Matt Ouimet goes to Magic Kingdom

Somewhere around 2005-ish they started refurbishing them in a way that you could just hose them out. Problem is, when it's hot and humid, the water just kinda sits there and starts to stink and sit on the floor.

Mulfinator:

Magic is supposed to be Disney's thing.

That’s what the sign out front claims.

Per Ouimet being a little surprised by the reaction, so was I, because this was done on LinkedIn, not Facebook or X or the Tik Tok.

I don't exactly think of LinkedIn as being a hotbed of viral reactions, but rather a place where professionals share things with other professionals.

I had a nice encounter with Matt wayback at the Valravn announcement day (thanks, Pointbuzz), and he struck me as a very sincere, genuine individual. In a span of 10 minutes we were somehow talking about my family and what visiting Cedar Point meant to us, and also how my own career had connected to Cedar Point.

His down-to-earth nature was infectious.

Try helping elderly (over 60-65’ish) folks understand how to “do” Disney these days. It’s very frustrating for them, especially if it’s a once in a lifetime visit or once every 10 years or so. I mean they remember days of E tickets! Phones and apps aren’t a big part of their life beyond calls, texts, pictures and maybe Facebook or some app games, to have to use to plan a “fun” or relaxing vacation at Disney with the grandkids just defeats the joy and magic of Disney.

Linkedin has become more social media like in recent years. There are consultants who will tell you how to maximize the impact of the platform. Its become more forced in many ways. And many organizations are encouraging members to share content across multiple platforms. Large number of people who have Linkedin accounts also use Facebook, Instagram, disaster formerly known as twitter, etc. And post on message boards. The chances that anything stays isolated to one platform is much less now.

Things that made it more likely this spreads. One, its negative and everything knows negative info spreads faster and further. Two, its about Disney which has a huge following (both people who love it and hate it). Three, its from a former executive.

I have never met Matt. Only read or watched a couple interviews with him. No reason to think there was nefarious motive behind what he did/said. Likely meant it to be constructive. But he could have gotten there by just reaching out to any of a number of contacts he likely still has at the company.

But as a former executive of public companies, he knows the dynamics of making public versus non-public statements. That is a line he navigated every day in those former positions.

If he does something similar going forward, you know it was intentional. If not, he may have learned something new (or just doesn't say anything further publicly or privately).

Tech can be tougher for older people to navigate. Not limited to Disney though. Good thing for many 60+'ers heading to Disney is their kids and grandkids are liking going with them and they can help with the tech. I remember using paper E tickets. Though I use a smart phone. My 20-something daughter handled most of the tech on our recent trip to WDW but I could have done that (helped with some of the reservations). I am still the family photographer. Son looks like he will be primed to take it over when the time comes. My dad was almost 80 when he passed that mantle to me so I still have some time left. Dad figured adopted digital photography but my parents never used email, smart phone, texts, apps, or even a computer so need help of younger generation for that.

My favorite line by Matt: "there is a real opportunity if you just take a step back and see this through the eyes of the guests."

I can't unsee the double spaces...

Gunkey Monkey:

Try helping elderly (over 60-65’ish) folks

Elderly does not mean what you think it means. My in-laws are 75 and selling real estate. Hell, they're more physically active than I am.

Sure but have they tried to link together a group in the Disney World app?

GoBucks89:

Its become more forced in many ways.

"I am humbled and honored to announce that I completed unloading the dishwasher this morning and received genuine and sincere thanks from my spouse. More evidence that sticking through adversity is worth it!"

I know 40-somethings who are tech ignorant. And 80-somethings who are tech savvy. But as a general matter, I think the percentage of 40-somethings who are tech savvy is higher than the percentages of 80-somethings who are. Though as I often tell my dad, most people his age are dead.

After reading all of the complaints in recent times about Disney having "too much planning" involved to enjoy it, I am very glad I got to visit Hollywood Studios earlier this year during the late night event. Got to the park around 7:30 pm, rode Star Tours twice (although I think anyone could do that regardless of the time of day anymore!), saw MuppetVision, got on Rise of the Resistance and Smuggler's Run, rode Midway Mania (walk-on!), Swirling Saucers and Slinky Dog, plus I got to ride Runaway Railway twice and Tower of Terror. In addition, there were "free" Mickey Ice Cream bars, popcorn, and other treats and sodas. Didn't have to worry about booking reservation times, I was just able to wander around and enjoy the park. Longest I waited was 25 minutes for both Rise and Slinky Dog Dash. I was only there for 4 hours, but had an absolute blast. Maybe I'll have to take note of nights that WDW has these events at the other parks and plan my visits to coincide with them. The lack of being glued to my phone to make a reservation, being able to enjoy the park without incredibly massive crowds and of course, on-demand ice cream was definitely worth it!

Brian Noble:

"I am humbled and honored to announce that I completed unloading the dishwasher this morning and received genuine and sincere thanks from my spouse. More evidence that sticking through adversity is worth it!"

I really wish I could vote this up more than once. Funniest thing I’ve read in some time.

I despise LinkedIn with a passion. Not only is it forced, but I can’t for the life of me understand why the obsession with work is so high that we had to social-media-ize it. Work gets enough time and attention out of our lives already, and we have to devote even more attention and time to glorifying it? Give me a break. I absolutely love my job and even that isn’t enough for me to want to go and gloat about how awesome our company is, make some stupid motivational quote about how to work better and love work more, etc. I appreciate the ability to make connections in case one ever finds oneself on the job hunt, but that’s about it. I’m not interested in anybody’s hustle.

Whew. I try to better control my emotions, but clearly LinkedIn triggers them, haha.

There are a few things on LI that I think make perfect sense.

"I want to hire someone and am looking for your recommendations." -- even better on behalf of someone else
"I am looking for a new role in areas X, Y, or Z, and I am (not) willing to relocate."
"My colleague was laid off and they are awesome, you should hire them."
"My junior colleague has done <great thing X>." (It's always good to shine a light on early-career people.)
"I saw <Cool Article/Book/etc.> that made me think about <My Industry> in <Some New Way>."

There are also some things that are in the okay, I guess bucket. For example, my brother is a partner in one of the big three management consulting firms. His posts are advertising, and securing new business is part of his job. That makes sense.

As an aside, if you ask him what he does for a living, he'll respond: "Well, have you seen Office Space? I'm a Bob."

It's also reasonable to simply say: "I'm leaving <X> and [joining <Y>/starting <Z>/taking time off.]" without all the flowery stuff that goes along with it. I'll even give people a pass when their firm promotes them to partner and they (or better yet the firm) announce(s) it.

It's fine as a job seeking/hiring mechanism, but I find it completely useless the rest of the time. Most of it is spammy recruiters who completely disregard the career stage that I'm actually in.

I had mentioned that I appreciated how one could make connections that benefit folks during job hunts. During all those mass layoffs earlier this year, it was nice to see how people formed little communities to help each other out in finding new work. That’s great.

However, as several have said, it’s all the forced stuff, and it’s really phony. If you can’t be honest, I don’t see the point behind it. A lot of very profitable companies did a suck-tastic job of laying people off left, right, and center (have these places not heard of offering early retirement, because at least the airlines did, and they’re often in much worse shape), and yet even the people who got hosed had to post rosy little comments about how wonderful those places were. Granted, for the majority of their time there, they probably were, but it all comes off as such bogus positivity. I feel like I’m embedded in the world’s largest marketing firm every time I read it.

Wow. Clearly I have some pent-up issues here, haha.

I'm going to have to play the naïve card here. What do you all mean by forced?

I just created a job posting if anyone wants to teach part-time in a psych department in NE Ohio.

Forced may mean different things to different people. To me, its mainly two things. Many organizations now are pushing content on its members to share/re-post. Some even seek to stagger it so posts remain circulating for longer periods of time. So, marketing department writes some type of promo, gives directive to other employees to share on Linkedin (and other social media as well). But everyone shouldn't do that today. Some people should, some next week and others the following week. Keeps things percolating on Linkedin longer. So what at one point was something of an organic networking platform turned into an orchestrated commercial.

Then there are the Linkedin attention whores. Sometimes there are things of substance but often its just "look at me, look at me" posts. Haven't had anything to say in a "while" (month, week, couple days, or hours) so here is something meaningless just to hear me talk so you don't forget who I am. Typically nothing as bad as what Professor Noble posted (though it was very funny). But still worthless drivel nonetheless.

A decade or so ago, I briefly had a facebook account. Deleted it after about 6 months. Told some people who asked me if I was still on that what I liked about facebook was far outweighed by what I didn't like. Linkedin is very similar. At first it was easy because there wasn't a lot of traffic on it. But now that traffic has increased substantially and there is just so much meaningless junk that it becomes more frustration that value. At this point I don't use it much for anything other than finding out when someone I know has a new job.

sirloindude:

...I appreciated how one could make connections that benefit folks during job hunts.

You don't even have to be on the hunt for it to work. A friend of mine was working at Charles Schwab with no intention of leaving and had a head hunter reach out to him via Linked In. That new company doubled his salary and got him all because of Linked In. My friend wasn't even looking to leave Schwab, he just had Linked In to just have it. So you can create a profile, like he and I, and just sit back and do nothing until someone reaches out. I don't actively participate with the platform other than maybe updating it as I move up at my current job, but I at least have it in case something happens and I am on the job hunt all of a sudden. I have never felt forced to do anything with it.

I once looked at a guy's profile who applied to one of my jobs, and it said, "Helping dope companies reach their potential."

Hard pass.