I really admire people who can deal with the public in a warm and caring manner. When I'm at WDW, I frequently picture the Disney experience from the CMs' side and wonder how they do it. Answer the same questions not just all day long, but every day all year long. Deal with the same rude behaviors that I see once or twice per ride/experience, hundreds of times a week. But at Disney, the overwhelming majority of CMs do it so very, very well that I personally have never seen their struggle to maintain.
That said, I definitely expect the warm and caring attitude when I'm there. The only snarkiness I've experienced was at Universal, and that will forever remain a part of how I look at those parks. It put them down at the level of what I experience in the real world, and I'm sorry but I am ignored as a faceless consumer and treated rudely enough in my everyday life (in NYC). I love Disney in part because its CMs treat me as if I am special, or at least not the nitwit I can be sometimes when I don't know--or have a brain, um, disruption--about the lay of the (adventure/fantasy/tomorrow/pavilion)land.
If these experiences noted here go unchecked or become a trend, that will make me sadder than rising prices, closed or misplaced rides (I'm looking at you, Norway), delayed openings, and many of the things discussed in these forums. It's not just what I can do or buy at Disney, but how I am treated when I'm there.
Somehow I'm feeling like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, so maybe I've had enough coffee for one morning and had better go read the paper.
