Drunk Staff Member

[Naokichan]

So on Saturday (April 7, 2012) night I had just gotten back from the informal dance with my girlfriend around...midnight I believe. One of my other roomates was already back, half asleep and the other one was still down at the dance.

We were all getting ready for bed when we heard someone knocking on most of the doors down the hall and then on our door. She kept pounding away on each door saying "this is anime boston security. open up we know what you're doing."

first we asked for identification and it was true that she was a staff member for anime boston.

When we opened the door we could tell that she was clearly drunk. Her clothes were messed up, her eyes buggy and bloodshot. She smelled even of alcohol.

She claimed we were dancing in the windows. As mentioned before, I and my gf just got back and the other one whom was in there was already falling asleep on the bed. Our curtains had even been closed since the day we got into the room.

After making sure she knew the truth she left, only to have two other staff members coming by a few minutes later and telling that they were looking for her, telling us also not to worry about it. The next night she came back and apologized to us (sober this time) and told that a room near us was doing the dancing.

I want to know how Anime Boston could let their staff get so drunk like that while on duty and go and bother innocent guests. We were all terrified that she was potentially harmful. We feel that the staff needs to know about this and we want something done, such as preventing something like this happening again.

[Supermot]

I'm going to ask that this thread be moved into the general questions section and I'll also make sure it is brought to the attention of the proper members of the executive board.

Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

[Naokichan]

how do i go about bringing it to another board? do i just delete it and repost it in the general questions section?

[Supermot]

I've asked Faceman to move it for you.

[Naokichan]

ah ok. thank you very much

[lordshamus]

Anime Boston staff are not allowed to drink while on duty, or perform duties while under the influence of alcohol. Even if she was off-duty, she should have asked that other staffers investigate the claims of a room party. I'm sorry if you were inconvenienced in any way, and I will be investigating this thoroughly. if you have any additional specifics, please PM me.

Thanks,

[AliceTanzer]

First and foremost, I want you to know that we take this sort of thing very seriously.
We in no way condone our staff members drinking on the job, and certainly not acting in an official capacity while drunk. I am sorry that one of our staff members has done this, because yes, they could be a danger to themselves or others. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, and I assure you, proper steps will be taken to deal with this problem.

I know our Director of Operations has already contacted you via private message, and I will make sure that our head of security does. Any details you can tell them about the staff member, and what time/location it was (south tower, north tower, things like that) would be helpful. Also if they were wearing their staff shirt, because the different colors can help us pinpoint whom it was.

Again, I am so sorry that this happened to you. It was unsafe, unacceptable, and we will be taking it very seriously.

[Naokichan]

Yes, someone has already contacted me to descrbie this person and i will tell any other person waht she looked like in order to help.

I thank you for taking this seriously. my roommates and i found that it was an issue that really needed to be brought up (even though she hadn't caused any harm)

[Lapis_Lupus]

Hello,

Im the girlfriend Naokichan was talking about in her initial post. As she said I was in the room when we received our odd-hours visit from security, and as it was me who answered I figured I'd offer the best description I could if it would help sort this out, if anyone would like it.

[pulsedemon]

As Shamus and Alice mentioned above, it'll work easiest if you get in touch with them either on here via PM or via the email contact form.

http://www.animeboston.com/about/contact/

If you click on their names, there's a little button that'll show up under their avatar with a link to PM them.

[LavenderLace]

I think it is a bit odd that Anime Boston staff would be dealing with an issue like that...wouldn't that fall under hotel security's jurisdiction?

[pulsedemon]

As part of working with the hotel, they prefer to have us involved on things like this when the room is part of our 'block'. I suppose it helps to make sure we're as 'in the loop' as possible.

Most conferences (as in like professionals having a big meeting) involve a lot of drunk people. Handling situations like this is definitely not something that the hotel would be surprised by. If anything, allowing us to handle 'disturbance' calls is something of a courtesy before hotel security calls the real police. Naturally, nobody wants that, so that's really why a noisy room might get a visit from one of our Security staff.

[Goldfish221]

I feel like it was a dangerous call just to open the hotel door for this staff member. If she was banging on every door and calling people out at an unusual time, it just seems like a red flag to me. Staff members normally work professionally unless it's really an emergency then obviously certain measures are taken.

But for them to be in the room and know they have don't nothing wrong, and have some strange person knocking on the door is creepy.

Also it was a female staff member who was alone. No matter how tough that girl is she should have had back up to brake up hotel parties or what ever problems come up.

I'm not laying blame on the staff or anything like that but if you have one rouge staff member doing that it would probably be best if the people kept the door closed and waited called for hotel staff.

[ryoko]

I have been to boston anime 9 out of the 10 yrs and this yr was the most dissapointing. We stayed from thursday night to Sunday morning and all we heard all night was people running up and down the halls and laughing screaming slaming doors. When we left on Sunday morning outside in the hall was a clear garbage bag filled with various alcohol bottles and I mean filled. I am there to have fun but I was very dissapointed at the behavior this yr. I love anime Boston and want to go again but not sure after seeng peoples behavior, so I am not really surprised to hear that they had problems at the informal dance. Also there was a lot of playing around on the elavators this year I am really surprised the Sheridan didn't start throwing people out I think they should of everyone is there to enjoy themselves but behavior like there was this year makes it difficult for others to enjoy the con.

[JReckers]

I have been to boston anime 9 out of the 10 yrs and this yr was the most dissapointing. We stayed from thursday night to Sunday morning and all we heard all night was people running up and down the halls and laughing screaming slaming doors. When we left on Sunday morning outside in the hall was a clear garbage bag filled with various alcohol bottles and I mean filled. I am there to have fun but I was very dissapointed at the behavior this yr. I love anime Boston and want to go again but not sure after seeng peoples behavior, so I am not really surprised to hear that they had problems at the informal dance. Also there was a lot of playing around on the elavators this year I am really surprised the Sheridan didn't start throwing people out I think they should of everyone is there to enjoy themselves but behavior like there was this year makes it difficult for others to enjoy the con.

You couuuuuuuuuld stay at a different hotel.

[ryoko]

I could stay at a diffrent hotel? Excuse me but I paid for my room in a "quiet block" you think is ok for people to run up and down the hallways all night drunk? (dressed in cosplay so oviously at the con) I have 2 young kids and have always stayed at the sheridan since you moved it to this hotel. To have a comment like that from a staff member? Like I said I love animeboston and want to continue going but to have a staff membe reply like that?

[midnightsiren182]

I could stay at a diffrent hotel? Excuse me but I paid for my room in a "quiet block" you think is ok for people to run up and down the hallways all night drunk? (dressed in cosplay so oviously at the con) I have 2 young kids and have always stayed at the sheridan since you moved it to this hotel. To have a comment like that from a staff member? Like I said I love animeboston and want to continue going but to have a staff membe reply like that?

Apologies that you didn't have a good experience this year staying in the Sheraton. As we prepare for the 2013 year we will keep these issues in mind as we plan for the year and we hope you return for AnimeBoston 2013!

[pulsedemon]

It might actually be a good idea to send a message to our Facilities Liaison (the guy that is the primary point of contact between us and the hotel) to mention which floor you were on to see if it was indeed a 'quiet' floor and to point out that it wasn't actually quiet.

http://www.animeboston.com/about/contact/

Pull down the 'to:' field and find 'Facilities Liaison'.

Obviously, it doesn't do anything about the past, but it'll only help for the future.

[JReckers]

Just offering an alternative to not coming back to the convention. There are many hotels in walking distance that will have less con-goers at them that will most assuredly be "tamer." Of course we do what we can to keep the quiet floors quiet but as you are well aware things are not perfect.