- Either blog, vlog, or journal so you can think back on all the cool things you've gotten to do. This also lets your family and friends back home feel involved in your super cool Disney life! It was hard for me to find time to blog because I always felt like I was either working, playing, or sleeping. What worked best for me was setting aside one day of the week (I did Sundays), and getting into a habit of updating.
- Call home, but get into a good schedule! You don't want to spend all your free time calling home, because that usually doesn't help with any homesickness you might have. On the flip side, you also want to remember you have people back home that want to hear from you so they know you're alive and well! I called home once a week, or every other week just to catch up. It worked great for me, my roommate Lindsey did something similar and neither of us had any homesickness!
- Schedule yourself a three day weekend. Sometimes you just need that extra day off to relax! It's okay to give away a shift every once in awhile, just don't get into a habit. I gave away shifts maybe four or five times just to have a three day weekend, and I never regretted it! That way you can have two days for play, and one for sleeping in, laundry, and grocery shopping.
- Become friends with your coworkers. It can be easy to think of everyone as a "boss" figure, or think your coworkers look down on your because they're older, let me tell you that those are some of the coolest people you'll meet. If you can get to know your coworkers and managers, work becomes so much less stressful and less of a chore!! The second half of my program was great because I knew everyone and learned how to have fun while also being a great worker.
- It's okay to call in sick once in awhile. You will get a point for this, but sometimes your body just needs to rest and recover. I was super stressed about the point system coming in, but I racked up MAYBE 5 points, and 0 reprimands. No one cares about a few stray points, it doesn't affect your chances of being rehired. Just watch the reprimand tally, that's the one you have to look out for! I called out sick probably three times. Just know that if you call out sick and go swipe yourself into the parks, THEY KNOW. I never did that, but others got reprimanded for it.
- Go to the parks before or after work. I loved the shifts where I could just go chill in the park with my coworkers after we got off, especially in the Christmas season. Instead of going home with the exhausted post work mentality, I got to go home thinking about our fun night in the park! And this doesn't need to be a four hour thing, sometimes we just went to a show, or got a bar of ice cream.
That's all I have for now! It's extremely easy to get caught up in the work routine where you never take time for yourself, but that's how people get burnt out. Make sure you're taking time for you, and don't overstretch yourself. If you're excuse for working six days a week and always being exhausted is that your dead broke, then your doing something wrong. Lay of the booze or something! I consistently worked 30 hour weeks (AKA THE BARE MINIMUM) and scraped by perfectly fine :) Make the most of your program! Trust me when I say IT WILL FLY BY, and before you know it you're wishing you hadn't gotten so caught up in working. Not that working is a bad thing, but it can also be disheartening, and you can lose some of that Disney magic. STAY STRONG AND EMBRACE THE MAGIC <3
