{"id":1130,"date":"2014-01-03T18:55:02","date_gmt":"2014-01-03T18:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.happehtheory.com\/HappehKungFu\/?p=1130"},"modified":"2014-01-03T18:55:02","modified_gmt":"2014-01-03T18:55:02","slug":"you-guys-are-taking-advantage-of-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.happehtheory.com\/HappehKungFu\/2014\/01\/03\/you-guys-are-taking-advantage-of-me\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cYou Guys Are Taking Advantage Of Me!\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike had a degree in Psychology and Chinese Medicine. He had a practice he ran out of a small office. Students were expected to see Mike in his office on a weekly basis. There was a charge for those weekly visits. As a new student who was broke and could barely afford to pay class tuition, I asked the other students what the office visits were all about. All of the replies were nebulous non answers about how they would \u201csee Mike and talk about this and that\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

I had no money. I could barely afford to pay class tuition and still have a roof over my head. After hearing the non answers of my fellow students about what the office visits were for, I ignored the expectations that I would also go for office visits. I kept that attitude for a full year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometime during that year a new student joined. He had actually been chased down by the men\u2019s group as a prospect to join. Much was made of how this individual was not a very good or trustworthy individual. Listening to all of that made me wonder why the other group member\u2019s thought he was such a good prospect, but they did.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mike was all over this guy. You would have thought that he was hounding the new student as a prospective love interest. They were best buddies and talking all of the time. I had been at class for months and had no personal relationship with Mike. He spoke to me very little personally and had very little to do with me in the class.<\/span><\/p>\n

My breaking point was reached the day I say Mike literally chasing the new student like a girl he was desperate to have. The two of them had been having some conversation and the new student walked away. He made it 100 or so feet away and Mike felt there was something he needed to say to the new student. Mike actually chased after the new student! If you knew Mike that was so out of character it was mindboggling. Mike was about controlling others. He had other people kowtow to his demands. So to see him chasing after a student was enough to make my jaw drop with surprise. And envy and resentment.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have expectations of how an instructor is supposed to behave. They are supposed to be attentive to the student and do an honest job of helping the student advance. None of that had happened in my first year with Mike. Mike basically ignored me.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I saw Mike chasing after that new student I felt wronged. I had been a student for months and had been ignored by Mike. This new student had been here a few months and Mike was chasing him across he exercise area to be with him!<\/span><\/p>\n

I resolved then and there to sign up for office visits with Mike. I didn\u2019t know what they were for and I could not afford them, but there was no way I was going to allow some new student to move ahead of me in class when I had already been there for months! After Mike finished with the new student I walked over and asked about the office visits. Mike said he would check his calender and let me know. He then told me later on when he had an appointment available and I began going to see Mike at his office.<\/span><\/p>\n

The office visits were an hour long. What took place during the visits is of no consequence to this particular blog entry. The payment for the office visit was $70 for me. Apparently there was some type of sliding scale depending on your ability to pay. If you were well to do, then you paid more. I attended the office visits for the next year or so.<\/span><\/p>\n

One day Mike comes to class and sits down with the group. The tradition was that everyone would gather in a circle before the class began and Mike would talk about this or that. Mike tells everyone that \u201cYou are taking advantage of me\u201d. You could feel the fear and consternation immediately. The attitude of the group towards Mike was a fawning one. To have Mike say they \u201cwere taking advantage of him\u201d shocked and frightened all of them. The fear was a palpable thing in the air.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mike then says \u201cI don\u2019t think anything is happening in the office visits. I think you are just coming to be with me instead of coming to work.\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Everyone is either looking at each other, looking at the ground, or simply putting out fear at high level in response to that statement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mike then says \u201cFrom now on, instead of office visits being one hour, they are going to be cut down to 45 minutes. If you have less time available that should motivate you to get more use out of it\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

That is not what I heard at all. At the time Mike was about money. Mike made no secret of the fact he wanted to make lots of money as fast as he could. I was also about money because I didn\u2019t have any. I had to watch every single dollar I had to make certain I could get by. So my immediate reaction to Mike\u2019s statement was not one of guilt as many of the others seemed to feel, it was one of calculation.<\/span><\/p>\n

There were around 35 people in the group at that time. As far as I know, all of them went to visit Mike at his office. It was stated earlier that better off individuals were charged more for office visits. I have no idea what that charge might have been so to be fair I based the calculations on what I paid.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are eight hours in a day. So eight times $70 per person per office visit = $560 a day<\/span><\/p>\n

$560 a day times 28 days per month = $15,680 a month just from office visits! That does not include class tuition!<\/span><\/p>\n

That $15,680 figure was based on one hour office visits. If the office visits were cut down to 45 minutes each\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eight hours divided by 45 minutes is approximately ten. By limiting people to a 45 minute office visits, Mike was going to be able to squeeze in two more people per day. That meant\u2026..<\/span><\/p>\n

10 people per day times $70 per person = $700<\/span><\/p>\n

$700 per day times 28 days per month = $19,600<\/span><\/p>\n

$19,600 for 10 visits per day \u2013 $15,680 for 8 visits per day = $3920 extra per month<\/span><\/p>\n

By reducing the visit time from one hour for each student down to 45 minutes for each student, Mike was bringing in approximately an extra $4000 a month! And that is based on the lowest tuition paid by me, the down and out broke college student! If the higher tuition fees paid by the better off students were included, that $4000 dollar figure must have been higher!<\/span><\/p>\n

To this day, 15 years later, I still cannot get over the gall of that man. He inculcated an atmosphere of worship in his students. He knew when he looked them in the face and told them there were taking advantage of him, they would all fall down groveling, begging him \u201cto tell them what they could do to make him happy again\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

And Mike knew exactly what was going to make him happy again\u2026\u2026..<\/span><\/p>\n

An extra $4000 plus a month in his bank from the same group of people who were already putting $15,000 per month in his bank.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This blog entry describes the actions of a man whose actions show he does not behave the way he claims to behave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mike-guen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.happehtheory.com\/HappehKungFu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.happehtheory.com\/HappehKungFu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.happehtheory.com\/HappehKungFu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.happehtheory.com\/HappehKungFu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.happehtheory.com\/HappehKungFu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.happehtheory.com\/HappehKungFu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1131,"href":"http:\/\/www.happehtheory.com\/HappehKungFu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions\/1131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.happehtheory.com\/HappehKungFu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.happehtheory.com\/HappehKungFu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.happehtheory.com\/HappehKungFu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}