Marathon Weekend 2027

[The Expert]

Since most work gets done over Zoom, Teams, and email these days, being “around” from Disney seems totally workable. You’ll be back to your resort and available well before any of your team get to the office.

This! I'm also in a very small department and every role is critical. When I did almost-Dopey to Dumbo the year the DL races came back, I went directly from Orlando to Anaheim and was away from home for almost two full weeks. I took my work laptop and was able to keep up on everything, taking only five total days of PTO over that whole period -- and two of those were for travel. I stayed on the race wakeup schedule and was even able to do quite a bit of park time. I made clear that I was "on call" if something came up on those working days, joined a few random calls from my phone, and had my laptop in the car just in case. It worked out really well.

 

[jrsharp21]

I have run into this situation in the past. I am the director of a department of nine employees and have about fifty others in the field that my team oversees in a way. Being that it's accounting, MW always falls during our year end close. I always register assuming it's going to be no problem if I go and work from the resort. One of my co-workers, manager in a different department but rolls up into the same boss, decided he wanted to start doing MW. One year our boss pretty much told us that he didn't think it was a good idea we were both gone for year end. He also said that in years past it was okay, but not sure it would be okay going forward. I pretty much told him that if that was the case, he would be searching for a new director. LOL. So essentially I am working from the resort the first couple of days each year. Heck, one year I worked outside Starbucks at Disney Springs, out by the water. LOL. I usually will work half day in the morning and then head to the parks, but answer emails while waiting in line for rides.

 

[Disneyhanna]

My job is remote and I use company provided internet at home, which is pretty slow, like 25mbps. When I worked at Disney over marathon weekend the wifi speeds in my room were like 150+ mbps for both upload and download. Files that take me a minute to save at home took a few seconds to save! I told my boss I should just work at Disney going forward!

 

[PrincessV]

Feeling pretty jealous of all these sane telework policies lol! My employer’s are draconian in contrast: no telework outside of 50 miles from the office, can’t telework in any week with holidays or vacation days. My job is 100% online and there are so many days I’d love to take my laptop to EPCOT to work, but it’s more than 50 miles away, so…

 

[accm]

I work in construction, so can't work remotely. But everyone at my work also knows that my vacation requests are actually vacation notifications. I will work 7 days a week, however many hours required, but you will not mess with my trips.

Feeling pretty jealous of all these sane telework policies lol! My employer’s are draconian in contrast: no telework outside of 50 miles from the office, can’t telework in any week with holidays or vacation days. My job is 100% online and there are so many days I’d love to take my laptop to EPCOT to work, but it’s more than 50 miles away, so…

This is ridiculous and arbitrary. What difference does it make if you're 15mi or 75mi away? Also, how would they even know?

 

[PrincessV]

This is ridiculous and arbitrary. What difference does it make if you're 15mi or 75mi away? Also, how would they even know?

Yep. It’s dumb and everyone hates it. But it’s possibly the least toxic thing going on in our org, and with constant threats of taking away telework altogether, we just keep our heads down and take it. The only justification we’ve been given is that this is to keep things “fair” for those employees whose work cannot be done remotely. (Never mind that we worked 100% remotely for 2 YEARS during the COVID shutdown and received constant praise for how well we performed!)

 

[sandam1]

But everyone at my work also knows that my vacation requests are actually vacation notifications.

This is me too. I had a toxic boss for 10 years and at one point he lost his gourd during a staff meeting because someone was taking a specific day off (for a medical appointment!) because he might need them that day. Afterwards, I said to a co-worker that the day I have a vacation request denied is the day that I'm done. However, said boss was also a bully/coward and knew better than to mess with me.

Thankfully, said boss has been retired for 2+ years and my amazing new boss wholeheartedly believes in work-life balance and treating his staff like responsible adults that can plan ahead to make sure that things are covered. Whenever I go on vacation, I usually give updates on how to reach me in an emergency (i.e. whether I plan on checking email and how often or if text/calling is better), but that's my personal preference. I have other co-workers go radio-silence when they are on vacation and that's perfectly acceptable too.

 

[fatmanatee]

I think a few of us are in similar positions with this being a tough weekend to work around. I'm lucky to be able to do this remote (we're back to three days per week in office so ill have to make that up afterwards) but couldn't take any days off and was working 10 hour days last year. This time I'm aiming to fly in Sunday just in case I have to work late again.

 

[marty3d]

My job is remote and I use company provided internet at home, which is pretty slow, like 25mbps. When I worked at Disney over marathon weekend the wifi speeds in my room were like 150+ mbps for both upload and download. Files that take me a minute to save at home took a few seconds to save! I told my boss I should just work at Disney going forward!

I’ve also found Disney WiFi at the resorts to be very good. I’ve worked outside on the Boardwalk a couple of times and was able to do video Teams calls no problem. I will argue that being able to sit on the BW and work is a productivity boost over my home office!

Though I did get several comments from colleagues on the view

 

[The Expert]

Also, how would they even know?

I would 100% be testing this theory. And if they ARE tracking, blame it on wonky internet and install a VPN for next time.

 

[marty3d]

I would 100% be testing this theory. And if they ARE tracking, blame it on wonky internet and install a VPN for next time.

While I’m allowed to work from anywhere globally (with the exception of a handful of countries that I’m not even allowed to bring my laptop to) I do know the Cisco software on my laptop logs my location and It can’t be disabled - not for employee tracking but for security. I suspect that’s not uncommon on corporate devices.