From: krikket@meltdown.chi.il.us (D. 'krikket' Krick)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom
Subject: Re: Police And Conventions
Date: 14 Aug 92 11:25:13 GMT
Organization: The Meltdown - A Team Star BBS

In article <5512@transfer.stratus.com>, jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim
Mann) writes:
>In article <krikket.6023@meltdown.chi.il.us>  
>krikket@meltdown.chi.il.us (D. 'krikket' Krick) writes:
>> And of course COMMUMICATE WITH YOURSELVES!  Get 2 WAY RADIOS if
>> possible!  It's amazing what kind of problems can be headed off if everyone
>> knows EXACTLY what is happening...

>I'm afraid I have to disagree here (I had agreed with much of what
>you had said up till this point).  For years, at Boskone we
>had an "Operations" department that included floor walkers with
>beepers and/or radios.  This resulted in a number of problems:

We are allowed to disagree ya' know...

>1.  The existence of an Operations group that was handling
>    "security" created an "it's their job" attitude on the
>     committee.   Committee members would see something wrong
>     and call Operations rather than ever responding themselves.
>
>     When we changed Operations to Services, a big part of the
>     change was telling all the committee that "Services does not
>     roam the halls. You do, while you are doing other things. If
>     you see something wrong, do the right thing.  We can help
>     if you need it. If it is bad, we can call the hotel 
>     security staff.  But it is not our job to come by to tell
>     a group of kids to stop sliding down the bannisters. You 
>     can tell them this."

I'll agree in saying that a psuedo-security/troubleshooting dept. is just
asking for trouble, and no dept. except for a sexurity/troubleshooting dept.
should take on those responsililities...  Sometimes it does come in handy to
have your own people wandering around to prevent trouble, and be always ready
to head off disasters before they happen.  At each of the last 3 cons that I've
been at a security/troubleshooting dept. has justified it's existance (in my
humble opnion) by simply being ready to take on problems, and doing so
succesfully.  (IE:  Who has the time to get THAT taken care of?  Or to head off
the skinnydippers THIS time?  Or to GEES!  Now we have a 7 year old kid who's
gone missing!  Search party!  You get the idea.)

>2.  Radios (at Boskone and at almost every other convention
>    I've seen) contribute to a rather officious attitude among
>    those who have them. I find it hard to keep from giggling
>    every time I see one of them stop, look very serious,
>    and call into their radio "Rover one to base, Rover one to
>    base. All clear in the hall next to the ballroom. Over."

Yeah, this does get kina silly sometimes.  But then again, the only time I've
seen this was with a group of people who do this on a regular basis, not always
within fandom, and they already knew their call-numbers, etc. by heart and were
used to looking professional...  But it does get silly to see a bunch of
regular fen doing it...  Usually I simply use FIRST NAMES!  (Also, something
you may not realize, often the group doews not have a FCC charter to use the
bandwidth, but as long as they sound "professional" on the radio, the FCC isn't
going to bitch...)

>    A related problem is that folks walking around looking for
>    trouble often find it.  Traditional con security often
>    gets involved in things that are either not a problem or
>    not OUR problem (that is, they are a hotel problem and
>    are best handled by telling hotel security about them).

Personally I'd RATHER see Con Security handle some of the incidents than the
hotel.  And if they don't know which incidents to turn over to the hotel, it's
time to have a LONG talk with the head of con-security and maybe even the staff
(if they help out con after con...)

>3.  Radios and beepers are usually not needed.  There are, after
>    all, hotel phones all over the place.  

They are nice to call to a set location, but not to get a hold of someone who
is wandering around and you are almost guarenteed of not knowing which room the
person is in at any given moment...

>    At the last Boskone that had Operations (and lots of beepers
>    and radios)  (this was in the mid-eighties somewhere), the
>    head of Ops tried to insist that a) Program department must
>    have a beeper and 2) they had to be able to talk to the
>    HEAD of program.  It took the head of program that year to
>    say that a) he would dump the beeper in a water glass if
>    it were left in the Green Room, since the Green Room had a 
>    phone and program could always be reached there and b) whoever
>    was running the Green Room was in charge of program.  They
>    wouldn't be there if they weren't capable of making reasonable
>    decisions, and the program head did not have to be contacted 
>    directly for all program related decisions.

So the head of programming didn't want to wear a beeper....  For 99% of the
time, I can't think of a reason why the head of programming would need to wear
one anyways!!!  Give the radios/beepers to those who need 'em, not as status
symbols...  (Unless the ConCom happens to LIKE that kind of symbol, and they
have the money to blow on it...)

>Now that I've said this, I will agree that there are exceptions.
>Worldcons, which are spread between several hotels and a convention
>center, often can make good use of radios and beepers. However,
>each person using one should justify this use and not get one
>simply because he/she is a department head or because beepers
>have become status symbols.

And I'm just offering my opnions.  Your milage may vary.

Krikket               ! krikket@meltdown.chi.il.us ! USnail:3 Danada Square E.
a.k.a Doug Krick      ! Team Star Charter Member   !        Suite 246
Data ph# 708/665-9732 ! #include<std.disclaimers>  !        Wheaton, Il 60187
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