Arisia needs an attitude adjustment.

[donnad.livejournal.com]

I am sure this will offend many people, and if it does I apologize, but I feel it has to be said.

I am disgusted and appalled at the rudeness and sense of entitlement I encountered from many of this year's staff members. And I am not the only person who noticed this.


An example...
I got up early on Sunday and went down to the staff den, I was there about 15 minutes before it was supposed to open, but the lovely staff den ladies let me in anyway. I told them I needed food so I could take some meds, but I could see they weren't quite ready yet and asked what I could do to help them get stuff put out. They gave me a couple things to do (and a danish so I could take my meds) and I went off to help. At 8:02AM a person walked in, I was just plugging in the kettle to heat water, sie wanted tea so I told hir it would be a few minutes while the water heated that I had just plugged it in. Hir response was very snobbishly "What do you mean the water is not hot yet?" I looked at hir and said well, you weren't here 10 minutes ago to plug it in. You want it faster, then feel free to come in early and help. These ladies were up just as late as the rest of us, they are doing their best." and I walked away.
Sure sie hadn't had hir morning caffiene yet, but that was no excuse to jump all over me because the kettle isn't hot. Sie had a coffee maker in hir room, there was nothing preventing hir from using it. This is just one instance I personally encountered in the den, I witnessed many more acts of rudeness directed at the ladies running the den and other staff members in the den, during my visits there. (I was not den staff, I was just helping out while waiting for the food to be ready.)

In general many staff members were surly, rude, and just basically snappish, many came across with the "I'm staff, I'm better than you" or the I'm staff therefore I'm entitled to [...] ahead of you" attitude.

In my opinion, If you want to be involved in Arisia, and deal with hundreds of fans and random people all weekend and can't keep a pleasant attitude, no matter how stressed you get, or how tired or overworked you are, perhaps you shouldn't be doing that job. It's like any job that involves dealing with the customer, you have to keep it all to yourself so as to not take it out on the unsuspecting and not offend. I was personally offended by many of the attitudes I encountered during the weekend by staff members I did not know and who didn't know me. There are places to let it all out, you shouldn't be snapping and rude to the attendees or they will stop coming and we cant have an Arisia without them.

I have a whole essay/rant about Arisia and it's changing dynamic as of late, How I feel it's strayed from it's original mission to be all inclusive and such, how it's more of a fannish lifestyle and polyamory based con now instead of Science Fiction and Fantasy based as originally intended, and how it really needs to be able to encompass all things equally*, but I will likely not subject people to it.

Personally with the next Arisia being the 20th, I would love to see the theme be "Back to Basics" or "Back to our Roots." But since I am just a lowly staff member, costumer and artist (who BTW has worked at every Arisia in some capacity to the point of never having to purchase a membership to Arisia yet) and really do not want any other responsibility right now, who am I to say what should happen?


*Of the panels offered pre-con, 47 "fannish lifestyle" panels this year and only 12 art, 12 filk, and 8 costume panels is not treating all things equally.

Comments

[kgola.livejournal.com]

In terms of the elevator problems, we left them alone last year, and to my memory, there were far worse problems then than this year.

and in terms of the art show - the problem is the hotel. there's no where lower that they could do it - short of laying it all out in a much smaller space OR spreading it through hotel rooms... the convention-rooms are muchly lacking in the new hotel.

[recombatant.livejournal.com]

Well then to my thinking, it's an improper venue if it can't properly accommodate an art show. So why are we there?

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

Scroll upward in the thread for a lengthier answer — in short, suitable hotels in the Boston area are few and far between, and Arisia has been disinvited from the previous hotel.

[nchanter.livejournal.com]

It has been mentioned a number of times in a number of places that the Park Plaza no longer wanted US, and that we are sized such that we do have a hard time finding another hotel that will work for us. We are too small for a lot of the larger conference-center hotels downtown.

That being said, from everything I have seen the staff at the Hyatt has been 30000 times better to us than the staff at the Park Plaza ever was, and that really does count for a lot.

[kgola.livejournal.com]

good question. I'm not on ConCom, just a lowly part of the Ops staff. I'm not a fan of the new hotel, and I wish we could find somewhere better.

[kgola.livejournal.com]

I do want to qualify this response, actually, and agree with nchanter for a moment - the staff at the hotel is pretty awesome... even the security guys