I love a good "victim" story

[El Presidente]

 

Big evil business + Uncaring white tourists  = trampled over locals. 

This article is one of the worst pieces of trash that I have read in a while 

My favourite paragraph. 

 

"Emotional labor, according to Alie Hochschild, is the management of personal feeling: "it requires one to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others. It runs the risk of [estranging] workers from their own smiles by intervening in the pursuit of profit between the smiler and the smiled upon."

 

How about Harden the ***k up and take a spoon-full of concrete. 

 

As Airbnb grows in Cuba, locals suffer the emotional burden of entitled tourists

https://www.salon.com/2020/02/16/as-airbnb-grows-in-cuba-locals-suffer-the-emotional-burden-of-entitled-tourists/

 

[NSXCIGAR]

This could almost be an Onion piece. 

This mental oppression could easily be ended--by not renting your house out.

[Chibearsv]

How stupid. Every retail business requires adjusting your personal attitude in favor of a public face. Some people are built for it and some aren't.  You either want customers or you shouldn't be in business. I'll bet the writer was wringing their hands at the terrible plight of the people renting rooms out. Chances are, in context, they were just blowing off steam and the writer took it to a ridiculous level

[Corylax18]

It took quite a bit of "Emotional Labor" for me to get through that piece of garbage. That article was not written by a Cuban, I doubt it was reviewed by all the hosts he supposedly interviewed either. The whiney, self centered view is just not entertained in Cuba, at least that I've seen. 

To be honest, that entire website looks like a dumpster fire of heavily leftist garbage and I'm NOT a republican. You've gotta frequent better websites Rob, I saw nothing of value, at all, to anyone, anywhere on that site. 

That being said, I wasted my time reading the article, so I'll comment. ? 

I've never used Airbnb in Cuba, I have used Havaning though. In the end finding a good host and working with them directly is the best way to do it, but I understand that can be tough on your first trip. I'm not a fan of Airbnb for rentals here in the states, I agree that their process leaves alot to be desired. Most good hosts I've worked with, and also drivers have been very upfront about the speed/frequency with which they can respond to emails. If that expectation is set early, it never becomes an issue. 

I've yet to see any of the "Disneyfied" parts of Centro Habana, I'll have to stop a random Cuban on the street and ask them during my next trip................

I agree with the general theme that most tourists suck, as human beings. That's nothing new, even to Cubans, I've had countless discussion with Cubans in the service industry about previous clients, both great and terrible. But specifically vilifying "Whites"? You are part of the problem at that point.  

Long story short, if you are looking to go to Cuba for the first time, ignore this article completely. Be a good person and you'll have a wonderful time.

[chris12381]

One of the things I dislike most about renting a place in Cuba is the difficulty in finding a place that DOESN'T have a family living with you, asking you every few minutes if you are OK, if you need anything, pressuring you eat breakfast every morning (so they can earn an extra 3-5 CUC per person a day) and just generally being "there".  I find their presence invasive according to this article, so do the Cubans! 

As many know, the difficulty does stem from the fact that most of the places are going to be spaces that are carved out of a family's home.  Sure, they may seem private, but there will always be some way for them to enter via a door, very often the kitchen will only be in the family's side of the home and you'll have to ask them for all sorts of little things that in any other place in the world, soap, shampoo, the washer/dryer wouldn't be locked down and guarded like they are in Cuba.  So, through layout of the home and through scarcity, you need to intrude.  

The other think you'll quickly notice on AirBnB listings is "private maid service 24 hours", "concierge service",  "breakfast available" "washer and dryer" and other ammenities that are very impressive.  You quickly realize that the private maid or concierge is a husband and wife, the washer and dryer is not self service.  You need to interrupt people's daily lives to use these "services" that in most ptoerh locations, those are people's sole jobs/responsibilites.  Those are used to attract people to their listings (after all, they are competing with other listings) but they have quickly learned, they are a burden. 

But...If you list it, it's reasonable for a renter to expect it.

On the flip side, I've stayed in an AirBnB which consisted of three separate room/bathrooms and a common area on top of a roof in Old Havana for 10 days.  It was beautiful.  I got to experience other tourists from many other countries coming and going over those days, and watched the owner and staff interact with those tourists.  Most of it was harmless, but some of it was pretty over the top and I felt absolutely awful for them.  It got so bad one night that of the asked me to help translate for her and out of pity, I just started running interference for the 2 hours answering a couple's questions.  It turns out the couple decided to come to Cuba on a whim, rented the room and bought plane tickets less than a 2 weeks prior and couldn't understand "why these Cubans wouldn't accept their credit or debit cards seeing as they're good everywhere else in the world".  They had NO CASH.  That satement was followed by questions like "Who the hell is this Che guy?"  and "Since the embargo ended, why in the world don't they just get new cars?"  It was a long discussion which required a tremendous amount of patience on my part.  So, I can imagine how exahusting it must be for anyone hosting tourists to deal with that kind of stuff.   

But the end of the day, an economy dependent on tourism depends upon tourists:   the good ones and the bad ones.  

[BoliDan]

HA! The dark side of Air BnB:

Hosts are being terrorized by the fact their guests talk to them, and sometimes even need to answer personal questions. They are so mentally taxed from "Emotional Labor", which must be dubbed as so because in Cuba Customer Service was never known until now. There is so much horror happening. After spending a half dozen paragraphs on how terrible this is for the Cuban hosts, he follows-up with this gem.

" Although Airbnb required more emotional labor, every host I interviewed was very pleased to have an impressive increase of reservations and income due to the online platform "

Ultimately making the entire article redundant.

I thought he was going to say that tourists are being rude and vandalizing stuff, etc... Nope. the people he interviewed are just annoyed that tourists stop to talk to them, ask directions and use their public spaces... ?

I can't even get in to his massive leap in to dependencies from huge tech companies which stemmed from getting a very basic internet access. Gross

I'm going to guess this is a Graduate Student looking to find something (he clearly didn't). So, he spilled this philosophical sewage to make this non-story relevant to his skewed world-view...

[Rabbi]

2 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

This could almost be an Onion piece. 

Every day it becomes more difficult to distinguish between satire and “news.” We are in a sad and dangerous place as a societal whole.

[La_Tigre]

Ima forgo all my emotional laboring tonight and tell my boss’s boss to  GET  BENT.

I’ll let y’all know how it goes in the morning. 

[El Presidente]

2 hours ago, Corylax18 said:

You've gotta frequent better websites Rob, I saw nothing of value, at all, to anyone, anywhere on that site. 

Mea culpa! However my normal news site of GunsTitsandGod.com was down at the time 

 

 

[El Presidente]

........now how many people clicked on the above link  

[Chibearsv]

42 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

........now how many people clicked on the above link  

Can't tell how many clicked the link but the site was crashed ?

[IanMcLean68]

[Rabbi]

19 hours ago, El Presidente said:

........now how many people clicked on the above link  

[CanuckSARTech]

On 2/17/2020 at 7:33 PM, El Presidente said:

Mea culpa! However my normal news site of GunsTitsandGod.com was down at the time 

 

 

 

On 2/17/2020 at 7:37 PM, El Presidente said:

........now how many people clicked on the above link  

Bastard.  Click-baiting @PigFish and I....so gawddamned mean!!!!!   

[BeerPimp]

On 2/17/2020 at 6:37 PM, El Presidente said:

........now how many people clicked on the above link  

I saw Salon.com and knew it was trash.