There are three words that, if occupying a public-facing role at a Walt Disney theme park, you are not allowed to say to customers: I don’t know. Uttering this phrase is grounds for termination. You can say things like, “Let me find out,” or “That’s a great question!” but to admit total ignorance is a grave mistake.

If you occupy a public-facing role at a Walt Disney theme park, you are not an employee. You are a cast member. You do not interact with customers. You interact with guests. And your sole responsibility is to preserve the magic—to never, under any circumstance, allow the seams to show in the seamless experience that is Disney.

Spending a day at a Disney theme park is, for many, anything but magical. The crowds are overwhelming at best and unbearable at worst, with some 50,000 people visiting each park daily. The heat takes a toll, despite several under-shade resting spots that dot each pathway. Children are tired, crying and whining. Parents have reached their limit. Souvenirs are overpriced—hell, everything is overpriced, from lemonade to keychains.

Whether pleasurable or not, the entire experience is, by all standards, tightly controlled. You won’t see gum sticking to the streets as unsightly, dirty blobs, because Disney parks don’t sell gum for that reason. You won’t see uniformed security guards, because they’re disguised as tourists—and they’re everywhere, always on the lookout for raucous behavior. You won’t see trash on the ground, because trash cans are meticulously spaced every 30 feet. Why that number? When designing the park, Walt Disney observed that most people were willing to carry their garbage up to 30 feet before disposing of it (usually on the ground).

You’ll also never see trash itself, thanks to the underground system of tubes and tunnels that transports everything from garbage to gift shop inventory to costumed characters— who, incidentally, are absolutely required to stay in full costume while “on stage” in the park. Playing Donald Duck and need to throw up? Do it in the mask, then signal to another cast member—by covering one eye and raising one hand—that you need to exit immediately.

Cast members who work the attraction lines also don special clothing, and when directing guests on and off the rides, they always use two fingers—index and middle—to point. One finger is considered rude in some cultures, and besides, using two fingers simply appears more polite.

“The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.” To me, this quote, often attributed to Aristotle, summarizes the hallmark of an open mind. We are human. We are limited. We are intelligent, sentient beings, but we exist within boundaries that we either refuse to recognize or simply fail to grasp. As a species, we are capable of breathtaking acts of compassion and innovative strategies toward progress. We are capable of unspeakable evil.

In Disney’s mind, we are one, and we exist in a purgatory of sorts that straddles the real world and that of cartoons. In Disney’s mind, a layer of reality is stripped, removed, discarded and hushed over. And whatever the case may be, whoever we are and regardless of what we encounter, we can never say that we don’t know.