
Was fired Facebook yoga instructor right to silence cell phone user in class? - shin_lao
http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/15/was-fired-facebook-yoga-instructor-right-to-silence-cell-phone-user-in-class/
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citricsquid
If someone is supposed to be the target of your attention (be it in class, at
dinner or during your every day life) societal expectations _should_ be that
you give them your attention. 20 years ago you wouldn't turn on the television
in the middle of a conversation, you wouldn't turn on the radio either.

I can _sort of_ understand if it's a child in high school, after all they're
in class because they're required to be, however in a class that has been
chosen (by an adult) it's not acceptable. The student should have excused
herself from the class if it was so important her attention was elsewhere.

~~~
Legion
To me, it's not even about that.

It's about one person feeling they have the right to carry on as a noisy
nuisance in that environment, to the detriment of everyone else's experience.

If the person's activity was silent, making the only social breach ignoring
the instructor, I'd be much less likely to consider that a problem in need of
addressing.

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protomyth
"Van Ness didn’t say anything, but she gave the student a look of disapproval.
The student later complained, and it cost Van Ness her job"

Perhaps the employee needs to stop taking yoga classes as their disposition
isn't compatible.

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tptacek
A detail you would want to have before you came to a conclusion about this:

 _"At Facebook and a number of other institutions we work with, instructors
cannot preclude fitness center users from answering their phones," David
Milani, a spokesman for Plus One Health Management, which runs Facebook's gym,
told me. He didn't want to tell me a lot more, other than that "there is no
doubt that this instructor knew that."_

I don't see the issue here. This person's job was not to teach yoga. It was to
make employees happier, and to increase Facebook's attractiveness in the job
market. Facebook came to believe that the way she conducted her class, while
perhaps effective at conveying yoga, made her less effective as an employee
perk. End of story. Facebook's role here, to the extent that it invests in
yoga classes, is to ensure that whoever is teaching yoga is doing so in the
way that maximizes the happiness of its employees.

If you want to command the respect of serious yoga students, don't teach yoga
as an employee perk for hire.

Think of it in these terms: people call tech support lines all the time and
unleash torrents of the worst rudeness you can imagine. How long do you think
a well-run call center would retain a phone support person who chided callers
for impoliteness?

~~~
joe_the_user
If Facebook hired an office assistant and decided that it improved employee
morale to also throw marshmallows at said office assistant as they walked down
the hall, well that's what that office assistant was hired for. If they
complain, get another one. "End of story".

If you want to be a real office assistant, go someplace else.

[ _yes, I am being sarcastic, I believe it is illustrative in this case_ ]

Edit: Also Thomas, are you saying that employees have a right to be rude to
personel of their company's helpdesk?

~~~
tptacek
I think this is a ridiculous apples-oranges comparison.

The sole purpose of a yoga instructor at Facebook is to improve employee
morale. Facebook is entirely justified in looking to optimize yoga instructors
for employee happiness. This particular yoga intructor was apparently not a
good fit.

~~~
btilly
I don't know that. I'd need to hear from other people in the class before
making a judgement on it.

If the student was making the class worse for other students, then despite
that student being unhappy about the teacher the teacher's actions were
actually good for morale. (Were I a student in the class, that is how I'd have
felt. YMMV.) By contrast if this was one in a long line of incidents where the
teacher was ticking off students, then the firing was appropriate.

But the squeaky wheel gets the grease. The rude student complained and had
enough weight to get the instructor fired. I'll probably never have enough
information to have an opinion on whether Facebook made the right decision.

~~~
tptacek
I think that if I was in HR at Facebook, I'd be thinking "I'm doing HR for a
multibillion dollar company in a fierce battle for talent with some of the
most savvy companies in the world. I do not have the bandwidth to adjudicate
yoga disputes. Hey, company I contract out to for yoga classes: just send
someone different next time so I can get on with my real job."

Ultimately I don't care about the specifics of this story, except that it
seems like a really good parable for teaching the difference between how
businesses and insiders perceive value. Substitute "PHP developer" for "yoga
instructor" and you could forklift this whole thread into the "Ask HN: How can
I become a consultant" posting from earlier today. "Start by not being like
this yoga instructor."

(I don't think the yoga structure is a bad person; I just think she had the
wrong job.)

------
caudicus
Caution: recently minted millionaire egos at play.

~~~
zalew
don't laugh, yoga gossip is serious business. comming up next: the hot dog in
googleplex wasn't warm enough. stay tuned for more irrelevant crap in the next
episode of 'unknown people working at famous places'.

------
alxp
I wonder how many food service workers get canned for not smiling enough at
the important people.

------
zalew
> she gave the student a look of disapproval. The student later complained

a real tough guy.

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true_religion
So.... she was told that she couldn't prohibit cellphone usage in class yet
she tried to embarrass a mid-level or higher executive into not using his or
her cellphone?

Well... if you try to shame your bosses, you get fired. This is a non-story.

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prodigal_erik
Facebook is big into mobile engagement, so I suppose it's not in their
interest to have social norms that involve disconnecting during daily life.
But this sounds like merely a conflict between "yoga is exercise" and "yoga is
new age religion" people.

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erre
Seriously? She gave him a _look_ , and he complained? Prima donnas, are we?

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nhebb
Two things I find wrong with this article:

1\. The headline says "silence". That conjures up imagery of the loud cell
phone talker, but from the context of the article it's more likely that the
yoga student was texting or emailing.

2\. The article also states that "Plus One Health Management told the San Jose
Mercury News that Van Ness had been told that she could not prohibit cell
phone use in class." I assume that Van Ness had been advised on this before
she started teaching the class not after being fired, but the article isn't
explicit. It might be that if these yoga classes are offered in the middle of
the day, that Facebook employees might be expected to answer important emails
during class.

This article is short on the facts needed to properly judge the situation.

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lazerwalker
This is silly. If you're in a class, and you disagree witih how the teacher
runs things, you stop taking the class. I'd be shocked if Facebook didn't have
multiple instructors.

That being said, I'd hardly be shocked if there was to the story than Good
Morning America is letting on.

~~~
true_religion
What if you employ the teacher and tell them to allow cellphones, then they
decide to run things differently?

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kgrin
Not to be overly contrarian, but I wonder to what extent the setting matters.
I don't know all the details, but it sounds like it was a workplace yoga
studio. What if the call was a work-related emergency?

One of the virtues of having an on-site yoga studio has to be that you can
take a break during the workday... but if there's a reasonable expectation of
being reachable, asking everyone to leave work at the door 100% isn't totally
realistic (and might mean that some people can't participate).

So while the normal rules of courtesy still apply, and the person receiving
the call should probably step out if the call looks like it's going to drag
on, the setting _does_ matter.

~~~
humbledrone
There's a very simple solution to this problem: the cell phone user should
politely walk out of the classroom and take the call outside the door. It
sounds like the student in question took the call right in the classroom,
which is rude regardless of the setting. Imagine taking a call in the middle
of a meeting, in a conference room!

~~~
joezydeco
I _really_ would like the ability to answer my phone with some kind of
recorded message that would then go to hold. Lots of times I'd like to talk to
the caller, but don't want to start talking until I'm out of the room and/or
earshot. Does this exist?

~~~
humbledrone
I'm not sure about the recorded-message-then-hold thing, but Android 4.0 has a
feature where when there's an incoming call, the user can hang up, answer the
call, or quickly choose from a few configurable text messages to send the
caller (which also hangs up the call). You could set one of those canned
messages to say "Hey, I can't take your call at my present location, I will
call you back in 1 minute." Not perfect, but pretty useful.

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oliwarner
Yes. It's yoga.

~~~
gte910h
That feels like sarcasm, but honestly, yoga has some dangerous poses in it, I
think it's not unreasonable to demand few distractions when doing something
possibly dangerous.

~~~
Volpe
Like crossing a road?

Or driving?

That argument is fairly weak.

~~~
gte910h
Actually, exactly like those two activities. I think you're taking needless
risks if you do either and use your cell phone at the same time. As do many
state legislatures, with regards to the driving and phones.

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RaviSParikh
If this happened as reported, then it's a ridiculous story. As several have
said one can easily walk outside and take a call if it's really that urgent.
However I find that in these stories there tends to be another side to it that
isn't being reported. Either way I'm not really sure why it's on Hacker News,
not particularly insightful or interesting.

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loceng
LOL. It's not yoga if it was allowed - you'd call that a fitness class then.

