Official Luthiers Forum!

Regardless of what side of the political spectrum you are on, I'm sure we can all agree the behavior of one of their employees last Sunday at a Starbucks was unacceptable, but businesses should not be held responsible for what their employees do outside of the workplace. Sadly, Frank's Yelp rating is taking a hit. Can we all pitch in and help write a Yelp review to express our support?

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/0 ... m-her-job/

https://www.facebook.com/gryphon.string ... 18?__xts__[0]=68.ARBvyFkaC-tisRM2kQT6eL3N2z5XrAfaEu5EuGYNeoL7zVUHZ_sTes89ftXfyVArzPmBVroFjFgyV1tWce83a1iQpQ-2_NzchiR-xtvVk31mNdhIU2ss5DYC1a4Noq1z-WWc660gJpOc9q7hZ8Nxz5kxDvSkHDWqbjqIZ1bNVbi8wJLmD5zCfd5us8C5ZbytoQdLw0bkyG5ooY1oAsUfAget1BPDLNXf68_1FOViG9Ia4CWRFrAtC4RRiXLQWjfGrzRPa-G1tdku3EfrywvTmTn072S0mcCnaillpv4VrbxNTHk3oISEQBLJMkRt40pexsk1to8Dovyr0Vk6XfgFqA&__tn__=-R

Thanks so much to the tolerant and understanding left. Frank Ford and his remaining employees don't deserve the crap the problem child brought on them. He should sue HER.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I visited Gryphon Strings by the way. Frank was really nice and actually gave me a small piece of BRW as a "going away present". I never seen BRW before this.

Maybe there is an advantage of doing business in Taiwan. We have none of this PC stuff here.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Just another reason I wish to never have any employees....

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Sorry for your problem Gryphon ,But I would never hire such a creature. If you hire someone who obviously has an extreme political agenda agenda sooner or later , you will have to face the musak.

Amen Brother Brian!

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"I've been had again"
Tim Benware
Creedmoor, NC

Given that employment law in most states prohibits discussion of or other overt consideration of political views in the hiring process, I am not certain that a political purity test can or should be applied. I would find that sort of litmus test as objectionable coming from one side of the political spectrum as from the other, whatever my personal views might be.

I believe this situation is best handled with post-hire training and management/peer monitoring of employee compliance with company policy. That and a quick job change for those that failed to keep politics out of the work place.

I wish Gryphon well in recovering from this unlooked-for complication.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

"That and a quick job change for those that failed to keep politics out of the work place."

I think Gryphon was chickenshit. Does Gryphon instruments have a Starbucks located on the premises? Although I certainly don't condone the behavior or views of Nazis and the Antifa (who I feel are every bit as wrong) I think it is up to the civil authorities to draw the line. Should an Employer be coerced into firing an employee every time they say something or act in a way another political group finds reprehensible? How often did his accountant work the front counter? Americans enjoy a freedom to express themselves greater than in any other country. At times it is coarse and vulgar and rude. Although that is not how I operate I accept it as a necessity of a free country. I'm sure mine it not the P.C. view but it is one I feel strongly about.
I would like to hear Hesh's take on this situation.

To Clay's point, we have become increasingly polarized to our own detriment. Finding solutions is much more difficult than discrediting the other side and/or painting them in a bad light. It used to be okay to have friends with differing viewpoints and every now and then you might accidentally question and modify your own. By vilifying anything or anyone on the other side, we are destroying the middle ground. I wouldn't want to lose out on a job opportunity because my beliefs don't mesh with the employer (especially since diverse viewpoints are helpful in the workplace); I sure wouldn't want to be fired for those beliefs either.

I can understand firing an employee who is hurting the business. The question is if this is and should be hurting the business. Public opinion is a strange thing. IMHO, trying to manipulate it is a big part of how we got where we are today.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Update: Yelp has removed the negative reviews from G.S.I.'s page

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

When I looked at the Yelp reviews of Gryphon yesterday, there were six or seven that were negative that had been posted yesterday. Interestingly, at least four of those "reviews" were from people who claimed to have been in the Gryphon shop and had negative experiences even though their location info showed them as being in places nowhere near Palo Alto like Indiana, Texas, and Sweden (!). Likely a bunch of trolls. Thanks, a lot internet for providing tools to make people's lives worse. They are all gone today so maybe Yelp has a mechanism to deal with fake malicious reviews that appear to be part of an effort to attack an individual by trashing the company they work for, even though the company was irrelevant to the situation.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

The civil authorities HAVE drawn the line - we refer to that line as the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which of course does not really apply FOR AN EMPLOYEE at place of employment, other than as the employer deems permissible. Most employers sensibly limit political activity at work to avoid the sort of fallout earned by businesses which tolerate what is deemed by some customers as unacceptable employee behavior. What is protected 1A speech for one person (after-work trip to McDonalds wearing a t-shirt with graphic questioning government policy) is rude, unacceptable, unprotected speech and behavior for another (cashier at that McDonalds berating said customer for wearing t-shirt with graphic questioning government policy).

As to your question ("Should an Employer be coerced into firing an employee every time they say something or act in a way another political group finds reprehensible?"). Should they? No. Will they? Probably - unless they make some choices on what behavior they find acceptable on the part of their employees to avoid what is an eminently avoidable situation.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

"Most employers sensibly limit political activity at work"

As well they should. But....
Increasingly employers are limiting political activity during non work hours. I know of a situation where employee was called on the carpet because he had a difference of opinion with a local politician at a public meeting. When the politician found out he worked for a public institution he called the head of it who then took the employee to task for it, telling him he represented the institution 24/7. Ironically it was a public library, what you would think would be a bastion of free speech.

It's blanket political comments like this that are discouraged in this forum for a reason. No further comment.

I do wonder how valuable sites like Yelp really are anyway. It's pretty commonly known that review sites are often stacked with either positive or negative comments. Gryphon immediately did the right thing, anyone in thier right mind would consider that and move on.

I just think it's BS that in America which are supposed to be the land of the free and we have the first amendment right, that people are having their lives ruined because of an off the cuff remark.

This kind of thing don't happen in other countries, even in the supposedly repressive regimes (the govt. has better things to do than to police what you say)

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

It is also not clear how we are supposed to “help”. By writing equally false positive reviews on Yelp?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

I know Frank Personally and he has always been helpful A true class act.
Freedom of speech doesn't me freedom of the consequences of your speech.
it is sad that we see both sides so far from center.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

This has a lot more to do with social condition than govt. regulations...

It's the society in that region (SF Bay area) that gets vindictive about an off the cuff remark. Laws can't do anything about that.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Yes, because the people of the SF Bay area constitute a monolithic homogeneously vindictive population. Gross over generalizations like this really aren't all that helpful.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Anyone bother to check the source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gateway_Pundit

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-gateway-pundit/

https://www.thenation.com/article/davos-for-fascists/

Nice pickup Hans. Amazing how quickly we are ready to form a lynch mob with incomplete data.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I think from the wording of the article it was obvious where the author was coming from. It is sad but it seems like it is getting harder and harder to find news sources that are just reporting the facts and not spinning or selectively reporting. Sometimes I like to read articles and try to guess which agency it came from based on the wording. Unfortunately it allows us to decide what directions we want our news from so we can hear what reinforces what we want to believe. This drives us, as a people, further form moderation.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Hans, here's Gryphon making a statement from a more reliable source:

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/ ... starbucks/