City of South Beloit aids Ramada Inn opening is a Beloit Daily News article from the 5th of this month. Per my usual with this kind of thing, here are a few quotes followed by my comments/opinions:

The South Beloit City Council approved Monday allotting $10,000 in Hotel Tax Funds to help pay for the Sept. 19 grand opening of the Ramada Inn of Greater Beloit.

Well that sure is mighty white of the City Council. Everyone put the Sept. 19 grand opening on your calenders. This next quote brings up some skeletons in the hotels closet:

The Ramada Inn has undergone more $1.5 million in renovations over the last year, and another $500,000 is expected to go into the hotel and conference center, said Kimberly Thompson, director of sales for hotel.

The money will be used to help market the grand opening. Thompson explained a Mardi Gras theme is planned, with entertainment and food centered around the New Orleans-style event.

Alas poor Mardi Gras themed party, I knew you well. Do you remember the last time Mardi Gra and the hotel tried to mix? No? I do. Of course this next and final bit was also pretty amusing:

Cattails Bar & Grill, will have its grand opening at 5 p.m. Wednesday. In addition to a ribbon cutting, a press conference is scheduled. A private reception will take place after the press conference.

A press conference? I’m sure that was a hoot. It’s funny how this newspaper article appeared on the 5th and here it is the 7th already and no article is in the paper about this titty bar sounding Cattails grand opening and press conference yet.

**Update**
For those really interested in the sounds like a titty bar named restaurant at the hotel, head over to this page.

So there has been some minor excitement over my last post. I heard through the grapevine the owner was pretty pissed when he saw his name here on my site. I made a Disclaimer page and was going to make people click an “I agree” or an “I disagree” link to get to the main page. But then I remembered I hate that kind of shit.

What I decided to do is just ban the ip and the domain of the hotel’s internet access. Fuck them, they can go without my site. For those that want to join me in banning these simple minded fools block this domain and ip: direcpc.com (66.82.20.150).

Also I figured it was a good time to explain some more of these concepts that I hold dear. If you don’t like seeing your name here at the site I have advice for you. Don’t get your name printed in the newspaper. Because it brings me great joy to explain to you Fair Use. I don’t do something here at the site unless I’ve done my research when it comes to the “getting my ass fired/sued” kind of deal.

For those who savey the law, you can point your browsers to this Copyright Office page which explains it in that lovely hard to understand law language. Now if this last page was to much for you give this Stanford University Libraries page a try. My favorite bit from the Stanford page sums it up nice and simple:

In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose such as to comment upon, criticize or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner.

Now because I’ve grown use to dealing with my friends children (who are great, but can be whiny) I have removed the owners name from my quote from the Daily News article. Not that it makes a difference. All someone has to do is follow the link and they will see who’s name it is I have replaced with <Name Removed>. This whole thing is funny. And it adds to the odd little mystique of this website.

And from know on I will always replace names from the newspaper articles I quote with <Name Removed>, because these people apparently have something to hide or they are embarrassed when questions are asked. I find this all very amusing. Of course I’m just a stupid night auditor who couldn’t possibly know what I’m talking about.

Ramada Inn getting $2 million make-over is a Beloit Daily News article that appeared on the 25th of this month. It covers a lot of ground, which makes it an interesting read. Here are some amusing bits, well amusing to me.

Tejany said he had been looking to invest in the hospitality business in this area and liked the location, but he also admitted the project has been a challenge.

“I couldn’t find anything right,” he said of the facility’s initial condition. “It was hard to know where to start, the parking lot, the roof, the signage …”

How about the air conditioning? That would be my suggestion.

The big news in this article is the part where it tells about the new hotel restaurant and bar. The name (and I’m not joking here) of the place is called Cattails. And no it’s not a titty bar. Here is a bit that tells about the menu of Cattails:

The food is described as new American with an infusion of Asian, French, Hispanic and Mediterranean.

“It’s fine food served with a flair in a relaxing atmosphere,” Thompson said.

Some of the house specialties include steak Dianne, chicken Marsala, pork tenderloin thermidore, veal Marsala, chicken Parmesan and pecan crusted chicken. One entree with an intriguing name is “devils on horseback” or sauteed veal scaloppini and cappriccola ham wrapped shrimp.

Flaming desserts also are served and salads prepared table side.

I’m not sure who their target audience is with a selection of fine cuisine like this. But I can tell you I sure as shit won’t eat there. Not with a menu like that. And what the fuck does “new American” mean exactly? Of course me being a “common” employee (peon) I have yet had the opportunity to sample this selection of “house specialties”, which makes it hard for me to recommend Cattails to the guests. They ask me I tell them to go across the street.

One last bit from this piece and I’m done. This is an example of how informed employees are of the goings on at the hotel.

The conference area will be renamed the Rock River Valley Conference Center with each of the five rooms named after the counties which have come together to form marketing strategies, including: Rock County in Wisconsin and in Illinois, Winnebago, Ogle, Stephenson and Boone counties.

News to me. It’s a good thing I read the paper or it may have been ages before I knew about this one. This kind of thing is nothing new. Follow the link at the beginning to get the bits I didn’t cover.

It appears the isp provided to the hotel is picky about what you try to view.

Funny how it lets my site get past it’s blocking filter. I wonder how long it will take for my domain to be blocked?

It’s funny how certain subjects come up more than once. A recent rumor floating around the hotel says that “they” are going to get uniforms for the employees and then take the cost out of the paychecks of the employees. Now this topic was brought to my attention by a few people. I was asked if “they” could do this.

The simple answer is no “they” can’t. The Illinois Department of Labor’s WAGE PAYMENT AND COLLECTION ACT say thats against the law:

Section 300.840 Uniforms Required by an Employer

An employer shall not deduct the cost of purchasing and/or of cleaning uniforms required by the employer from an employee’s wages or final compensation, unless the employee’s express written consent is given freely at the time the deduction is made. Distinctive outfits or accessories, or both, intended to identify the employee with a specific employer shall be considered a uniform. If an employer requires a general type of ordinary basic street clothing to be worn, but permits variations in the detail of dress, this shall not be considered a uniform. However, when an employer requires that an employee purchase street clothes either from the employer or from a third party designated by the employer, the clothing shall be considered a uniform.

So as you can see “they” can’t do this. I want to draw your attention to that last bit there, were it says:

when an employer requires that an employee purchase street clothes either from the employer or from a third party designated by the employer, the clothing shall be considered a uniform.

I bring this up because I asked the Assistant GM about this rumor. She told me this rumor wasn’t true. She said “they” will purchase one uniform for the employee. After that it’s up to us. But this above bit of text here is important. The part were it says “from the employer or from a third party designated by the employer” is something to remember.

If for whatever reason say you need a second uniform and “they” say you have to buy it from So & So Inc. Well guess what? “They” will be purchasing the second uniform as well. And you got to remember to stand up for yourselves. You have to make sure that “they” know that you won’t stand for this bullshit.

To make it easy for you later on when you decide you want to file a complaint against the hotel, I have found the link to the the page with info such as phone number and even the required forms to fill out. Bookmark this page for future reference.

Here is a funny one my Mom sent me.

Dear Employee:

As a result of the reduction of money budgeted for department areas, we are forced to cut down on our number of personnel.

Under this plan, older employees will be asked to take early retirement, thus permitting the retention of younger people who represent our future. Therefore, a program to phase out older personnel by the end of the current fiscal year, via retirement, will be placed into effect immediately.

This program will be known as SLAP (Sever Late-Aged Personnel). Employees who are SLAPPED will be given the opportunity to look for jobs outside the company.

SLAPPED employees can request a review of their employment records before actual retirement takes place. This review phase of the program is called SCREW.

SCREW (Survey of Capabilities of Retired Early Workers). All employees who have been SLAPPED and SCREWED may file an appeal with upper management.

This appeal is called SHAFT (Study by Higher Authority Following Termination).

Under the terms of the new policy, an employee may be SLAPPED once, SCREWED twice, but may be SHAFTED as many times as the company deems appropriate.

If an employee follows the above procedure, he/she will be entitled to get: HERPES (Half Earnings for Retired Personnel’s Early Severance) or CLAP (Combined Lump sum Assistance Payment).

As HERPES and CLAP are considered benefit plans, any employee who has received HERPES or CLAP will no longer be SLAPPED or SCREWED by the company.

Management wishes to assure the younger employees who remain on board that the company will continue its policy of training employees through our:

Special High Intensity Training (SHIT). We take pride in the amount of SHIT our employees receive. We have given our employees more SHIT than any company in this area. If any employee feels they do not receive enough SHIT on the job, see your immediate supervisor.

Your supervisor is specially trained to make sure you receive all the SHIT you can stand.

And, once again, thanks for all your years of service with us.

The funny thing is I bet the hotel would come up with stupid shit like this.

Here’s another thing you may not know about me. I have been collecting business cards for a number of years. Business cards of the people who run the hotel. I have a nice collection going. It started out as a simple thing. I would pick up one here or there. And they would all sit in a pile some where.

The collecting of these business cards didn’t take on a deeper meaning until later in my life as a hotel employee. It wasn’t until I noticed I had a problem with authority. This was around the same time I started to notice that some of these managers were as dumb as a box of rocks. My collection of business cards then took on another meaning.

All of these cards I kept were ways for me to remember all of the assholes who came and went while I was still a peon at the hotel. It’s kind of a game. I don’t ask for a business card or just pick one up until I figure the cards owner has ran out of time at the hotel. It’s kind of like my own way of maintaining a management deadpool.

On occasion I like to look at all of them and note that I’m still at the hotel and they are not. It’s a small personal victory being able to remind myself that I have outlasted all of these people. And with this new bunch of owners/managers I grab these business cards as quick as I can. Sometimes I get lucky and a poor fool just gives me one.

Of course to be fair with this business card deadpool I have going, I always chuck my own business card into the pile whenever I get some. Since I have two in the pile and the rest have one each, I guess my odds are higher. Except I don’t worry about that anymore.