Hmmm, I connected to a hidden WLAN at my cousins house recently. I had to manually type in the "name" of the router, and then it was found. It was rather simple, though my uncle is a IT guy so he knew how to do everything by heart.

And yeah, hidden SSID's are useless. A noob like myself with aircrack can find a hidden SSID with a default command scan...

Edit: Maybe you should show the people in charge of the router how easily you can hack the WiFi, so they will change it. Often, action is better than words with these things..