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I don't think a single woman said that.

There is also the lovely thing that if women respond with emotion, then everyone knows that they are irrational and emotion. Maybe the newer generation can let go (I honestly don't know) but for some of us some things are rather ingrained.

My biggest effort was to get Red Rose acknowledged, and not trivialized or swept under the rug. Her actions were professional. They should be seen as such! If she is trivialized, then everyone is.

Your side of it is appreciated, and a guy not being silent on these things is very important.

I hear you. But let's examine exactly what Red Rose said ...



First, let me say that RR's approach here seems quite sensible. But from what she said, this Starbucks approach for a first meeting is NOT her general policy. She did it in this case because she sensed something amiss.

That is why I said that these kind of experiences are hard to comment upon, beyond the usual forum "head nodding" in agreement. What lesson do I learn? Well, I learn that if I feel that a person is suspicious, based on what they say in emails or phone calls, that I should not let them into my house. OK, I think most of us knew that already.

Should all preliminary business be conducted in the local Starbucks? That to me is a more interesting question. The fact that many people feel the need to do this suggests a number of things:

1. It's a sad commentary on the state of society that women feel such risk.

Gary's shorts were in such a twist about my seeming lack of empathy for female second-class status (where on earth did he get that from what I posted, one wonders) that he did not acknowledge that I actually said that.

2. It's a serious cost in peoples' time if they do it as a general policy.

Do teachers think they learn enough in a Starbucks meeting to take a student? I doubt it. That demands a second meeting in the home to get the student into something approximating the lesson format.

But Red Rose did not say that this was her general policy. Maybe it is, but that did not come across in the post.

This is a very hot-button issue to me. I see men debate some of the things I believe you are touching upon as if it does not touch them, and I think there are many men who are not touched.

Now, I really am done.

Who cares? She can do whatever she wants, and it doesn't have to be in her policy.

If she gets weirded out by a potential student or parent, then she has every right to make a judgment call. If the guy and daughter turned out OK, then I'm sure she would want to see the girl at her studio to give her a thorough check through.

Any guy who would begrudge a woman doing this probably isn't right for her studio anyways.

Please tell me where I said she can't do what she wants? Please tell me where I said that she doesn't have the right "to make a judgment call."

Please read what I wrote and stop treating people as the enemy because you presume you know their deepest attitudes. Frankly, I'm getting sick of being smeared because of other peoples' hot buttons. Your hot button doesn't give you the right to condescend or to deliberately misread.

Thank you, Gary. Another person who lacks the decency even to read what I wrote.

I was not paying that much attention to the other dialogue since I had started one just before and wanted that point to come across. But I can see that objection and its reasons which you must have missed. Your first comment was about people "tying themselves into knots", and the second was about people "wildly overestimating some forms of risk". if this was in response to what the posting teacher had just said, then it seemed to trivialize them and make them seem silly. Probably closer to the truth is that you missed that post or only half-read it. Yet I find it an important post, because it dealt with a real experience.

Going on:



A business policy will have precautions in place for certain circumstances. In the analogy from my present profession, most of us accept payment after rendering service and bill clients afterward, but for clients who present red flags prepayment is recommended. This is a distinction from making decisions based on "feelings" with wild over- and underestimations. Most businesses create checklists or things to watch for.



I run a business where the projects I do are relatively short term, some taking a day, and others taking a few weeks at most. Teachers forge a business relationship that lasts years. One important thing that I learned in running a business is that the preliminary preparation you do has a major effect even though it doesn't bring in any money. If you land in a mess because you didn't check things out, it is costly and time consuming. So if an extra step is needed where the situation suggests it, then this is not a "cost on people's time" - more like a prudent business expense.

For the last part of your question, the piano teachers might be able to answer that. I think that a fair bit can actually be learned over a cup of coffee.

Keystring,

I'm not sure exactly what we're "debating" here. Is it, "Does RR have a good business policy?" Got me. I haven't seen it laid out as a business policy. RR didn't discuss it that way.

Is it, "can one rationalize the Starbucks approach "for occasional potential clients who rub you the wrong way over the phone" as a good formal business approach? Yeah, sure, I guess. That seems pretty obvious to me.

I'm not sure anyone in this benighted thread is pondering either point. We're getting things like, "if she feels weirded out ..." That sounds rather like a "feeling" to me. And that's not something that is easy for one person to communicate to another, which is why I said a while back that experiential posts often just get a group hug or a collective head nodding in approval. Yes, if someone feels weirded out, by all means ask to meet the weirding one in advance, over coffee. Heck, I said that was very sensible of RR. It's sensible policy for anyone.

You said: "But Red Rose did not say that this was her general policy."
I said: "who cares?"

Did you mean something other than: "She should have it stated in her policy that the first meeting will be at Starbucks"?

If you read the rest of my long post to Keystring, i.e. go beyond that one sentence of mine that you quote, you will see the rest of the context. I was addressing Keystring's very specific contention that we needed to get beyond feelings. Please read all of Keystring's post, and all of my response. Keystring said, among other things,



I replied that RR had indeed used her instincts and feelings, appropriately so in this case. It was her instinct that caused her to behave the way she did, not a formal policy. Then you berate me for callousness? What the ...???

I said this:



How do you jump from this to me saying she ought to have a business policy before taking someone to coffee instead of to her house?

OK, I see you were responding to keystring's statement about making a decision logically vs. emotionally. I apologize for jumping to conclusions. I got all riled up with the Journey's idiotic post and read into what you wrote. I'm sorry for that.

For what is worth, I personally have no problems with making emotional decisions. We are human beings and have emotions as well as intellectual, spiritual, and physical needs upon which we can base our decisions. Not any one is necessarily more or less important than another, although one may tend toward using one over another.

It would be clueless for men (or women) to have a "private conversation" about anything on a public internet internet forum.

You are using quotation marks, but I can't tell whom you are quoting. Are you quoting someone, or are these your own words? If the latter, then it is again ridiculing and trivializing. "Who rub you the wrong way over the phone" sounds ridiculous.

If you are having problems with this, I wonder if it's due to experience. You are wondering about business practices - whether meeting a potential client at a public place to discuss business is a waste of time, for example. If you run your own business then this is not something you would wonder about, because it is common practice. I don't know if it can be explained.

Yes, I'm quoting "myself" in those sentences. But you knew that.

Keystring, I'm not having problems with this. I'm wondering why you are expending so much effort constructing arguments about efficient business practice for this increasingly weird thread. My only comment about efficiency (if I recall correctly) was to note that a two-stage interview process starting at Starbucks and ending in the house, and doing this for every potential student, would probably be a drag on someone's time.

Hah! Good one.

OK. Let me clarify. I want to be crystal clear.

Piano Dad replies to a comment from TimR, written February 05, 2013 10:51 AM as if it were something rather current.


OK. So if we are going more than two months back, let's look at this:

I won't comment.

So then we get this today:

That earns a response, not TO the person who posted, but to TimR, going back in time I suppose two months.

Now, I will concede that calling this a “private discussion” is inaccurate. What went through my mind, instead, is that a often a man would rather comment on a comment that is over two months old by another man, in public, in a way that totally ignores the woman as if she was not even here, rather than to answer the woman who has just expressed a thought and a worry.

So the word “private” is not accurate. But I do not have a word for what happens when one man replies to another as if the woman is not there and does not deserve to have her ideas directly addressed. That in my opinion was what happened today. I stand by that. I further suggest that this happens a lot in this world, where I further insist men have more power and assume that they deserve to have it.

Gary, you have finally put into words what has been bothering me all day, and I could not put my finger on it.

It started when Red Rose came on and talked about a real situation, and the first response had nothing to do with what she had said. Instead it was some abstract speculation between two men. The various things that were put forth were further trivialized. I don't know what to call what happened with the things that I wrote. Is that much incomprehension really possible? In any case, earlier in the day I bumped today's original post up twice, because it seemed extremely important to do that - for this person to be heard.

That's exactly the point I was trying to make.

Not saying the fears are not justified, just pitying those who live in (unequal, anti-social, violent, misogynistic, drugged-up, poverty riddled, poorly educated, etc.) societies where one is condemned to live one's life in fear and not even feel free to act and safe in one's own home/studio.

My opinion on this subject is as follows:







Lock the thread.