Working Lead Appreciation Events

Friday, July 21, 2000
by Kevin Yee

I think of all the things I will miss about Disneyland when I'm an old man looking back, the Lead Event will be near the very pinnacle. Maybe even the single most fun thing; it's that good, really it is!!

Maybe you would share my enthusiasm a bit more if you knew what in the world I was talking about.

The Working Lead Appreciation Events were free parties hosted by Disneyland (specifically, a department called Cast Activities) for all the Working Leads at the park. Typically, the soiree would be held at the ballrooms in the Disneyland Hotel, on some evening when the Park was closed and all the Leads could actually attend the event.

The last-ever Lead Event. Artwork © Disney.

Usually they had some sort of theme to the evening, to which you could dress up if you wanted. Prior to 1994, it was just a sort of classy evening, dress nicely if you wanted. 1994 was Western-themed, 1995 was themed to Indiana Jones (because the newest DL ride had that theme, of course), and 1996 — the final year the party was even held — was themed to Party Gras.

Alcohol-enabled zaniness.

It was so cool! Imagine a room with Disneyland's best and brightest, from Custodial to Attractions, Merch to Foods, Main Gate to Cash Control... they were all there. Schmoozing, recognizing all those faces across the park they've seen so many times before, and in general doing those things you do at a party.

I suppose I'll just make a list of what there was to do: food, alcohol, games, gambling, dancing, and prize drawings. And, in fact, you'd do it in roughly that order.

Food.

The parties always included food. It's what people do first when they arrive at the banquet hall; everyone claims a spot at a table and then heads for the food. There are usually several tables set out with a wide variety of foods, all of it free of course.

In 1995 I had a great food experience here. As a sucker for potstickers, I went nuts when I discovered that the four banquet tables, laden with chafing dishes, included a large pan full of nothing but potstickers. Those fools. I made them sorry for their generosity that night. I vowed to make them regret ever offering us all-you-can-eat food, or die trying. I hope to have earned an "honorable mention" at least for getting sick in the trying, though I didn't of course die.

Alcohol.

What would a Disney party be without alcohol? (The answer to what appears to be a rhetorical question is actually "one held at the Park by your managers").

All Disney parties feature alcohol, just like all normal parties do. Young adults will be young adults. Now, the Lead Event is a bit different, because the Company is hosting it. Nevertheless, alcohol is present. It just cannot be handed out to anyone who is not legally 21 years old.

They check ID's, of course, but the interesting part here are the drink tickets. Your invitation to the party includes a couple of these, so normally you'd expect to have two drinks per night. Ah, but the wild card enters here. The supervisors (as the managers were then called) also had bundles of drink tickets that they could hand out as they saw fit.

Boy, there was nothing quite like seeing your supervisors reeling drunk. They really loved you then. And they were quite willing to hand out more drink tickets, why not? After all, they love you!

I recall seeing one supervisor in particular become much more friendly with a female lead. She didn't seem to mind, and we just ate it up. I mean, grabbing at her like that! In public! (though under the table slightly).

Now that we've been fed and are working on our liquor situation by hitting up every supervisor we pass, it's time to turn our attention to the games. These weren't here every year at the Lead Event, but they were there for the last few.

It's about what you'd expect. The giant inflatable wall with Velcro, upon which you too can dangle upside down (provided that you're wearing the Velcro vest)? Yup, we've got that. The gyrosphere, where they spin you in several directions at once by using your weight against you (remember the Hercules parade with one of those things)? Yup, that's there too.

Other games such as that. Exactly the right sort of activity a stomach full of potstickers and greyhounds needs.

Greyhounds, by the way, were first introduced to me at a Lead Event, so I forever associate the drink with the event. Same for Midori sours, if indeed I ever let my supreme mask of masculinity slip so far as to actually order a Midori sour these days.

Done with the games? Time for more drink tickets. Where oh where can I find those supervisors? Ah yes, there they are, working the gambling tables. Which brings me to:

Yes indeed, Disney has transformed its ballrooms into dens of sin. First decadent food, then alcohol, now gambling. Oh, relax, it's not real gambling. It just looks that way.

You see, the outside of the ballroom is ringed by bars, banquet tables with food, and the games. The rest of the ballroom's "side wings" is taken up by round tables where you eat. The inner portion of the ballroom, however, is split into two halves: the dance floor — which we'll talk about in a minute — and the gambling tables in the middle.

You start out the night with some amount of fake money. Usually it's a few hundred fake dollars, just cutouts really on colored paper. You belly up to a craps, roulette, or blackjack table and they'll be happy to turn the money into chips for you: black (hundreds), greens (twenty-five) and reds (fives).

If you don't know how to play, they'll teach you! This is how I learned how to play craps.

Your supervisors are the dealers, so they sometimes — depending on how uptight they are — actually just cheat for you. This isn't real money, you know. I recall Mike's famous "dealer up" version of blackjack. I can recall distracting Ed so that we could grab rolls of black chips off his dealer-rack when he wasn't looking (I dare you to do that one in Vegas).

By now, the alcohol is really starting to flow. Drink tickets are now passing from the alcohol-indifferent to the alcohol-dependent, and most of us are vowing that not do we love this party and all the people in attendance, but that we also love Disney for giving it to us.

From the blackjack tables, we lurch over to the other frenzied activity of the late evening: the dance floor.

The music has been there almost from the start, but of course no one danced to it at first. Somewhere around the time of the games and gambling, dancing has broken out on the dance floor and shows every sign of spiraling quickly into an epidemic. Sure enough, by the time my neighbors are tapping their toes and wagging their (not so metaphoric) tails, my blood-alcohol level has passed the dancing limit (which is somewhere beyond the legal driving limit).

Hot, sweaty, dressed-up Cast Members dancing in close quarters with drunks like me is a recipe for some serious loonery. Nothing risquŽ, mind you. Just more Kevin-in-fool-mode stuff.

At the final Lead Event, the big song of the day was the Macarena. It is harder to do when you're drunk than you'd imagine.

Eventually the music will be killed, and someone or other would get onstage and remind us that our gambling chips could be turned in for raffle tickets. Each ticket cost 100 "bucks," so we'd best hurry and finish gambling in the next few minutes!

Now, indeed, did the mad rush to beg, borrow, and steal black chips begin in earnest. I usually amassed about 20-35 raffle tickets, and turned them all in. Each year my hopes went into that raffle, and all seven years of the event, those hopes were dashed. Not once did I win anything. And I'd purposely try to win something that few other people were trying for (you got to choose which raffle you'd try to win).

Finally, they called an end to the night after the raffle. People stumbled out to cars, or, more likely, out to Denny's for coffee and breakfast. And time to sober up.

I'm not sure I've ever recovered from the Lead Events. I miss them so dearly. The final one occurred in 1996, as Cast Activities was re-structured during the Empowerment Evolution and Leads were disbanded on most attractions.

The poor Leads were given an Appreciation Night in the first place because non-leads (called so endearingly "peons") as well as management both gave leads headaches. Leads are a special creature, neither fish nor fowl in the world of Disneyland employees. Both management and labor, they often get caught in the middle... and this evening was their reward for a year's worth of headaches.

TALK STORY!

Are you a CM or a former CM? I would love to hear and share your stories! E-mail me! Stories and comments you submit become property of and may be published on this site; we normally don't publish last names of current CMs, but if you wish to remain anonymous altogether or do not want me to share your stories, please let me know when you e-mail me. — Shoshana

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in reader-contributed stories do not reflect those of Cast Place or MousePlanet.

CM – Cast member; company lingo for “employee.” 

Empowerment Evolution – The 1995 attempt by newer park management to introduce modern accountability and market forces into the stodgy Disneyland methodology and power hierarchies. The name was meant to “empower” rank and file employees by removing layers of their management, though now there are more managers than ever.

TPO – Theme Park Operations; the division of the Disneyland hierarchy that actually works in the theme park itself.

TDA – Team Disney Anaheim; the name of the on-site administration building.

Area manager – used to be responsible for an entire land, with all business divisions in the area reporting to him.

Area supervisor – the immediate boss for location supervisors who divide up a department of intelligently grouped locations. The area supervisors in turn reported to the area manager. Nowadays all supervisors and area supervisors have been replaced by managers and assistant managers — the same idea, but smaller “business units" than a department; usually just one location in fact.

RFT – “A” status; a full-time hourly employee.

RPT – “B” status; an hourly employee five days a week but just not quite 40 hours usually.

CR – “C” status; an hourly employee who works weekends year-round and five days a week during all school holiday periods (including summer and Christmas break).

CT – a part-time hourly employee who works five days a week during all school holiday periods (including summer and Christmas break). No seniority, so shifts worked are usually quite short.

Locate the employment center to fill out an application, and they will call you for an interview (dress nicely, just shy of an actual suit). Once there, follow these rules, in this order of importance:

1. Smile and be very friendly. They want outgoing people.
2. Do not let the group interview throw you off balance. They want outgoing people who can “perform” a little bit.
3. Do not worry about job (in)experience. They don't care. They want friendly people, not experienced and/or hardened people.
4. Do your best to convince them you already have a Disney attitude: you want to work with people, you're a team player, and you would consider this a dream job (however, don't overdo it on the crazy-Disney-fan side either). Strike a nice balance.
5. Did I mention the importance of a smile?

Special Thanks to Jason, as always, for the use of his images.