Last night turned out to be a wee bit annoying. I drove down to universal thinking it was the orientation... However it turned out that they wanted me to finish up some paperwork that should have been done the first time I was there. So I have to go to the 'real' orientation next week.
I was pleased to see that via the east west it only took me 45 minutes to get down to universal. Considering that was in rush out traffic is pretty good. I wont have to spend three hours in traffic on I-4 going exactly twenty-five miles an hour from Lake Mary to universal. It happened to me last horror nights, several times. It really sucks, all you can do is sit there in the heat and feel the vein in your forehead throb.
Once again I felt like I was one of the oldest people there. There was a big crowd of college students in there. I was kind of surprised at the outfits some of them wore... little miniskirts and halter tops like they were not at a job interview but going out to the club. I know it was casual dress and all, but it still surprised me. Maybe I am just a fogey.
I spied out two Mohawks, one much more dramatic than the other.
Eventually we got most of the documentation filled out, and the little group I was with filed into a little interview room. The Universal dude explained to us that next week was orientation, and that we would have to wear business casual. Slacks, button shirts, etc. One of the mini-skirt girls asked if she could wear skirts. He responded 'yes, but not miniskirts. Down to the knee.'
Skirt girl bit her lower lip and looked troubled.
He had us finish up some paperwork. He said, "And now for the tricky part, I went you to remove the center document but keep the paper clip on." So I pulled out the document and said amiably "That sure was tricky." I then looked over and saw skirt girl had managed to pull her paper clip off and scatter the documents around. I suddenly felt like a bit of a heel for saying that, even though skirt girl was clearly visiting from retard town.
After that we had to get our fingerprints scanned. You stood in line and then went up to a computer with a special fingerprint scanner. The gruff black lady would seize your hand and one by one pull out one of your fingers and scan it. It felt like I was being booked. When she was done she pulled out a little bottle of hand sanitizer and squirted it on. She did not offer me any. Not sure where the fingerprints go from there. I assume they are run against some national database of pervert fingerprints, and if it turned out that if sometime in the past you had been putting those fingers in places you should not have, you would not be getting a job.
Walked out of the building and to my car. On my way I past a couple of girls dressed up in gypsy outfits. I like universal.
2026 Update
Dialing back to the sweaty, miniskirted gate of Universal in 2006, where Ed is already judging the other applicants.
Twenty years ago, getting hired meant driving somewhere in actual traffic, filing actual paperwork, and getting your fingerprints pressed into a machine by a woman who decided you did not deserve hand sanitizer. Now the whole circus happens on a laptop in your underwear, and your fingerprints are captured by a phone the size of a postcard that also knows your sleep schedule and your sins. I-4 is still a monument to human misery, but instead of sitting there feeling your forehead vein throb, you sit there watching a little blue dot lie to you about an alternate route. The miniskirt question would now be settled by an HR chatbot that says 'business casual' and then reports your tone to a manager. And the hand sanitizer? That would be a branded pump bottle with a QR code and a subscription. The real change, though, is that nobody calls Universal 'Universal' anymore. It's a property. A destination. A memory palace of intellectual property. Ed drove 45 minutes because he didn't have a map in his hand and a voice in his pocket telling him to take the next exit. Different hell, same vein.
“2006 Ed, when the skirt girl asked if skirts were acceptable and the interviewer said "down to the knee," did you actually think you were being paid enough to care, or was that the precise moment you realized theme park orientation was just high school with a fingerprint scanner?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, you hit it about right. I wasn't paid enough to care about skirt girl's fashion crisis, and I think that was the moment I realized orientation was just high school with a fingerprint scanner. Watching her fight that paper clip was like seeing the ghost of every kid who couldn't find their locker. I felt bad for that little jab, but only for a second. The fingerprint lady grabbing my fingers one by one felt like I was being booked for something, and I half expected her to read me my rights. I guess I care about the job itself, but not enough to get worked up over miniskirt rules. Universal's got their rules, fine, but I'm just there to stumble around in the dark, yell at people, and maybe get paid enough for gas money. So no, I did not care. I just wanted to get home before my cats staged a revolt.
