Facebook Yoga Teacher Fired For Banning Phones in Class

mashable.com

9 points·alpb··5 comments

This is non-news. Company politics.

(This is kinda irrelevant and I don’t think it has anything to do with Facebook – but what a stupid policy. It won’t work. You cannot always say yes, if only because saying yes to one person may be mutually exclusive with saying yes to another person. All you can ever do is try to say yes to as many people as possible, never everyone.

Why are phones banned? Because one person can annoy the whole class with them. Banning phones in this case means creating an undisturbed Yoga class, i.e. saying yes to everyone who wants to be able to concentrate on Yoga and nothing else. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that’s the majority in a Yoga class.)

A normal yoga class, I agree. I get the impression this is an employer sponsored class that takes place during the work day. Lots of job related things can pop up, and to assume that cell phone use in class was trivial is an odd assumption for the instructor to take, IMO.

As I read it I felt that if the yoga student could not spare 30min without connectivity, then perhaps the class was not a suitable fit in his schedule. Perhaps such a student is not ready for yoga or other meditative practices at all.

There is nothing wrong with that. In that case saying yes to as many people as possible means allowing phones.

It’s just the justification (“We want to say yes to everyone!”) that’s so odd. If there are good reasons for actually allowing phones then say that, not that you want to say yes to everyone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com