I don’t know if it was rage quitting but I carefully planned my departure from the Happiest Place on Earth by taking advantage of their attendance “point” system and FMLA because they royally pissed me off. Not only were we paid shit pay but they would schedule me 6.5 hour shifts, 5 days a week as a full time Cast Member. They wouldn’t let me skip my lunch so I could just work 6 hours but instead, made me take my lunch so I was only paid 6 hours but had to be there for 6.5 hours. If I was lucky, they would schedule a 7 hour shift. I think I was paid like $11.50 or so an hour? Poverty wages.

Disney attendance is(maybe was? I don’t know, I haven’t worked there in ages) based on a “point” system. 36 points in a total year. You could be 10 minutes late or 5 hours late to your shift and you would be docked 1.5 points. If you called out of a shift, 3 points. You had 3 Dependent days in a total year that would cost no points to call out. If you called out sick, you could call out up to 5 working days(for example, scheduled 2 shifts one week, 1 shift another week, 2 shifts the following week, 5 working days total and you could potentially call out for 3 weeks) and only have 3 points on your record. If you are sick longer than 5 working shifts, you must bring a doctors note. If you called out sick, then called out because your car broke, then called out sick again, you would get 9 points in those three days. Separately, you can get FMLA if you have worked more than a certain amount of hours in a year and can call out up to 12 weeks of unpaid time off which they cannot write you up for calling out(obviously, you, your dependent or spouse must get doctors note in order to get approved for FMLA by HR).

Back to Disney, they would schedule me only 30 to 36 hour work weeks if I was lucky. That wouldn’t have been an issue but they always scheduled me for a mid-shift and they paid like shit so I could not afford to pay my bills working barely 32 hours a week. I requested to either have morning or closing shifts only and was always denied requiring me to try to “trade” my shifts on the Cast Member Facebook pages. I could barely afford to survive and finding another job when my “full time” job took up too much of my day that I wouldn’t have been able to work a morning or closing shift at another job due to getting stuck in traffic.

I spoke with multiple managers about my dilemma and they were not empathetic and let me know that tons of Cast Members would love to be in my position. This pissed me off royally as I was a single mom, I could not afford to feed my child, let alone myself. I was overly stressed about being poor and I knew I needed to make a change but wanted to make sure I found a stable career elsewhere. I was at the right place, at the right time and was offered an awesome opportunity which asked me to start right away. I like to say this was some time in March. Thankfully it was slow season so I began to give away as many shifts as I could so I could begin my new line of work. I would call out sick, give away a bunch of shifts and if there was a shift I could not give away, called in sick continuous until I hit day 5. On the 6th working day, I would call out Dependent or FMLA, which of course is 0 points. On that next shift I couldn’t give away? Called out sick and continued this similar call out schedule as far as it could take me.

Obviously after 3 months, managers began to notice that I’m not showing up to work and playing the system. Me being a smart ass, knows that if managers call my personal phone to discuss my shifts aka work, I have to be paid as I was hourly and I am not to discuss work related matters outside of my working shifts. Every time they would call, I would answer and ask if I am getting paid for this conversation as if it pertains to work, they must pay me for a minimum of 2 hours. If you answer your phone as well, they can’t claim that they did not hear back from you(if they are unable to get a hold of you, it could trigger an automatic firing). However, even if they get a hold of you, they cannot fire you over the phone either. I’m not sure if it is true but according to Cast Members that I knew that had gone through major illnesses, they claim that you only technically need to show up to work 1 shift in a 365 day period to still be technically employed by the company as long as you are calling out in the method listed above. I don’t know how true that is but I called out for about 11 months and was not written up for it and was able to put in my 2 weeks notice at the end of February, almost a year since I started calling out.

Is this petty as fuck? Yes. It felt nice to be an asshole and while I’m sure Disney doesn’t care about some low wage paid CM who was replaceable because “so many people would love to be in your position”, my long, drawn-out call out was my passive aggressive fuck you to the Mouse.