For the past few days I've had the privilege of leaving this cold, snowy Chicago weather and attending a conference in Orlando. We had speakers from the Disney organization, and they were excellent...talking about leadership.

One thing struck me. We've all heard about euphemisms, such as "make love." I am not sure whether Disney's terms are euphemisms, or what, but they apparently have many. Some of them are:

"Cast Members" - employees

"Textile Services" - laundry

"Costume" - uniform

"Passport" - ticket

"Guest" - customer (though others use this too)

One that is used by a couple of supermarket chains here (probably also by a lot more) is the use of colleagues when they mean employees. That has meant I've seen signs saying things like COLLEAGUE PARKING ONLY; they don't park their colleagues there though, they park their cars.

I agree that Disney employees are "Cast Members" since they are putting on an act (that they like you) for the "guests."

One amusing item about Disney management is that they forbid facial hair, even though Walt sported a mustache.

I've never heard of that use of colleagues here, arnie. Interesting!

In times past "costume" would not have been a euphamism, but likely is now. Hell, "Disney" is a euphamism for unconscionable money sucker, in my opinion. I don't think Walt himself had that attitude, though.

We don't usually call employees "colloeagues" but more and more places call them "associates."

I heard an announcement in the supermarket yesterday that started "This is a colleague announcement..."

Of course Asda is now part of the Walmart family (as it says on the sign outside) so it's hardly surprising. It's also an interesting use of "family".

Or is it? I saw on line that they have sold it again.

quote:

Hell, "Disney" is a euphamism for unconscionable money sucker, in my opinion. I don't think Walt himself had that attitude, though.

Ya know, Geoff, I don't have that same attitude. First of all, my father-in-law knew Walt Disney, and you are right, that wasn't his attitude. One of the stories we heard from their leadership group (excellent speakers and much better than the other "money sucker" speakers I've heard) was that originally Walt was screwed out of money for designing a character ("Oswald the Lucky Rabbit") for a company. Because of the contract Walt had signed, they took his idea and then let him go. After that, we were told, Walt became very proprietary, as we know of their products today. On the other hand, they don't hold a monopoly, and if people don't like it, don't go to their parks or buy their stuff.

Oswald video

One reason that copyright has been extended to truly unreasonable lengths is because Walt Disney didn't want to relinquish conttrol of Mickey Mouse. In fact, the law that extended copyright beyond the death of the creator is often called "The Mickey Mouse Law."(link)

And, you can see why he did that; he was burned as a young artist.

Many of us have idiosyncrasies because of things that have happened in our lives. My idiosyncrasy? Epicaricacy. And that would be Wordcraft's fault.