For a while I worked at a theme park in central Florida. Yeah, it’s that one. Some of the guests went wild.
One time I was walking through a guest area on my way to the break room when a dude pushing a stroller ran into me without looking. Apologies on both sides and then the dude tried to hand me something. I put my hands behind my back as a kind of “no thanks,” we’re not really supposed to take things from guests. I looked down and it was a used diaper. He thought he could just hand a park employee his child’s shit filled Pampers and that we’d take care of it. There was a trash can literally right behind him, but thinking on it later where did he change the diaper? There’s trash cans in the bathrooms and they all have changing stations… did he just change the kid outside? Is that a thing parents do?
Another time I was helping the transportation department during a park closure. Up on the monorail platform I was shoulder to shoulder with like a thousand people. A train arrives, the doors and gates open, and people start boarding. A woman who’d been standing near me stopped at the doors, turned to face me, poked her finger into my chest and shouted “YOU RUINED OUR VACATION!” She stared daggers into my soul as she walked backwards like a Bond villain into the car and continued staring me down as the doors closed and the train left the station. I have no clue who this was or what I had done.
Finally, I had to break up a fight where grown ass adults were yelling at each other and had started spitting on each other’s children (like WTF). No idea who started it or even if the two groups knew each other, but shit was looking to come to blows and the security people weren’t quite there yet. Another park employee and I stepped up between them with a “come on folks” and “this is a place for families.” Both of us were big guys so we made a wall between them, I’m 6’2 and was about 280lbs at the time (128cm [typo edit: 182 lol] and almost 130 kgs [edit for my fellow Americans: that’s about one refrigerator in height and around weight of a Shetland pony]). Saw the parents faces drop from anger to embarrassment immediately realizing how dumb they were being when security jogged up and a manager on a Segway rolled in.
The most magical place in central Florida really brings out the strange in some folks.
There’s trash cans in the bathrooms and they all have changing stations… did he just change the kid outside? Is that a thing parents do?
Yes. We’re used to no facilities or disgusting facilities and ya gotta do what ya gotta do. Of course you’d have to be an idiot to not take advantage of facilities when they’re available
What really shocked me the whole time I worked there were the number of parents that gave their kids just way too much autonomy… like eight and ten year olds roaming around without a guardian anywhere in sight. It’s not a cruise, the parks are not safe places to do that… there’s Code Adam training for staff and a ton of security, but theme parks attract PDF files by the bus load.
I remember getting lost there as a child. I was with my family, but that day it started raining cats and dogs, so we went to the closest shop and bought rain ponchos… which evidently is what EVERY family did. We started walking, I got separated for a second, and ended up following this other family around the park for what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes. When I finally caught up with the family, and grabbed the mom-looking ponchos hand, I realized what I had done.
I ended up running from them, and hung around the shop we bought the ponchos from. Luckily, my mom came and found me there. but yo I legit was like “Well, I guess I’ll just live and work at the park now. 😐” Like some Floridian Robinson Crusoe, I felt like I was awash on a strange island, and it was there I would remain after being abandoned. 😅
For a while I worked at a theme park in central Florida. Yeah, it’s that one. Some of the guests went wild.
One time I was walking through a guest area on my way to the break room when a dude pushing a stroller ran into me without looking. Apologies on both sides and then the dude tried to hand me something. I put my hands behind my back as a kind of “no thanks,” we’re not really supposed to take things from guests. I looked down and it was a used diaper. He thought he could just hand a park employee his child’s shit filled Pampers and that we’d take care of it. There was a trash can literally right behind him, but thinking on it later where did he change the diaper? There’s trash cans in the bathrooms and they all have changing stations… did he just change the kid outside? Is that a thing parents do?
Another time I was helping the transportation department during a park closure. Up on the monorail platform I was shoulder to shoulder with like a thousand people. A train arrives, the doors and gates open, and people start boarding. A woman who’d been standing near me stopped at the doors, turned to face me, poked her finger into my chest and shouted “YOU RUINED OUR VACATION!” She stared daggers into my soul as she walked backwards like a Bond villain into the car and continued staring me down as the doors closed and the train left the station. I have no clue who this was or what I had done.
Finally, I had to break up a fight where grown ass adults were yelling at each other and had started spitting on each other’s children (like WTF). No idea who started it or even if the two groups knew each other, but shit was looking to come to blows and the security people weren’t quite there yet. Another park employee and I stepped up between them with a “come on folks” and “this is a place for families.” Both of us were big guys so we made a wall between them, I’m 6’2 and was about 280lbs at the time (128cm [typo edit: 182 lol] and almost 130 kgs [edit for my fellow Americans: that’s about one refrigerator in height and around weight of a Shetland pony]). Saw the parents faces drop from anger to embarrassment immediately realizing how dumb they were being when security jogged up and a manager on a Segway rolled in.
The most magical place in central Florida really brings out the strange in some folks.
Yes. We’re used to no facilities or disgusting facilities and ya gotta do what ya gotta do. Of course you’d have to be an idiot to not take advantage of facilities when they’re available
What really shocked me the whole time I worked there were the number of parents that gave their kids just way too much autonomy… like eight and ten year olds roaming around without a guardian anywhere in sight. It’s not a cruise, the parks are not safe places to do that… there’s Code Adam training for staff and a ton of security, but theme parks attract PDF files by the bus load.
Don’t associate such a good file format with those type of people.
PDF Files! hadn’t heard that one before, ha!
I remember getting lost there as a child. I was with my family, but that day it started raining cats and dogs, so we went to the closest shop and bought rain ponchos… which evidently is what EVERY family did. We started walking, I got separated for a second, and ended up following this other family around the park for what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes. When I finally caught up with the family, and grabbed the mom-looking ponchos hand, I realized what I had done.
I ended up running from them, and hung around the shop we bought the ponchos from. Luckily, my mom came and found me there. but yo I legit was like “Well, I guess I’ll just live and work at the park now. 😐” Like some Floridian Robinson Crusoe, I felt like I was awash on a strange island, and it was there I would remain after being abandoned. 😅
I’m kind of a big guy, for you europeans. I’m 4’2 and weights 280lbs.
;-)
I mean in fairness that’s still a big motherfucker, just in a different dimension
Haha, missed it. Fixed. Lol.
6 feet 2 is 187 cm
Lol. Fixed it.
you could have also been a six footed dwarf, how would I know?