how many would be female? - 49
-how many would be male? - 51
-how many would be white? - 18
-how many would be non-white? - 82
-how many would be christian? - 33
-how many would be non-christian? - 67
-how many would be heterosexual? - 89
-how many would be homosexual? - 11
-thirty-two per cent of the entire world's wealth would be in the hands of how many people? - 5
-how many of those people would be citizens of the united states? - 5
-how many people in the united states (actual population) have work disabilities - 17,000,000
-how many in our village would live in substandard housing? - 80
-how many would have hiv? - 1
-how many would suffer from malnutrition? - 50
-how many would be unable to read? - 67
-how many would not have a safe water supply? - 33
-how many would have a college education? - 1
-how many would not have electricty - 24
-how many would have access to the internet? - 7

some of those facts are so sad. it really brings the world into perspective, doesn't it? sixty-seven people out of one hundred people in the world can't read? half of the world suffers from malnutrition? only one out of a hundred has a college education? it's unbelievable. really.

anyways, i thought all of that would be pretty interesting. for now, i'm going to get back to reading my book (what a privelige it is that i can read, now that i think about it,) and enjoy the peace and quiet for a bit. definitely missed home this weekend with gold cup among other things going on. but i know everyone had a blast and had fun, as usual! hope the weather at home is treating everyone well. two days ago, it was boiling hot here, and yesterday it was freezing! today was pretty cold too! i have no idea what's in store for tomorrow, because google never seems to tell me the right thing, and the weather is so bipolar! sending all my love to everyone. and i miss all my family and my friends so much! i miss mum and dad and ben and nan and pa and gran and rozzy and uncle ron and aunty serena and jessica and cindy and liam and uncle paul and aunty mo and sammy (because we barely see each other here, too) and stephie and jacob and joey and aunty annalee and seamus and vv and uncle jean-marc and aunty lee and abi and maddy and sydney and aunty saralee and uncle barry and brianna and eryn and uncle andrew and aunty gina and megan and barry and jacob and uncle bru and aunty debbie and brett and laura and josh and rachael and aunty t and uncle derek and j and eri AND EVERYONE ELSE IN MY FAMILY! so much. too much. come visit me! going from seeing every single one of those people at least twice a month to not having seen them in two months is insane! but i'm still so happy and wouldn't trade this experience for anything. i hope everyone is happy, and still continues to be continunally positive and thankful for all their blessings always. lots of love