Protected: The first few days, training and general bitchiness

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Protected: Working for the Mouse – where to begin?

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The Devil in the Details

Not much news today, just me writing down my thoughts.I’m probably repeating myself but I can never remember what I posted before and I’m too lazy to check.

The days are passing in a haze and as I am STILL recovering from being sick for the past four weeks, I spend most of my time at home. I am a little sad that I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to some of my friends because of this, but going to Florida sick would be majorly stupid and also very uncomfortable.

I have my health insurance sorted out, have my cellphone plan frozen for a year and there are only some minor details left to sort out. I am now in the process of making a packing list in my head and trying to use up any beauty products that I’m not taking with me, as well as mentally preparing for not seeing my family and friends for an entire year while I do so.

I still have to take a picture of myself for my mom, as she requested a new one to put in her wallet. I have to go see my brother to exchange some euros into dollars at his bank and then say goodbye to him, my sister-in-law and my niece. My parents are taking me to the airport, so saying goodbye to them will wait until the very last moment. I hope mom doesn’t cry. I have a feeling that she will and then I probably will too but I’d hate to have a sad goodbye. It’s really not like I’m leaving forever and I’d rather spend the year looking forward to returning home than missing it the entire time.

Most of the time is spent thinking and wondering and speculating about how things are going to be in Orlando. Who am I going to live with, how is work going to be, will I even be able to handle it all. I know that’s all normal and I’m not actually worried. The good thing is, cancelling Florida now would leave me so incredibly disappointed in myself and embarrassed in front of everyone, that the thought doesn’t even cross my mind.

In other news, after my friends mentioned a farewell party and then kind of went back on it, causing me to start organising one myself, they are now insisting to throw me one after all. It’s supposed to be next weekend but I haven’t heard anything about it so far.

If they forgot, there’ll be hell to pay.

The Visa-Experience

It’s been a while, again, but this time I have a lot to talk about.

Christmas and New Year’s came and passed. I spend both with family and friends and had a great time, although I’ve been sick since New Year’s and am therefore mostly located in my own bed these days. I’m feeling pretty bad still, I won’t lie, but I do have high hopes of getting better in the very near future.

However, being sick didn’t stop me from getting everything ready for my embassy appointment! Now that was pretty exciting. The US embassy closest to me is located in Frankfurt which is a good 5-hour train ride from where I live. I decided to arrive in Frankfurt the afternoon before my appointment and stay at a hotel overnight, which proved to be a very good decision as Germany experienced a sudden onset of winter in the last few weeks and it’s been snowing ever since.

Luckily I’m a light packer, so I went to Frankfurt with only the documents I needed, my netbook with a lot of movies on it to pass the train ride doing something fun, and clothes and toiletries for the night. Finding both the embassy and the nearby hotel was easy-peasy, even if the embassy is located somewhere at the butt end of Frankfurt. Seriously, the only thing around was McDonalds which provided my dinner that evening. I surfed around the net, watched a few episodes of 2 Broke Girls, panicked, ate my dinner, panicked some more and went to sleep at 10pm so I wouldn’t risk oversleeping in the morning and missing my appointment. Of course, I barely slept at all that night, I was so nervous. I’m a huge worrier.

To enter the US embassy, you need to leave all electronics, any liquids and a lot of other stuff behind, so I just took my wallet and the documents and left my entire purse at the hotel. Then I walked through the dark streets of Frankfurt to the embassy.

My appointment was at 8am but I got there at about 7.30am and there was a long line in front of the entrance. I lined up and didn’t actually have to wait long until I could step up to the counter, show my documents and my passport, received a number and was then directed toward a very nice security officer who explained the security process and then had people enter the embassy in groups of four. Once inside, I went through a security check exactly like what you’re used to from airports which took quite a while, to be honest.

Through that, I was directed to another building where a very handsome receptionist explained how to sort all the documents. Then the waiting began. There was a large waiting area that already had tons of people waiting and a few screens where the numbers were called. I think I waited about 30 minutes until I was first called to a counter where another very nice man checked my documents, made some smalltalk and asked me to return to the waiting area until they called my number again for the actual interview.

I was told beforehand which documents to bring with me but I didn’t even need all of them. I only needed the visa appointment letter, the receipt of the visa fee, the I-797B, the confirmation of the DS160 with the uploaded photo (I didn’t bring a spare photo althoug it was actually recommended since you can’t be sure if the uploaded photo meets the requirements. But there are photo booths inside the embassy, in the waiting area with the counters (for 6€, I think.), so I could have taken a new one if I had needed to, which I didn’t.) and my passport, as well as the Express Mail envelope. One was asked to only show the documents that were asked for and nothing else, to save time, so I stuck to that.

I think I spent most of the time just looking around. I didn’t remember to bring a book or magazine and since I had to leave all my electronics behind, I didn’t know what else to do. It was quite interesting though, watching the different kinds of people waiting, all the flags on the ceiling and everything.

While waiting, I was approached by a very nice girl who planned to do a year as an Au-pair in Maine and we killed some time chatting until I was called up to another counter for the interview. It was more like a conversation than an actual interview. A very friendly woman asked me a few questions in English about what I was doing for a living, how I knew about the program, what I was planning to do afterwards, whether I was excited because it was my first time in the US. That was basically it. She checked my fingerprints and then said my documents and my passport with the visa would be returned to me within a week.

That was it! Easy as breathing! I said goodbye to the nice girl, returned to the hotel to get my bag and started the long journey home. I met the same girl again on the subway and we got coffee together before I went on the next train. I think I left the embassy at about 9.15am, so the entire process didn’t take long at all. I heard that the later appointments have to wait much longer, so getting an early appointment like I did is apparently the way to go.

I didn’t waste any time in letting my mom and everyone who would listen know that I successfully obtained my visa, I was so excited. I still am because now this is really happening. Getting the visa seemed like such a huge step and now it’s out of the way and there are only three weeks to go. Time for some travel nerves!

Really, I couldn’t be happier and more scared to leave for Orlando than I am right now. I want this to be the best and most exciting year of my entire life.

In other news, I am spending a lot of time with my friends at the moment. We are in the process of shooting “Alan in Wonderland” where I play the Mad Hatter and we have already filmed the tea party in the midst of all the snow and while it was still snowing (the cake was all snowed in by the time we finished but we ate it anyway) so I suspect that some of the plates and cups we threw around will only be found once the snow melts.

We also filmed some scenes in the library where I work (when it was closed and no one was around) and went to Star Diner afterwards for some good American food. We had Buffalo wings and potato wedges and sandwiches and burgers and huge milk shakes and it was just glorious. I’m going to miss my friends so much, especially since we are having such good times together right now.

I think that’s it for today. Time to go back to bed, watch some more trashy TV and get well again.

Christmas, Apocalypse and the Disney pack

Hey peeps!

Sorry for the long silence but there was really nothing going on I could have written about. As you probably know, I have successfully handed in my BA paper and am now anxiously awaiting the results which will probably only come in January. Meh.

In other news, I have received word from both IS and Disney, two emails welcoming me into the program with detailed information on all dates and documents needed and with the promise that my Disney pack would arrive soon.

And tadaaa, my Disney pack arrived today, only days after the emails. It contains several documents needed for the visa application process, as well as the Disney Look guide which I will talk about in a moment. Also, a free sim-card for use in the US. Probably not going to use it but still, pretty cool.

So now that I have all my documents in hand, I can take pictures, fill out forms and then make an appointment at the embassy so I should have it all ready with plenty of time to spare. Awesome! Can’t say the visa appointment doesn’t make me nervous but it’d be much worse if I had less time to do it. The possibility of not receiving it in time would make me really nervous.

Now, the Disney look guide. Disney has really specific regulations on how their employees need to look. Starting from hairstyle- and color, to the length of fingernails to jewelry and accessories, and down to the proper work shoes. Rules on how to behave in public, how and when to wear your name tag and maintaining proper posture, just to name a few. I’m not going to lie, it’s a lot and it sounds strict. Luckily, it doesn’t bother me. If I have to change my hair for this and can’t wear certain makeup or nail polish for a year, that’s fine with me. But I know some people might find this difficult, so it’s definitely something to consider before you apply.

In unrelated news, it’s Dec 20th and we made ALL THE APOCALYPSE JOKES in the library today. It was a lot of fun, really. It was my last day of work before the holidays and it made sense to spend it lighthearted and not think about things too much.

I also finally have all my christmas presents ready, which was actually difficult this year. And so expensive, omg. Definitely don’t have anything left over to save for Florida this month. Better luck next month, I guess.

My plans for the next few days contain seeing the twins for their birthday tomorrow, going to the annual christmas dinner with my friends on sunday, spending christmas eve with my parents and then christmas day with my brother and after that, doing absolutely nothing until new year’s eve. Sounds awesome to me, I’m in a really festive and happy mood.

And with that, I wish you all the happiest of holidays, a good start into the new year and, should the world end tomorrow, good luck.

Over and out.

Bavaria!

Two of my closest friends and I went to Nuremberg last weekend, to visit another friend that I probably won’t see for two years now, since we usually only meet once a year during Hogwarts week and I won’t be there in 2013.

It was so good to see him. I can’t imagine not seeing him for two whole years. Even though I barely see him anyway, he’s so important to me. He’s helped me through quite some difficult times and I can never thank him enough.

Also, it’s probably good that I’ve been to Bavaria at least once before I’ll have to tell people all about Germany and what they think is typically german 😉

In other news, my entire family now finally knows about my Disney plans. Everyone is really happy for me but I had to answer loads of questions before they had a basic idea of what I was going to do out there and why. I don’t mind too much, I’m just glad they haven’t tried to talk me out of it or anything, which was what I had been expecting, to be perfectly honest.

My little niece is practising my name recently. So far, she calls me Anna 🙂 I don’t care, she can call me anything she wants. She probably won’t recognize me when I get back from Florida. That’ll be incredibly strange. I’ll miss her so much, she’s just the sweetest little girl.

But since not even the thought of her forgetting all about me can make me waver in my decision to live in Florida for a year, that just shows how determined I am to do this and how seriously I take it. That’s good, at least.

I’m such a party animal.

Things are quiet where Disney is concerned, so my excitement is decreasing a little. Which is not a bad thing at the moment, because I tend to be quite distracted by excitement.

These last few days all had the same pattern. I wake up around 10am, have breakfast, do stuff on the internet until 1pm sharp, then I turn to my B.A. paper. I work on that until I have written 1000 words, however long that takes me but it’s mostly until 5pm. Then I turn back to fun things until my parents come home and we have dinner. Then I watch TV until I go to bed.

Sounds like super fun, huh? But at the rate I’m going now, I could have my paper finished in a week. I worked on the translation today (Japanese to german translation of a 1934 document) and took four hours to have one page done. So I’ll need two more days for that and then I could finish the entire paper in another five days. Since I have three weeks until my deadline, having it done early would take a huge load off my back. I would have the grade long before christmas too.

You see, things are quiet and boring at the moment which makes me antsy. I spend most of my evenings being bored but I don’t have the energy to go out with friends until this paper is done. I can’t even imagine not being done in time. It’d screw up all of my plans. I’d have to repeat the paper with a new topic and I’d have to postpone or cancel Disney.

So I’d rather spend a few weeks in solitary confinement than risk that.

Not the most useful tool in the shed…

I’m trying to update this blog a lot because there are many details about the departure process that other bloggers don’t really mention, so I’ll try to focus on that a little.

So like I mentioned in my previous post, I had problems paying the flight deposit because my credit card was locked. I emailed IS about the problem but didn’t receive a reply until today, which is the deadline for the payment. I guess they’re really busy at the moment, I’ll get to that in a minute. They only replied that I absolutely needed to pay via credit card, there was no other way to pay, they didn’t even reply to my question about extending the deadline by one day and just advised me to try someone else’s credit card.

So just as a heads up, as soon as you’re accepted as a CRP for Germany, you NEED a credit card. Immediately. It might be smart to apply for one early (there are lots of prepaid or virtual credit cards out there these days, just google a little.) so you’ll have it in time. We only had five days to pay the deposit and three of those days were german bank holidays so applying for a new credit card would have been impossible in that short span of time.

I was lucky that my credit card was unlocked today, so I could make the payment via their system in time, I received a confirmation by the system and that is that.

In other news, there’s a lot of confusion going on for the people who didn’t receive a departure date. Basically, they were told that they were accepted into the program but had to wait for a date. Which could mean anything. So, understandably, they are a little nervous and a few of them have been calling both IS and the german ZAV with the question whether or not they can be positive that they’ll receive a date this year. Every one of them pretty much returned with different information. They were either told that they would absolutely go to Florida between January and July (which is the slot we all applied for) and just had to wait for the date a little longer, or that there were no spots left and they had to wait and hope that someone cancelled or that they were no spots left but there would be more spots available that just hadn’t been announced yet or that they were being considered for a position after July. So nothing lines up, no one knows what’s going on there and people are basically trying hard to be patient.

I feel very sorry for them, it can’t be easy to watch all of us making plans and asking questions about the departure process and everything. I hope they get their chance or that they’re situation is at least confirmed soon, so they know what’s going on.

That’s it for today. I shall return to my B.A. paper and the translation of a 1934 document which has kanji that look like little spots of dirt instead of words. Fun!

The Face-to-Face interview

I received a long invitation email for this and I can only recommend to read it several times, make sure you understand all the information in it. It’ll not only contain the time and location for the interview but also the regulations on how to dress and a list of all the documents you are required to bring for the interview, among them being a passport, a copy of your criminal record, an online application form that you have to print, a passport sized photo and a document from IS with all your personal information.

I received my invitation early so I had plenty of time to gather all these documents together but some of the other applicants only received invitations a week prior to the interview. If that is the case, don’t panic. They’ll know that you didn’t have enough time to request your criminal record and a passport if you didn’t have one already. You can hand these in after the interview, no problem. But make sure you bring all the other documents because there are no excuses for not bringing those.

The email will also tell you to dress professionally. This, they will stress several times. It means that they’d like you to wear a classic or casual business look. For the men, a suit is required. For women, a dress, skirt, nice trousers with a nice top or blouse and a blazer are all fine. Absolutely do not wear jeans, tshirt, sneakers or anything you’d lounge around on your couch in. If you want to wear high heels, don’t choose the pair with the highest heels you own. Go conservative and classic. I wore a pencil skirt, simple black pumps and a light blue blouse with a blazer over it. I felt like a hotel manager worth a million bucks but you can’t really go wrong with too formal here.

I went to Berlin a day before the interview because I didn’t want to risk being late for it by only arriving in the morning. Some of the other applicants only flew in from across the country before the interview but I wanted to play it safe. I hate being late and it never makes a good impression.

I already knew some of the other applicants from FB, so we met up the day before and went to dinner together. It was really nice to get to know some of them early and I think we were all a little more relaxed because of it. We went for a drink after dinner, just to talk some more and I was back at the hotel by 11pm so I could shower and then get enough sleep.

For important occasions like these, I’m always super nervous that I’ll oversleep and miss it although I never do and my cellphone alarm is very reliable. But I still texted my stepdad (who works the night shift and gets off at 8am-ish) and asked him to call me at around 7.15 to make sure I was awake. Since he works at a hotel, he can just add me to all the people who asked for a wakeup call and just ring my cellphone instead of a hotel room.

But it wasn’t necessary at all, I was wide awake and excited at 6.30am. I took my time getting ready, making sure my hair looked nice, my makeup was nice and toned down (when in doubt, go for a nude look) and that I was feeling good with how I looked. That’s really important for me to boost my confidence a little, since I tend to be shy and very self-conscious.

We had decided to meet up in front of the building at 9am so I went for breakfast (something that wouldn’t stain if I spilled any on my clothes!) and then waited for the others, watching more and more applicants arrive. At 9.30 we were gathered in front of a conference room where they checked our names off a list and asked for an ID and whether we had all of our documents together.There were about thirty applicants there.

Once in the room, two recruiters from Disney, a woman from IS and one from the employment agency the interviews were held at all introduced themselves and the lady from Disney started a about 90-minute presentation with a lot of information about Disney as a company, Walt Disney World and the International Programs. It was really interesting and they tried to make it fun for everyone. There was a little quiz about Disney as well and you’d get a prize for a right answer but you’re not required to participate. I didn’t because I was a little too nervous. The woman from IS will tell you a little about the departure process and about the kind of visa you need. Listen well, this is important.

They will ask a few questions about you as well, mainly where you come from and whether anyone has done a program before because the former participants can apply for a position in Guest Relations as well.

Once all that is done with, they’ll read the interview times. Those are the times when you need to be in front of the interview room where all your documents will be looked over by the woman from IS, not the actual times when your interview will start. Basically, you’ll be called in, she will check your documents and place them on a table where the recruiter will pick them up once he’s ready to interview te next applicant. You will be interviewed two at a time by one recruiter, so you will be paired randomly with whoever’s documents are lying next to yours. I was lucky and was paired with one of the girls I had already met the day before, so we were both comfortable going in together.

By that time I wasn’t even nervous anymore and I was right not to be. It was a really pleasant and nice interview. The woman was very kind and the question she asked were basically the same as during the interview, with a few added ones depending on our answers. She also gave a few “What if” scenarios and asked what we would do in that situation. She explained everything we had questions about and all in all, it took about 20 minutes. Again, nothing to be scared of. She was genuinely interested in our lives and what we had to say and I think it was probably the funnest and easiest job interview I will ever have.

After the interview, you’re finished and you can go home. In my case, that was at noon. And I’d booked my train for 8pm because they’d said we should be available all day! All the others had interviews at a later time than me and I didn’t feel like waiting, so I just walked around a little. Looked at a few shops, went for food, went back to the hotel to change shoes (should have done that immediately, cause, OUCH.), had some coffee at starbucks, tweeted and FB’d about how the interview went, called my mom and went back to the hotel around 6pm to pick up my suitcase. The last two hours I spent in the shops at Berlin central station, freezing my ass off because I was still in the formal clothes with a skirt and light blouse and temperatures chose to drop like you wouldn’t believe. I was so relieved when I was on the train and could warm up a little.

The journey home was long and comfortable and I was so tired. I think I arrived around 2am. My mom was still awake (she never really sleeps until I’m home, unless I’m spending the entire night somewhere else) and waiting for me, which was really awesome since I was feeling really emotional. I thought I’d done well during the interview, but you never really know, do you? So I tend to get unsure about things quickly.

I went to bed immediately and was ready to wait for up to two weeks, like they’d said, for the interview results.

Guess what. Four days later, I checked my emails and there was one saying “Congratulations. We’d like to offer you a position in Food & Beverage, starting February 12th”. I was speechless. Not even waitlisted, but accepted immediately. With a departure date in only four months! Crazy.

Everyone received an email on that day but not everyone got a departure date immediately, which I guess means that they’re waitlisted and will receive their date later.

So now all the preparations begin! I still haven’t realised what’s happening and am just trying to get through all the urgent pre-departure stuff now which isn’t as easy as it sounds.

IS will book the flight for you, which is as easy as it gets, but you’ll need a credit card to pay a deposit for the flight which I tried to do and it didn’t work and now my credit card was locked by the bank. Don’t know how to fix that issue yet, might have to use a dear friend’s credit card instead. Things like this always make me nervous and just suck big time but they won’t cancel my positioin because of a locked credit card (I wouldn’t want to work for a company that did that, anway.) and I’m not even the only one with that problem.

So let’s see how all of this works out. The next few months will be crazy.

Just another Disney blog

There are a lot of these blogs already out there, there are loads of YT channels from people who’ve done one or several of the WDWIPs so I wasn’t absolutely sure whether I’d want to add to this and make one myself. But then I figured that everyone’s experiences are different and it can only be interesting to people who plan on applying for one of the programs to read about it from lots of different angles.

So let’s get started!

A friend told me about the Cultural Representative Program before she applied and at first, I didn’t think much of it. It sounded more like a vacation and that wasn’t what I was looking for. But as I googled around about it and read a few people’s blogs, I realized that this program consists of hard work. They were talking about around 40 hours a week, overtime, walking until late at night, either Food&Beverage or Merch, being surrounded by children and people from every nation you could think of who might not even speak english.

That sounded more like something I’d want to do and the more I read about it, the more certain I got that this was just perfect for me. So I applied.

I applied via International Services in France which is the recruiting agency for Germany. If you apply via their website, you only need to send a CV (by US standards, not german ones!) and a photo of yourself, easy enough. I put a lot of work into my CV, made sure to have a good picture taken and sent it all in.

A day later, I received an email that they’d received my application and invited me to the next stage: the phone interview.

For the phone (or skype, if you have it) interview, you are required to call IS during the next seven days and talk to one of the lovely women working there. In english, of course.

Unfortunately, for me, “the next seven days” meant that I’d have to call them during Harry Potter camp! (For those who don’t know: I belong to a volunteer group who organizes a Harry Potter themed summer camp for children once a year.) So I’d be surrounded by kids and somehow had to find the time and quiet to call IS. If I could have timed the interview better, I would have but it was already close to the deadline and I didn’t expect to get a response from them so fast.

Anyway, I used the first few evenings, when the kids were asleep, to prepare for the interview and then chose an afternoon to take some time off and call them.

To be perfectly honest, it was so different from what I’d expected! I had read about the phone interview and the possible questions beforehand but reading about it and then making the call are really different pairs of shoes.

The woman I talked to wasn’t the one who’d usually take the call (her colleague was on vacation) and I don’t remember her name but she was lovely and easy to understand despite the french accent. She asked the questions I expected her to ask (those are all over the internet, really, I don’t think I have to repeat them) but still, I didn’t think it would be so easy to talk to her and I didn’t think I’d do so well. But at the end of the conversation, she told me that she’d invite me to the next stage, which would be the Face-to-face interview and that I’d receive an email about it as soon as her colleague was back from vacation.

And that was it. It took barely 15 minutes and despite me stuttering a little and shaking in my boots, it was a relaxed and pleasant conversation.

So the phone interview is nothing to be scared of. She spoke very slowly and her english was good. If you don’t understand the recruiter well, she will repeat or rephrase the question, no worries. She will also give you a few tips on how to dress for the F2F-Interview and how to make sure you’re presenting yourself in the best possible way. The phone interview is mainly to test your english speaking skills and to check whether you have the right motivations for the program so it’s really not rocket science.

And true to her word, about two weeks later, in mid-August, I received the invitation for the F2F-interview in Berlin which would be held in October. Now that one, I was really nervous about.