End of Another Intern Era

Now that I am full time it is really weird to see interns come and go. 

I have to preface that my team doesn't have interns, but many of the teams we work with have them and the teams that sit around us have them as well. In Team Disney (at least on my floor), off the main walkway there are 4 intern cubes. These are megacubes. On our floor each person has their own cube (except the hourly DVC Stat Associates), but the interns have ones that are 3-6 time bigger than a normal persons cube, but that's because a bunch of interns share it. Like I said, my team doesn't have any interns, but I pass the food and beverage pricing and revenue management intern cube every time I walk in from the elevators or have to go to the bathroom. So pretty often. Therefore these interns are the ones that I see and interact with most often. In the office I even refer to them as "the interns" when they aren't even on our team. 

When I started in my current role the Fall 2015 interns were already 2 months into their internship. They were all settled and I never really interacted with them much. Partially, becasue I was so overwhelmed by all of the other people I needed to get to know, and a little because they weren't the most sociable bunch. One just wandered the halls 90% of the time with his headphones on or sat at the intern cube with his feet up on the desk watching videos on his iPhone. To say the least, my team wasn't his biggest fan. The second wasn't awful. I think he was just shy or socially awkward. He was say hi, but would look away and kind of avoided conversation all of the time. 

The third was the only one I semi-conversed with on any sort of regular basis. He was by far the nicest of the bunch. He is also the only one still left with the company. After his PI in F&B pricing ended, we accepted another PI doing something with Disney Cruise Line in Celebration. But a couple of months ago I started seeing him around Team Disney again. Every time I saw him I was either rushing to a meeting or he was in the midst of conversation so when I finally got a chance to talk to him I found out he had received a full time position in Planning! I was so happy that of the 3 of the Fall 2015 interns that he was the one to stay with the company. I still don't see him much but it's nice having another friendly face in Team Disney.


Last week the Spring 2016 interns finished up their PIs. I was really, really sad to see them go. I made an effort off of the bat to introduce myself to them and would try to periodically stop in and chat. Admittedly I didn't talk to them AS much as I wanted to, but it is amazing how time flies! I loved this group. The 3 of the F&B interns were so nice, actually had personalities, and really seemed to actually want to be there. I think a combination of these things really helped them out, because all of them are staying full time with the company?!?!? It's crazy in that they all found out in the last two weeks. The one pricing intern found out on a Friday that she was going to be staying on the F&B pricing team full time. The second found out on the following Tuesday after memorial day that she was being offered a Finance position. Last Friday was a little awkward because the F&B Revenue Management intern didn't have an offer or any plans after the internship. The others in his cube were all staying and the pricing interns had had so much excitement in the last week when they found out. However...he just had to wait another week and he was offered a position as a Merchandise Business Insights Analyst. It's kind of exciting that he will be going to my old home at Maingate and gives me another reason to go back and visit!!!

There was also 4th intern who joined their cube from another area that needed space a couple of months into the internship, but since she hasn't been in this cube as long I don't know her as well. She just extended into another PI so I guess more time to get to know her!

It really is amazing how quickly the last 10 months as a full timer has gone. It is also going to be crazy for all of the new Fall 2016 interns to join Team Disney on Monday. I am excited to see all of the nervous, excited faces all dressed formally in business clothes getting their building tours on Monday. With such a great group to live up to, I am exciting no meeting the new group of faces that I will walk by a dozen times everyday for the next 6 months. I hope they are another fun group joining the Disney family. And who knows, if they are as good as the last set of interns, perhaps they will be around for a long time to come :)

Updates and new Bucket List

Hello everyone! Once again I have disappeared from the world. I have been at my Full Time job for 7 and a half months so far! It's been crazy at times, but most of that is a good crazy. I still love my position and think that it is an amazing fit for me. My team continues to challenge me and keeps me wanting to continually improve. Through my position and covering another position while we were going through the hiring process to backfill the position, I have learned so much more about how Disney works and have worked with an incredible number of people from around the company. We have hired the new person for our team who has been with us for about a month and as I am transitioning some of the tasks I was covering I have realized that I will miss many of the things I was doing in that position and the wide range of people I was lucky enough of work with every week. However, since I will be going back to only having one position I am excited to see what new projects I will be working on!

While I have had a pretty amazing work life, I haven't been to the parks nearly as often as I did when I was an intern. I think it has been partly due to my foot limiting me so much when I first came back since I was still pretty limited after my surgery in June, partly since I have been spending a decent amount of time at Universal with my roommates, and partly since I know that I am not going anywhere soon so I don't feel pressured to go all of the time anymore. That being said, Disney has a lot of exciting things coming up in 2016 that I am sooooo excited for (in addition to some things leaving us. I'm looking at you, Hollywood Studios). Therefore, I decided it was time to update my bucket list! I figured that while I don't have a time constraint to do things anymore, there are still many things I never got around to and many new things that I want to do and I think that having them listed in one place will make it more likely to happen! So if you would like to see what is on my 2016 Bucket List, head over to that page to see what I have planned!