Have we entered a ‘police’ state!

[David6]

So disturbed & outraged that Airbnb have excluded my dear friend  @susan17 from this community!

Susan is a real. Susan was here from the beginning. She is a SuperHost with most amazing reviews. Reviews of the kind  we only could dream of. Guests all rave about her hospitality. She will arrange a taxi to go buy ANY THING YOU WANT. Guests on a weekend away, want her kind of hosting. 

Susan is my friend. When my apartment was trashed by a party crowd and they threatened to kill me. They caused £12,000 damage. Yes I involved the police. But Susan reached out EVERY DAY to ensure I was ok! She is most amazing asset to this community! She cares about people! She cares even more about hosts! 

I am disgusted that Susan has been excluded. This CC is turning into a police state.

No! Hosts need an outlet to express their frustration. Who are you admins to state a post is ‘negative’!

How dare you exclude a host who supported so many of us!!! Outraged! Absolutely disgusting you could turn against one of the most supportive hosts out there ! Total disgust that you hung @Susan17  out to dry!!! 

[Ute42]

.

@Melodie-And-John0  

You wrote:

• if I told my boss at my 40 hour a week job "The Truth" on a daily or weekly basis, there is a very good chance even with an awesome work record I wouldnt have hit my 10th, 20th or 26th year anniversary doing the job i truly love like I did May 1st

Last year I've hit my 33rd anniversary with the BMW car manufacturer in Munic.

I have never criticized my bosses over all the years until I got a new one who came from South Africa. This guy told me where to put my pencils on the desk. I immediately applied for a new position inside BMW in another city.

I couldn't a have looked into the mirror anymore working with this person.

[Melodie-And-John0]

@Ute42 , congrats on 33 years, thats awesome, they are lucky you didnt run off to Mercedes!   I think sometimes our experiences mold us differently.  I had a platoon Sergeant in Ansbach WG back in 1980 that told me "Robinson, you will never be anything but a lowlife Private", because I refused to kiss his arse like he required all his missives to do.  Im sure you understand, you dont transfer in the Army until they say its time so I was stuck in his Platoon 6 more months before I said auf wiedersehen SFC Pierce.   We never did meet again but I remembered that asinine statement well, it became a rally cry that propelled me 14 years later to Platoon Sergeant of a Tow Missile Anti Armor Platoon with 18 crack troops and NCO's that kissed nobodies hind parts.   If I had called it done when that POS tried to label me a loser, I never would have been able to complete 21 years of service.  That experience and others have taught me literally and figuratively, "Live to fight another day"  is very often the best way to "win a war" and survive to talk about it.  Sorry for the long story but it boils down to nobody will stop me from doing what I want to do except me (and sometimes my mouth...), stay well Ute!,  JR

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Melodie-And-John0  

"Robinson, you will never be anything but a lowlife Private", because I refused to kiss his arse

So 'a***' is acceptable in this community. I would never have guessed!

I much preferred the more entertaining way @Susan17 used it, that was cited as the reason for her ban btw.

[Melodie-And-John0]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 , I apologize to you and anyone else that the use of the word *rse may have offended, next time I will try to remember to refer to it as my 4th point of contact....Stay well, JR

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Melodie-And-John0 

OK. You get a second chance. 🙂

Worse things have been said, and such was the severity of that language it took over a month before it was even mentioned.

[Ute42]

.

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 

I've noticed that too.

There seems to be a difference between an irisch a*rse and a Munnsville / New York *rse.

What @Melodie-And-John0  has said of course is unacceptable, but what I've read from JR so far he seems to be an ok guy and I also vote for a second chance for him.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

The dialect of  **se.  Who’d have thought it?

We’d make great moderators @Ute42 

We should invite Brian Chesky too!! In moderating these forums he would learn a thing or two! To be sure! ☘️ 

[Melodie-And-John0]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0  and @Ute42 , were actually immigrants and current owners of the Philpot Homestead, Irish settlement NY.  When we were branding our place, I was torn between Irish Settlement Lodging and Bearpath Lodging.   Just between us, I'm blood kin to William Wallace on my fathers side so that could account for a Scottish Accent you might be hearing from my  *rse.  Because Im also a bit of a Mongrel, it could be mixed up German influence as well.   A mixture of those crazy party hearty Bavarian's (My GrandfatherCharles Ludwig ) and the stoic and sturdy Northern Germans my (Grandmother Wilhelmina Katrina the 3rd).  Now you know a little bit about where my *rse comes from, what a mess right?  JR

 

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Melodie-And-John0 

...a Scottish Accent you might be hearing from my  *rse. 

No comment.

[Melodie-And-John0]

Sorry @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 , I just couldn't help myself, lord knows I've tried..... Stay well, JR

[Niklas24]

@Fred13good post. It is human nature that you are much more likely to come to the forum to criticize something than to tell about how great your AirBnB business is doing, and then the critical pieces tend to drive more discussion. I think there is quite a bit of a negative spiral going on at the community forum, with often the most critical hosts being the most vocal. While there certainly is a lot of thoughtful criticism here, I have been amazed by the amount of outlandish theories on how evil and stupid AirBnB is. To me personally, the amount of negativity is a turn-off and in some perfect world, the forum could be curated to be more balanced.

Disclaimer: this comment is not target at Susan17, but is just my general observation about the forum.

[Fred13]

I do try to every-so-often-remind people of the bright side of life or things. Over all, this is a great board, because it quite upbeat and helpful and full of good people. These are indeed brutal times, and frustrating because one wonders to what extend it was all necessary; we will never know or maybe we will. Mental health and a positive attitude is important and it is a full-time job with all of us, especially when we are hit with set backs that we had no control of or at fault.

Keep the faith!

[Sharon1014]

@Fred13  Agree with much of what you have said, Airbnb is a business etc, however there is also huge commercial benefit to the company in hosts helping hosts via CC's like this one as it saves them lots of time and money.

Just think everyone should take a chill pill.  As any manager of staff knows, when a staff member or client is fuming over something, there are a standard set of conflict resolution skills to employ in said situations.  Haven't seen any evidence of that here thus far (although one doesn't know the full extent of what has been going on behind the scenes).  Susan's at times vitriolic take on the situation is driven, imo, more by a vision of what an awesome company this could be if it realigned itself with the core vision and delegated more to, or honoured hosts more as proper "partners".    I think we can all see the disappointment and deviation from what was expected vs what the reality is.  Reconciling that individually is a task we must all address, some less successfully than others.

Sometimes all it takes is just to ask the person, what exactly is the outcome you want from this?  If you as a manager can't deliver on that because the expectations are not realistic, then you explain that and the reasons why. 

Staff who get heated or "passionate" about things are in my experience, usually the ones whose energies you need to harness most.  Why?  Because they care, deeply.  They are a tremendous asset.

Just very unfortunate if a way through this cannot be found, to the benefit of all parties.  Would have thought a temporary suspension might have covered it, but summary and permanent rescinding of posting privileges does seem a bit reactionary.... perhaps a legacy of Airbnb's own somewhat dark
"emotional place" at present.

[Suzanne302]

@Sharon1014 I agree about the passion and have experienced it personally in my career. I found at certain companies I would become upset at the way things were being done and wanted to fix them, but management didn't seem to care. I knew the point at which I stopped caring was the point where I needed to find a new job.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

I want to get very angry over this, but it I know it doesn't do me any good as I would want to put as much effort into that as I do with everything else until I find satisfaction. There will be no 'winning' here, just a terrible, terrible loss for all all parties involved. I feel a 'missive' coming on to rival @Jennifer1421  🙂

So heres my take on Susan’s position after meeting her on this forum and her being in contact with me over time.

Firstly and basically, she’s been posting here, helping hosts, answering questions and trying to encourage them to stand up for themselves and fight for their rights. The inequality within the platform does not go unnoticed and her evidence based information did point to facts in composing her opinion.

She only decided to start trying to write the book about 18 months ago when she saw that Airbnb were becoming "more and more abusive", and she thought if that was highlighted, then it might bring about a positive change for all hosts, and Airbnb might be shamed into treating hosts in a fairer, more ethical manner.

This is not just about how Airbnb is treating hosts through this pandemic - small, independent hosts have been getting further and further pushed out of the market, and out of business - by Airbnb heavily over saturating their markets and blatantly favouring huge commercial operators with preferential policies and practices and promoting them (and waves of brand new, inexperienced hosts) above them in searches for at least 2-3 years now. A great deal of her posts were trying to shine a light on the unfairness of that, in the hopes of Airbnb being forced to redress the balance and give small local hosts a fairer chance to get bookings and to stay in the game.

She realised that not all hosts felt the same way or were party to all the information hosts worldwide were sending to her. So most of what she posted in the past few years has been with the aim of fighting the battle for small local hosts, to try to get them to see what was happening and stand up for themselves before it was too late and they were put out of business by Airbnb channelling all the business to huge commercial operators in their towns and cities. Standing up for small hosts like some who might criticise her here and frustrate her to her Irish roots.

She’s admitted to “putting her own neck on the line and risked being delisted every day by posting about it - long before she ever even thought about writing a book. The book is small fry now...

Regarding the mods being blamed, this is a  message I received two days back on that subject:

“Ah it's not the admins fault though - they're just doing what they're told to do. And Steph who posted it (who was made to post it, I'm sure!) is in the later stages of pregnancy. I wouldn't want her to be getting upset. I was furious with Stephanie and the time but as soon as I'd calmed down, I realised that of course this is not her doing, or her BS. I've always got on well with her and I absolutely don't want others blaming her either.”

Her evidence is irrefutable and backed up by facts, so how can she be in the wrong and where is the transparency in her ban ?