A Little About Me :)

Hello All!

I thought I'd start with a little about myself.  As of midnight last night I am 26 years old and live in Oregon on the West Coast of the US.  I currently work at the Disney Store where I've been for 3 years. I absolutely love it there!  I've been a Disney geek for as long as I can remember, along with my whole family.  Disney trips abounded when I was younger.  And then, I went to college 10 minutes from Disneyland so I got an annual pass and was there all the time.

However, I graduated in 2009 (not the best year...) so I came home to Oregon and moved back in with the folks.  It took me a while, but eventually an opening came up at the Disney Store, so I went in, interviewed, and started my Disney journey.  I've got to do some really amazing things working at the Disney Store, including being able to go to Seattle to help open two different Imagination Park stores there.  When I found out that my store was closing (very sad), I knew that I wanted to stay with Disney.  Because as other Disney geeks know, once you go Disney, you never go back...

I started researching my options of staying with the company.  I thought about moving to California or Florida to go to the parks.  But, my goodness, moving is expensive.  As a girl with student loans I wanted a great Disney job that didn't make me go beyond broke...  That's when I found Disney Cruise Line.  This was March 2012.  I contacted a few different recruiters and finally I found one who was willing to help me out.  However, I wasn't sure I wanted to start with merch, because after 2 years I wanted to try something different.  Well, as you can imagine, any other positions weren't hirings (neither was merch for that matter...).  So I waited, and waited and waited.  Then, last summer, my old manager at the Disney Store called me because they were opening a new store close to our old store!  She wanted me to at least come help them open it.  I agreed, of course, because opening a store is an amazing experience.

After the opening, it was Christmas time, and I'm fairly certain my manager would have hurt me if I left during the holiday season...  So I stayed through Christmas, and the first week of January I contacted my awesome recruiter (who'd I'd been talking to on a monthly basis), she told me that merch was the only thing hiring anytime in the next year- and that if I just got on the boat, I could move later if I wanted.  Though she said I'd love merch so much I'd never want to leave...

That brings me to Mid-March - I've got to run but tune in tomorrow for the rest of my journey up until this point.

-Steph :)