Is it fair for social event businesses to temporarily ban for coming across as intrusive?

[AllThingsTech]

To be clear, this is about a business hosting real life social events, NOT a forum.

Several members had apparently complained about me to the organiser and I got hit with a temporary ban without a warning or feedback!

Now, to get to the interesting bit… in the host’s communication to me, the ban included all and any communication with event participants. How can this be enforced and is this reasonable? While this is apparently to avoid problems, the organiser essentially attempting to cut off a banned person from their friends, even though unintentional. Good grief, it’d be like @Retro bans a member here and posts an announcement that members here aren’t allowed to interact with a member banned from here.

But anyways… how is this business? My friends decided to group off outside of this business, they thought this was ridiculous, as they don’t believe anyone should be banned unless they’re intentionally abusive or something. So this business lost business from my friendship group!

Now I’m perma banned for remaining in contact with my friends. Crazy much?

 

[Hitcore]

The thing with corpo types is that they sometimes have sort of a god complex and feel it's justified to decide over people's lives as they see fit. It's kinda similar to getting emails on your free day and somehow the boss is expecting you to reply to them while it's still your free (unpaid) day. It's crossing a line, though they would not see it that way.

Well then. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you indeed have been intrusive in some way. The correct procedure would have been a conversation, where you are kindly reminded that it would be appreciated that you tone things down a bit. It's likely that you would agree to it, and everyone remains on relatively good terms with each other.

What's happens now is that not only you are being punished too severely, it is also causing some bad vibes between you and the company, and also some other people and the company as they get to hear about this.

TL;DR even if your behavior has indeed been intrusive, management has responded too harsh on you and they haven't really thought the consequences of permabanning you through. It's the level of diplomacy one would expect from a certain Donald J. Trump.

My verdict is that they are a bunch of poopyheads.

 

[Retro]

Not giving feedback is idiotic. How is one supposed to "improve" without it? Punishment without direction is just cruelty.

 

[Retro]

Thinking about it, I think under some circumstances it could be justified if that member was causing significant disruption, especially to the point where the event was being undermined because of it and perhaps its reputation being tarnished. However, going by what you told us happened to you, no I still don't think it was fair to you.

 

[AllThingsTech]

@Retro mutually beneficial solutions >>>>>> punishment

As for disruption, I neglected to mention apparently I was talking over others. I have genuine auditory processing challenges and sensory issues in large groups. Unfortunately, hidden disabilities are often taken as excuses, especially as challenges manifest differently for everyone

Also, I purchased tickets past the deadline which she made an issue of. It felt disproportionate to me, given that she could have asked me to leave the event at that time or closed the links to tickets. Most businesses would force ppl to leave and without tickets, and close purchases.

Overall, it appeared she was making way for me out of politeness even though she didn’t have to. This is likely why I perceived her actions as disproportionate… I likely didn’t pick up on her and others’ annoyance as I don’t tend to pick up on social cues without being directly told, and so I likely didn’t react appropriately.

It seems as though a bunch of issues pile up, she gave way too much and then worried she was seen as weak at having her leadership undermined. You need to communicate openly and transparently from the start, communicating clear boundaries. You teach ppl how to treat you by communicating clearly what you tolerate and don’t, as a leader.

The problem I think was a heavy sanction all of a sudden after having said nothing, suddenly bringing a bunch of issues to me, after behavioural challenges over multiple events which I wasn’t aware of. There was a lack of progressive discipline with escalating sanctions so it’s possible I didn’t take certain things seriously, either. It’s bad not only for my sense of self-worth, but also for the business - especially when a sanction is unexpected and so seen as heavy-handed, one person leaves and the entire friendship group leaves.

She’s also unable to offer me more detailed feedback due to complainant confidentiality concerns. This is challenging as I learn from examples of where I went wrong and how I could have done better!

Moral of the story: Banning an active member of a community, whether that be an online forum or a real life social group or business must always be handled with care. It should never come as a surprise.

 

[Retro]

Also, I purchased tickets past the deadline which she made an issue of. It felt disproportionate to me, given that she could have asked me to leave the event at that time or closed the links to tickets. Most businesses would force ppl to leave and without tickets, and close purchases.

Selling tickets past the cutoff date making them invalid is fraud, pure and simple. Do you mind saying how much they were? Obviously, the more expensive, the more serious the crime.

From the rest of what you describe, you still weren't treated fairly. I never buy this confidentiality bullshit of someone making a complaint as to what the complaint was or who made it as the manager can simply make shit up about you and then hide it behind that. What a crock.

 

[AllThingsTech]

Sorry Retro, I simply meant the company hadn’t taken the links to tickets down, and expressed they were OK with it at the time, yet banned me a long time later