Do You Sincerely Want to be Nirodha?

The facts: Facebook engaged Alice Van Ness to teach yoga to Facebook employees. She asked students to turn off their cellphones during her classes. One student began to text in the middle of a session. Alice gave the student a "stern" look.  The employee complained, and Alice was fired. (Technically, her contract was terminated because she is a subcontractor for the fitness contractor that Facebook hired.)

I can understand why the fitness company had to terminate Alice Van Ness; it couldn't afford to jeopardize its contract with a major corporate customer.  And all's well that ends well: after the incident was publicized Alice was offered a job at a yoga studio.

I blame Facebook for not coaching its employee: 1) to have respect for the teacher's rules regardless of  how important the student or her work may be outside the class, 2) to learn other ways of dealing with  humiliation besides getting someone fired, 3) to observe cellphone etiquette---for example, if she simply had to text she could have excused herself temporarily.

Let's hope this was a teachable moment.

[Update - 7/12/12, SJ Mercury columnist Mike Cassidy chimes in:

...this is Facebook. This is a company that grew from nothing to the biggest thing going in about 15 minutes. This is a company that changes its privacy policy every half-hour. This is a place that is all about the social network, which by the way, has nothing to do with making eye contact with your yoga instructor and everything to do with constant access to a keyboard and screen. 

And the sad truth is that when you work at the biggest thing going, you sometimes forget that other people are important, too.]

[Update - 7/14/12, Yoga instructor Alice Van Ness was told in advance that she couldn't forbid cellphones. More from Mike Cassidy:

Van Ness had been warned by her bosses before the class that she could not enforce a cell phone ban while she was teaching yoga. That's what the termination letter that Van Ness shared with The Associated Press says. [snip] 

Now whether staring daggers at someone who is disrupting your class constitutes "precluding fitness center users from answering their phones," I'll leave up to the lawyers in the crowd.]