Rules That Were Supposed to Help But Ended up a Big Fail
Credit: freepik
Clocking in at the Kingdom
Back when I worked at Disneyland, they had a system like this, and I believe most (if not all) departments followed it. If you called in sick, you received 3 points. You could call in sick for up to 4 consecutive shifts on the same 3 points. On the 5th shift, you were put out on a LOA and required a note to return. If you were late, you received 1.5 points. Depending on your status or seniority, you were written up based on the number of points you accrued in a select amount of time. For example, 9 points in 3 months, 12 points in 6 months, 24 points in a year, etc. The points would fall off 1 year from the date you initially received them.
Here’s the kicker: they also have a call-in option called “dependent.” A dependent call was 0 points for up to 3 consecutive shifts. When that was first instituted, it was meant for people who have dependents that they need to care for at home, namely children or elderly parents. At the time, you had to qualify for it by having these dependents listed on your tax forms with HR. If you didn’t, you got 3 points. Later, Disneyland was forced to open the option to all Cast Members but revised the policy to limit all dependent calls to single shifts (no more consecutive shifts) and to cap them at 4 in a year. They were use-them-or-lose-them, and they’d reset on January 1. Furthermore, the CM would have to say who they were caring for (kid, mom, etc.)
Do you know how often people called in dependent on January 1? Most of the time, when they left their VM, we could still hear the party going on in the background. It wasn’t unusual to have massive staffing issues on January 1 because people who were not scheduled to work didn’t want to come in because they had already received the day off or wouldn’t answer the phone. And these kids were calling in to care for their grandmothers. Seriously.
I don’t know if Disneyland still uses that points system, but in theory, you could miss about 25% of the year if you watched your points carefully, balanced your sick and dependent calls, and were never late when you did show up.
