### Msg 1 From: *Hobbit* To: steve.juscen@interstatehotels.com Subject: Westin discussion contact? Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 12:24:13 -0500 Hello, I'm "Hobbit" with the Arisia crew. We actually met very briefly last weekend. When I happened to mention at checkout that all was not 100% rosy with my stay at the Westin, the front desk person gave me your email address and assured me that it was okay to contact you this way to discuss a couple of issues. It may involve some lengthy explanation, but I wanted to just make sure that this is an okay means of conversation first. If you could please acknowledge that you received this successfully and possibly white-list me as a sender, then I can proceed with the rest. You never know about spam-filters these days! Thanks _H* ### Msg 2 From: "Juscen, Steve" Subject: RE: Westin discussion contact? Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2020 01:20:20 +0000 Good Evening Hobbit, I do remember meeting you at the conference as well. It is fine to contact me through this email address. It is also a good means for communicating your conversation. I am sorry that your stay did not go as well as expected and I am anxious to hear your concerns. I look forward to hearing more from you. Regards, Steve ### Msg 3 From: *Hobbit* To: SBL via groups.io Subject: Westin letter Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2020 11:46:29 -0500 So here's a copy of the letter I fired off to that very same GM I met in the elevator, after he confirmed that his email address works. I hope he actually takes the time to absorb it, because his next $1000 from me in 2021 depends on it. Unfortunately if Arisia moves across the street when the new Omni is completed I might have to go through the whole damn thing again, but this will be online as public record by then so I can reference it. ==== Thanks for opening the line of communication. Here's the firehose... Making a bit of quiet time to go through this is probably wise. I've been part of Arisia for close to three decades, and present during every year we've been at the Westin. The hotel seems well-suited for our size and needs and we've developed a pretty good relationship, especially with regard to the technical areas where I do most of my work. Unlike some infamous groups, we try to leave any venue better than we found it! We were particularly sensitive to the overall needs of the staff in our "off year" in 2019, to avoid creating more animosity over the strike. Unfortunately, Marriott corporate took a different view and is actually in the process of suing us over contractual disagreements -- and yet, the show goes on. I also understand that your management/ownership structure is changing and that there may be some ongoing turmoil at those levels. However, that mostly doesn't affect how things work "on the ground", with the same people still in the loop such as some of the fellows from PSAV, various housemen we recognize [and tip well], and our CSM Veronica from Banquets. Who in particular I finally actually met for real this year, after seeing her name go by numerous times. I've also happily dropped about a thousand dollars in the place every January for a room, as that just makes my lengthy time there easier. That's five nights of revenue, not the typical two or three. Well, there was a year at the Aloft but that was mostly due to floor renovation, and I spent most of my days at the Westin anyway. My room stay this year was just peachy, by the way; no problem there. So with our relationship well-developed over the prior eight years, it came as a shock that certain elements of hotel staff began suddenly harassing our attendance over their appearance and manner of dress on Sunday evening, specifically with regard to footwear. There has been minor contention about this in past years but as far as I ever knew it came mostly from within the Arisia structure; I was not party to involvement with the hotel if there was any. Assuming you're fairly new on board with management, you may have to ask around for some of the history here. But fundamentally I and several of my colleagues have not needed or wanted footwear while attending and working the convention end-to-end, through all its phases and all the areas of the hotel that we utilize. We are confident and comfortable with this, as anyone watching us work will quickly realize. My first hint Sunday night was receiving texts from friends, saying that they had been rudely kicked out of M.J.O'Connors while trying to get a meal -- even just to pick up takeout. Now I understand that MJ's is a separate entity, but almost at the same time it turned out that people were also being harassed in the "Birch Bar" area -- an arbitrary and ill-defined rectangle of floor space, which has come under *no* such contention previously. People were angry and upset by this, and looking to *me* for help. Many people had been shoeless in both of these areas earlier in the weekend with absolutely no problem. So it quickly began feeling like a conspiracy of some sort, where MJ's and certain paranoid hotel management personnel had suddenly decided together to clamp down on Arisians with footwear as an excuse. I spent a good part of that evening talking to various managers about the inappropriateness of this, while missing one of our major events down in the ballroom that I had just worked to help build. Personally, I've avoided wearing shoes for health and mobility reasons for many years, in a similar way that one would avoid smoking or excess drinking. There is plenty of science asserting that shoes are ultimately harmful in many ways and that bare feet are healthy, and far safer than most people realize. Yes, I'll grant you that the lifestyle is unusual, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with it -- anyone can prove this for themselves with about five minutes on the internet. And it's not just me, although I may be the most vocal about it within our fold. I also go hiking and climb mountains and drive trucks and work outdoors without shoes, in complete confidence, and participate in various forums discussing the lifestyle. You'll discover that I'm the source of the brown "barefooter" ribbons and the "five myths" info-sheets that help debunk the most popular misconceptions. Those misconceptions come only from social conditioning, which began back in the Sixties when establishment owners found it a convenient excuse to continue discriminating against "undesireables" like blacks and hippies without crossing the Civil Rights act of 1964. That's where those dumb signs come from. There has never been any factual basis for this, despite various cooked-up lies like "health code" or venue liability. None of that is true, and yet it became so entrenched that not only do many people believe it wholesale, they actually develop phobias about feet as they grow up. Fifty-plus years later, we're still stuck with this nonsense and outright hatred. A little education goes a long way, however, and many of us hope that getting out of one's shoes becomes more generally viewed as helping to relax and enjoy life in a more sophisticated and health-conscious way, and benefit from the better stability, proprioception, and strengthening that comes from that. This is not about a low-class invasion, or some kind of "rebellion" or bucking social convention for its own sake, this is about personal comfort and well-being. And you want your guests to be comfortable, right? How about all the signs posted everywhere encouraging us to Relax, Renew, Rejuventae, Live Well, do yoga by the pool, etc? Spending our time there free of the adverse constraints of footwear goes right along with that, and could even be material for additional publicity if spun the right way. Envision another one of those signs similar to the one in an elevator with just the hands and the feet -- "kick off your shoes and relax, it's fine and welcome here". One of the most pervasive and yet ridiculous mythologies centers around food service, and that's apparently where this year's problem also centered. As I talked to various staff and got clarification on what their issue was, it seemed limited to "food areas" which again, is quite arbitrary and ill-defined in some cases. This rendered the whole situation even more ridiculous, and the insult on top of that was the continued stream of "it comes from Marriott/Westin" excuses and similar finger-pointing. That just dehumanizes the whole thing, letting the people engaged in harassment avoid personal responsibility for it. It was therefore rather distressing to get this same sort of rhetoric from Veronica the next day, who to her credit did go off and do a bunch of "research" before coming to me for our first formal meeting. However, what she presented really fails to support what she was asserting, sticking to what she views as the party line. She had in hand a printout from the hotel's webpages, showing the suggested "smart casual" dress for most of the consumption areas, and to support that, a copy of the Wikipedia page on "Smart Casual". However, that very page says right up front that any discussion of "style" is highly subjective and open to interpretation and context. Veronica also had a copy of the 2017 letter from the Massachusetts health department stating clearly that there is no relationship between food service and footwear. However, Veronica clung to the one sentence in that letter acknowledging that a venue may have its own arbitrary rules. Sure, but those "rules" need to be sensitive to the needs of the clientele. Do I need to be wearing a Red Sox cap to enter the Concourse-level restrooms? Exactly the same non-thinking. All told the papers that Veronica gave me did not actually prove the point she was trying to make, and it really felt like she was allowing her own personal bias to creep in and influence what she was telling me. It was actually a rather one-sided conversation, where it's clear that she's more used to dealing with high-strung event planners and telling them in a cold hard way what they can't have, and being selectively dismissive of what the client says as part of her job description. Sure, when it affects the hotel's resources or capabilities, that's what makes her good at her job. But when she's trying to dictate a manner of dress wholly inappropriate to the event at hand and based on such flimsy "evidence" and dredging up the typical myths, that's a hostile and hateful attitude she needs to leave at home and not bring to her workplace. Tell her this: service dogs and regular dogs have exactly the same feet; the difference is all about behavior. I talked with Cynthia up in the Birch Bar for quite a while as well; she's apparently in charge of various internal food functions. She at least agreed that the situation was stupid, but still out of her control. She mentioned that those little white disposable slippers that you give out with bathrobes would have been "acceptable" footwear in the bar area, as would just about anything else. Not only does that miss the point, but those slippers are about as far removed from "smart casual" as it gets -- thereby rendering the arguments-against even more laughable. She was just making stuff up, possibly to placate me. In fact, I defy anyone to look across the lobby on a Saturday night at the height of Arisia and find all the people who match Veronica's vision of "smart casual". I assure you it will be none or precious few, and maybe even not that many after-hours at your corporate events! What then, is Veronica going to wander through that arbitrary "magic rectangle" of floor and tell everyone else to GTFO and remove themeslves to behind an invisible line? No, the right answer is to let the *client* decide such policies to be more in keeping with their own event, not for Westin to dictate something that is self-declared arbitrary to every group that comes through there. Again, none of this is a safety or liability concern. People accustomed to living unshod are well-conditioned and things like small bits of glass or detritus are simply not a problem, indoors or out. We would rather pick up and dispose of injurious objects, not just leave them there. We take full responsibility for ourselves, which in fact is the legal truth of the situation and needs no hostile intervention. We are adults making our own decisions and do not need or expect to be treated like five-year-olds, especially when so many other diverse personal attributes and presentations are running around at an event like Arisia in the space that we work hard to make feel safe for them. And I *am* speaking for many of us, not just myself here. With all the facts at hand, there is no *rational* argument against something as harmless as barefooting. The sky does not fall when soles happen to contact the floor. Despite Veronica's assertion that all of the food-area nonsense falls under "Westin branding", it seems to me that the new franchise arrangement may give you a bit more versatility in how the hotel is managed with less corporate interference. Marriott, in fact, has quite a bit of material on their website about "diversity" and acceptance and welcoming, which specifically extends to guests too. This is me trying to have broad perspective and defend my point at the same time. Someone in your position has the power to influence in both directions, informing staff that footwear is simply not an issue and never an excuse to marginalize, and upward if needed to voice objections to arbitrary "rules" that misinformed corporate representatives may have thundered down. However the structure above you evolves, in these divisive times it's one thing we can do as an example of creating an environment where everyone is truly welcome. That's what the lodging business is about, and removing the negative factors seems something worth striving toward. I'm sure this isn't quite the continuation of the conversation in the elevator that you expected, but please realize that in effect, we're on the same side and working toward the same goal of successful events. I am being asked to participate in the upcoming Boskone as well, and whether I do depends on my confident knowledge of the Westin's stance. I would be happy to provide additional material and resources to help your colleagues understand the facts and free themselves from the old falsehoods they believe as truth, but all of this is easy to find online given a little diligence. I have written extensively on the topic in recent years, but I'm not going to push a bunch of web-links at you unless you ask. The point is that we need this sort of thing to simply never happen again, and for that philosophy and understanding to be permanently embedded in the hotel's institutional memory and beyond. Everyone should innately realize that hostility where it's not warranted is not worth losing revenue over. MJ's turned the "Failte" painted on their door into a solid "Fail" that evening with their hastily-printed rude signs, and while I'm dealing with them separately feel free to have a chat with them too. Their GM is Donnie Hui, but he's been on vacation or something. Thank you for your time, and I'm always here to listen. _H* ### Msg 4 From: *Hobbit* To: SBL via groups.io Subject: Re: [SBL] Westin letter Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2020 13:06:02 -0500 It's to the hotel's new *general manager*, coming into the new franchise arrangement from interstatehotels.com and ultimately under Marriott/Starwood. He's not some CS drone. It is in his best interests to keep our convention filling what is normally a fairly dead weekend at their hotel, even if it doesn't produce the bloated revenue they normally get from corporate gigs. He was cordial when I met him and cordial when I sent a "probe" email at first, to the effect that I wanted to bring something to his attention and wanted to make sure we were clear of spam-filters. It seems likely that he'll at least read the whole thing, as someone in his position is expected to be literate. A slightly shorter one is going to the GM of the Irish pub on-site. Should I not bother copying it here? Does no one give a hoot that a whole bunch of people were victimized by an arbitrary and sudden crackdown halfway through an event that several *barefooters* pour their heart and soul and money into every year?? _H* ### Msg 5 From: "Juscen, Steve" Subject: RE: Westin discussion contact? Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 18:23:04 +0000 Good Afternoon Hobbit, I really appreciate your taking the time to craft such a detailed account and background history for me with regards to your group, affiliation with the group and lifestyle beliefs. I took your advice and waited until I had some quiet moments to read your email. I have to say, it is very informative to have read this and will need to let it digest further. I apologize for what had ensued and how that made you and others in your group feel. Despite the policies that may exist, it is our position to make all of our guests feel as comfortable as possible and clearly that did not happen. Having been on the job for only two days when your program began, I would like to investigate further from my end to better understand the thought process behind some of my staff's thoughts as they addressed you and your conference attendees. Although this process will not change the past, it can provide better insight for the future and a much better experience for you and others in your group. I appreciate your time and will follow up further with you once I have researched this at my end. Thank you. Regards, Steve ### Msg 6 To: "Juscen, Steve" Subject: Re: Westin discussion contact? Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2020 09:37:15 -0500 Hiya, just curious, how are we doing on that harassment issue and staff re-training? I'm being asked about next weekend... Thanks _H* ### Msg 7 From: "Juscen, Steve" Subject: RE: Westin discussion contact? Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2020 16:38:09 +0000 Good Morning Hobbit, My apologies for the delay in getting back to you. I have had the opportunity to discuss the past situation with all who were involved. My concern is purely safety related while in the back of the house as I have seen some bad accidents in my career with people not wearing proper shoes. Otherwise, I understand your point of view and have made it clear to all that we are to allow and comply with your wishes to move freely through the public spaces of the hotel without shoes and to make sure you all feel comfortable while doing so. I look forward to your feedback during/after the weekend as to how it went. Have a great weekend and enjoy. Regards, Steve ### Msg 8 From: *Hobbit* To: "Juscen, Steve" Subject: A followup.. Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2020 09:07:27 -0500 Hello again ... just a followup from the Boskone weekend, which I did attend and had a delightfully mellow time. It was the first Boskone I had been to since the "disaster" from 1987, in fact, and it was a little weird to be back in the hotel three weeks later and there was a science fiction convention running! I still did a bit of loading and technical/production work, but there was plenty of time to just hang out and relax. It was also a unique opportunity to come back and close the loop with some other people -- I chatted with Cynthia again, who was actually enjoying some of the convention herself along with her kids. She hinted at some promising management-level initiatives into cultural awareness. I also caught Donnie Hui at the desk in MJ's, and we had a pleasant conversation in which he said we were all okay with regard to our own footwear choices. Anyway, thanks to you and your associates for your understanding and accomodation! I do try to retain perspective and see everyone's points of view and concerns, but to also help identify which are genuine versus externally learned. It is easy for people to make assumptions based on what they've grown up hearing, and it seems worth my effort to dispel some falsehoods where needed. Cultural shift starts with that constructive break from the status quo, or something. Have a great year! You've got a fine facility to work with there. _H* ### Msg 9 From: "Juscen, Steve" Subject: RE: A followup.. Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2020 17:29:28 +0000 Good Afternoon Hobbit, Thank you for following up with me. I am so glad to hear that you were able to relax and enjoy this past weekend. I am also glad that you were able to connect with some of our folks and close the loop. Cultural shifts are never easy but we are off to a good start and will use your feedback in our process of changing the overall mindset with how we provide service to our guests. I appreciate your time and look forward to seeing you again next year if not before. Regards, Steve