May 25

As I told you, I've been sick. I actually had to call in sick Saturday, because when I finally had the will to move, my entire body hurt. My throat had swollen shut, and I knew there would be no way for me to squeak out a speech on the boat.. So I called in sick. Now I'll explain the "point" system here. There are three sections: Attendance (number of sick days, number of days missed,etc) Safety and Performance (if I bump another boat, if I hurt a guest, if people hate my performance on a boat, or if I am rude to anyone) and Clock In/Out (clocking in late, forgetting to clock in or out).

Depending on what you do wrong, you get points deducted. Sometimes it's only half a point, in worse situations its 2 points. For every three points, you get one reprimand. Three reprimands and you're out the door on a flight home. But this is the part even I get confused with.... Points stay within their sections. You can have one point in each section and not have a reprimand (they don't combine). Currently, I have one point in Attendance (called in sick) and a half point in Clock In/Out (forgot to clock out on a training day).

Now a cool thing is that points can be erased after a period of time "being good". Points don't stay on my record, reprimands do. So if I am good for the month of June, in July I should have a clean slate again. Take note new recruits!

As for yesterday.. I felt a whole helluva lot better when I woke up... generally only my throat and sinuses were in pain. I took some dayquil and started my day at work. My shift started at 5. At 5 15 we got closed for inclement weather (awesome!). Then we opened for about 10 minutes at like 8 I think, which was about enough time to load two boats and send them off before pissing off every other guest in line when we closed again. I can't remember if I've explained the inclement weather stuff..

Jungle Cruise and all other outdoor attractions close due to high winds, lightning and thunder, and sometimes in heavy rain (but it has to be practically hailing for them to close in rain). Instructions on when to close down rides come from Tomorrowland tower (refer again to the map I posted earlier to see why this is a problem when storms always come left to right)... Generally we have a full 10 boats loaded on the river, with lightning everywhere before we get the call to close. After we close in a lightning storm, the rule of thumb is after ever flash of lightning are 20 minutes of being closed. The countdown starts again at the next flash. If for 20 minutes there is no flash, they will open us again (but sometime like yesterday, we close immediately again because of another flash).

Oh, and before I started work, I realized I forgot my nametag (still attached to my jacket in the laundry). So I had to go to the office and the secretary traded me a "Pat" from Florida nametag for my very important Disney ID. At the end of my shift, I found out that only a manager has keys to that drawer to give me back my ID. There is one manager for all of Adventureland and Liberty Square. I had to wait for him to finish clearing guests from his areas before he could get my ID.

We were open until 2am last night (12 til 2 were Magic Hours for hotel guests).. which means it's pretty slow. I clocked out at 2 15.... and promptly waited (unpaid) for the manager until roughly 3. I was in my door and in bed round 4 30, 4 45 after the bus rides. Yesterday also kinda sucked because guests were very unhappy. Its hard to remain in character and happy when the guests are staring at you wide mouthed and picking their noses, wondering why they just waited 45 minutes in line to stare at me and listen to my lame jokes. A lot of skippers were reporting that people were gettin on the boats, and leaning back and falling asleep. Talk about rude. Kids, take note.