I did a quick run around parts of the hotel by myself one afternoon, and then later a group of us did a semi-official tech walkthrough to see the various spaces and capture a bunch of measurements. I wrote up both parts of that with the pictures I took. All of that was done without any footwear. One of the hotel's banquet coordinators was showing us around at one point, and while we were all piled into a staff elevator he began trying to tell me I'd need shoes to walk around the back-of-house areas, because of "health code" -- ascribing to the typical false mythology. Why was he even starting in with that now, after we'd already been through plenty of the spaces and back hallways without incident for a couple of hours already?? Ridiculous and somewhat offensive, but at the same time I realized the poor fellow was just laboring under the typical brainwashing.
For hotel personnel who weren't used to us like at the Westin, it was also likely to be a fairly common misconception. Rather than just wing it at the time of the convention and defend myself and my colleagues against harassment on the fly, I decided to grab this opportunity to lay down some advance groundwork. Common wisdom among barefooters is that it's usually easier to ask for forgiveness/tolerance on the ground than permission in advance, but now with an actual incident of harassment to report I had a lever to apply against whatever resistance might be present. I also knew the name of the conference services manager (CSM) that Arisia was working with, and decided to just give him a call and mention some of this. He seemed apologetic and sympathetic, so I asked him if I could send over some information to review and to support my assertions -- which resulted in a clarifying email with a copy of the "five myths" handout attached.
From: *Hobbit*
To: rcook@bostonparkplaza.com
Subject: followup from Saturday (Arisia)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2018 13:42:10 -0500
Thanks for fielding my call. I wasn't 100% sure of the name of
the associate in question, but another of our party told me it was
"Luis", probably from the banquets area. Sort of a short fellow.
Please be assured that he had been quite helpful, especially
considering that he happened to run into us wandering the back
hallways without escort and was probably curious as to what we
needed. Voicing his issues with our attire or footwear choices
was not entirely acceptable, and there was no time to try and set
him straight on the facts -- but he was operating from typical
misinformation that pervades our society in this country. It is
not my intent to get him in trouble over it, but to simply inform
and educate -- across all of your staff. The underlying point of
his contention needs to never be viewed as a problem, and here's
how we're going to get out ahead of that.
Please review the enclosed graphic carefully, especially the left
half. (The right side is a copy of one of the many such from health
and agriculture departments across the country, all of which confirm
that "health code" excuses are falsehoods.) It is also available
as a download on the web:
http://outbarefoot.org/excu_ma.png
Perhaps printing up a few might be useful.
We are all adults and fully responsible for ourselves, and have
many diverse reasons for our choices in life. For some it's
essential health/mobility; for some it's personal choice [yes,
even in winter] but in all cases it harms no one. The staff
over at the Westin Waterfront have understood this over the
8 or 9 years we've been there. I will be delighted to get into
more of the specifics, but we should do that on another phone
call as email is sort of cold and too easy to misinterpret. You
will probably find some of the anecdotes quite entertaining.
You have my number already, and this email address I sent from.
Guidelines for more background research can also be found at the
site mentioned above, outbarefoot.org, which basically points to
other resources around the net and has some search ideas.
Thank you!
[ Attachment: Content-Type: image/png; filename="myths.png" ]
From: *Hobbit* To: rcook@bostonparkplaza.com Subject: additional info (Arisia) Hello again; here are some of the further items I wanted to bring up to help support what I sent in. I am still a little leery about doing this via email, just because it's so easy to misinterpret things when it's not a voice. My intent is to be upbeat and positive and let your management know of the distinct benefits in what's undoubtedly a little unusual. Luis's comment was fairly typical, in fact, but simply because he didn't know the facts and we were clearly not the type of customers he normally deals with. No real harm done. He and his associates could find the "myths" sheet quite enlightening, as long as they don't just reject it out of hand as some people are inclined to do. There is a lot of falsely instilled fear out there, and here's an opportunity to get rid of some of that and for all of us to work well together. I'm not just speaking of the banquets and conference staff, but the entire organization -- guest services, concierge, security, housekeeping, technical workers, anyone. Our convention will interact with all of those areas, and as you might imagine there's a degree of the "unusual" among our attendance in general. If it comes down from general management that cordial reception is still foremost, and specifically that anyone's footwear choices are of no concern nor grounds for harassment, that can carry the right sort of weight and help reassure staff members that nothing is wrong. Posting copies of my graphic in some key employee gathering areas may help to relay that message. Here are some additional points to take into account.
The hotel prominently bills itself as "pet-friendly". That's great, and I did see some owners bringing their dogs in and out while there. I don't think those owners are putting any booties on their pets to go either out or in, and many human feet are really in no need of such enclosure either. If you haven't seen what happens when booties are first put on a dog, search Youtube for "dog booties" and have a good laugh. That's about how I react to footwear for the most part, too -- get these things *off* me! |
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I noticed signs on some of the public restrooms, saying "Shabbat friendly". This accomodates a fairly narrow sector of religious observance, and I've seen it done in other hotels too. It helps the hotel be more welcoming, but apparently requires some degree of assistance from the staff. Now, some barefooters do speak of a spiritual connection, where they view being in direct contact with where they walk as a form of devotion and/or being in a more natural human state. Think of it this way: if the management accomodates the mechanics of the Shabbat, which carries no particuarly tangible benefit but incurs minor costs and staff time, then accomodating the unshod maintains their proven real-life physical benefits with *zero* cost or effort on the part of a suitably advised staff. Obviously we are still a relative minority within our attendance, but not zero and not especially interested in being marginalized. Personally I work my butt off over the week that execution of the whole convention spans -- loading our trucks, *driving* our trucks, huffing heavy stuff in and out of our storage and venues, and helping with our technical production -- all without shoes. No need or desire for them, and frankly if I tried to perform all those duties while forced into some kind of footwear I'd be miserable. I'd rather opt out entirely in response to such a directive, which would also carry a cost for the hotel -- they'd be out the $800 or more of my normal five nights of stay, and possibly several other guests' worth as well. I am confident that you can put a positive spin on all this for your staff and instill confidence in them that they have nothing to worry about. They just need to put things in the right context, perhaps aided by this example: I also go hiking and climb mountains shoeless, over all kinds of sharp rocks, gravel, and a generous helping of broken glass in spots, and enjoy all of it greatly without any mishap. This is what human feet can do when suitably conditioned up! When I meet people on those rugged trails they are often amazed, and if they comment at all, it's usually things like "wow, that's brave" or "your feet must be really tough!" or "boy, I wish I could do that" -- always positive, never derogatory. That's how hotel associates are encouraged to view us, helping to eliminate any chance of uncomfortable confrontations. As pointed out in the graphic, there is no legal risk and little if any safety risk for those (few) who choose to lose the shoes. We assume all of our own responsibility. On our site visit I was walking through storage rooms and airwall pockets with trash and broken glass on the floor, plenty of back-of-house passageways, and even from and to the parking under the Common. All of those spaces are relatively benign in comparison to some of the stuff I hike over for fun. The only conditions I might need footwear for would be prolonged subfreezing exposure -- as you would use oven mitts, as a tool, and no longer needed after that part of a task is done. Who knows -- our event is in January, after all. Hopefully this will help facilitate smooth acceptance of our event with all of its odd but harmless quirks. I have fond memories of our times there a decade-plus ago, and it will be great to be back working in those classically gorgeous spaces. I remember the building really feeling like home for us over those weekends. And home is where people get to kick off their shoes and relax, isn't it? Thanks, sorry this had to be long...
As of mid-December, no response had come back from the CSM or anyone else, and I was unaware of any mention of this to Arisia's official hotel liaison either. The right answer, of course, would be for the hotel reps to confirm "we'll be delighted to welcome you [and your feet!] in January, and our staff is ready to provide everything you need." Everyone was probably just too busy to really get into it.
This page originally went up for other parts of the community to review and comment on, and talk about reasonable next steps if any. The eventual outcome is described later, in my Arisia 2019 writeup.