I get your point but the CM isn't the joke they are just playing a part in the joke. It would be a serious problem if the CM was the joke.I have to agree to disagree with this. For me, just because a person is trained to be on stage and stay in character doesn't mean they deserve to unknowingly be part of someone's prank. They may seem like a good sport, but again...they were trained to act like it. It doesn't mean that they actually appreciate these games. They may- they may not...but with good training, you'll never know. I know if I get an angry client cursing at me, there's a part of me that would love to put him in his place. Still, I've been trained to deal with difficult people with a certain sense of decorum. I know I'm not the exception either. In many professions, you're trained to deal with the common and not so common challenging client situations. I realize these are goofy questions and not a tirade of profanity, but it's wasting the employee's time and it seems distasteful to me to put someone in a situation like that for entertainment purposes.
I know it may seem fun and interactive, and maybe to most involved it is, but that mindset reminds me of some child psych-educational counseling based classes that covered common misperceptions of a bully. i.e. they find out years later that what was all in fun to them hurt the other person involved. I know I have no known facts to prove that anyone involved in these specific segments felt this way, but it's one of the scenarios that crossed my mind when I read this. From that angle, I can't help but find some of this a bit disconcerting.
It also seems like a conflict of interest from the business side. I realize this is Disney and it's not your average corporate entity, but they do take their public perception and image very seriously. People representing a firm that receives commissions selling Disney travel products to be wasting the time of park employees with practical jokes just seems questionable. I have no idea what the business ramifications would be, so this is more conjecture than anything else, but I can't imagine they'd be too keen on this. On top of that, while the DIS is widely known among most hardcore Disney fans, the average guest has no idea about Disboards or the DisUnplugged. If a person is going to fork over thousands of dollars and entrust an agent with their travel plans, they might think twice if they were put off by the firm affiliated with a podcast pranking CMs. i.e. if they don't take this person's work time and job functions seriously, will they take my hard earned $ seriously?
My respect issues aren't with Oliver. He's an adult and he can decide if this makes him uncomfortable or might be an issue down the road.
And if this seems too serious for some...again...it may be. It's just my opinion . We all have different life, school, career, family, etc. backgrounds and we're all likely to assess this a bit differently based on those factors.
The CM was only involved in what 5-10 seconds of the joke? It's not like they took 5-10 minutes of the CMs time.
They are not pranking CMs, if they were it would be a serious problem. If anything they are pranking Oliver.