Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2011)

It's always fun to remember that although it's easy to watch the old Steve Ballmer dancemonkeyboy.wmv video and laugh at the ridiculousness of it, at least half of the Microsoft faithful in attendance that day loved it and ate it up.

In “No Logo” Noami Klein writes about people getting Nike swoosh tatoos.

Most of these interns are going to be self-selected to love Disney. The Disney fans I know are joyful and don't have a lick of cynicism. The "magic of Disney" captures a joyful attitude that was already latent within their personality, but is hard to find elsewhere.

The experience of getting to live and work in a park that non-cynically calls itself the "happiest place on earth", surrounded by peers that are just as joyous as you are, is worth more to them than the pay.

I don't think this is a bad outcome for these interns. For the ones that love it, all the better, and for the ones that end up hating it, they learn when and why to be more skeptical of a culture they don't quite fit into.

My WAG is that its a lot of kids who for whatever reason, don't want to live with their parents for the summer, but don't have the grades to get a normal paid summer internship away from home. So Disney basically provides the same sort of menial summer job they could get in their hometown, but they can live with a bunch of similarly aged kids instead of their parents, and get to say they spent their summer at an internship with a prestigious corporation, instead of flipping burgers at the local McDs.

The opportunity to provide happiness to millions, in a niche I and my extended family enjoy, would be very enticing to me. Sure I'd be making The Mouse a ton of cash, but that's just a part of the game... positions with that sort of reach just don't exist outside of that environment.

Disney always underpays and chews people up. There is no illusion that The Mouse cares about any of its employees at an individual or personal level. Most people will some modicum of skill or self-respect burn out relatively quickly, but the romance of working at the parks means there will always be a long line of comparable people ready to replace them.

If you go in with your eyes open, it's not necessarily the worst place in the world to do a stint, but you need to be aware that Disney does not care. They will always underpay, they will always expect complete and utter control over your schedule, and they will always chew through people with zero regard for the ramifications -- because they can. Most professionals who work there end up taking the job, spending 1-2 years internalizing this, and moving on to greener pastures, often with a massive increase in personal cynicism and a serious reorientation of career goals, but there are some who are so devoted to the Mouse God that they'll stick around indefinitely.

There's a substantial number of retirees driven to Florida for its low taxes, low cost of living, and warm and humid weather which minimizes the impact of common old-age maladies like arthritis. These people are really in the best situation to work at Disney, as the income is understood to be supplemental and the main goal of employment is to stay active, help make children happy, etc.

For employees in that type of situation, Disney can present fairly agreeable terms. For everyone else, there is little doubt that a "career" in the parks is short-lived and sub-optimal (but of course, Disney doesn't really mind, because there're plenty of people left to burn out).

Btw, this is a pretty good book that shows that even in post-scarcity society of immortal humans, life can still be pretty interesting.