Legit massage industry practices
Since a few people like to ridicule my expertise and insight on the legit massage industry, and I don't want to get into another pissing match on the MP thread, I thought I'd elaborate here. And if anybody still has any doubts, let 'er rip. I'm a straight shooter telling it the way it is, whether it's what people like to hear or not. This is going to be long so bear with me.
First off, I personally have no issues with a legit massage ending with a HJ. It's harmless and even healthy. It's stress relieving and thought by some to reduce blood pressure and risk of getting prostate cancer. Unfortunately the laws in our country don't agree, so legit massage places have to comply. There's also the stigma in our society. Nobody wants their legit spa turning into a jack shack. Also, legit places hire therapists based on their massage skills. They have to or they go out of business. If happy endings become the norm, now it's a slippery slope. You have to hire girls who are good looking, willing to get naked or at least partially naked, willing to give HJs, and don't mind being touched. And then it may not necessarily stop with a HJ. You'll always have customers pushing for more. That's why as much as I advocate for legit massage with happy ending, I don't think happy endings will ever mix with true therapeutic massage in this country. Too many complications. I have a staff full of amazing CMTs, but not one that you'd want to get a HJ from or see naked.
Now, what started this off was someone wondering about getting a HJ from Zeel or Soothe, and I said probably not. That's where the ridicule kicked in. Said poster didn't seem to care much for my professional insight.
Imagine for a moment that you own a legit massage establishment. You invested your life savings in it and literally have everything on the line, including your house as collateral. I'm talking hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line here, nothing you can easily recover from if you screw up. If you lose your business you lose everything. No, this is not unrealistic. It's how most of us finance our businesses. It's extremely scary shit for a few years until you get profitable. Now with all that in mind, don't you think you're going to take every possible measure to protect your business? You bet your ass you will. Now what's one of the biggest things keeping you up at night, other than making rent and payroll every month? You're now a business owner and an employer, and you own a business where your customers get naked behind a closed door with members of your staff. If that doesn't scare the shit out of you, you're in the wrong business, or you don't belong in business at all. SO much room for SO many things to go wrong. Lawsuits happen ALL THE FREAKING TIME, all over the country. Two big scenarios loom:
Scenario 1 is the most common: Male MT with female client. Obvious room for misconduct there, and unfortunately it happens frequently. MT improperly exposes the female client, or inappropriately touches something, and she sues you for hundreds of thousands of dollars and probably wins because it's all behind closed doors, her word against yours. You have little to defend yourself with.
Scenario 2 is less common, but still happens more than you probably realize: Female MT seeing male customers who make unwanted advances, try to inappropriately fondle, etc. Female MT sues the business for sexual harassment and not providing a safe, secure work environment. More of a difficult case, but believe me they happen quite a bit.
Various other things worry business owners because of the behind closed door thing. Say an MT gives away expensive upgrades to keep her clients coming back. Things like a hot stone add-on that would normally cost extra she does for free. She's using company supplies, so she's basically stealing from the business. Or say she offers to see a customer outside of work for a cheaper price. Stealing clients from the business. That stuff is hard to monitor and keep in check because you just don't know what happens behind that closed door.
Now consider Zeel, Soothe, and other "delivery" massage places. Now it's more than just "behind a closed door. " Your employee (or independent contractor) is literally in the customer's house and now doesn't have the protections your spa might offer. Unlike a spa where if something goes sideways she can just step out the door into safety, in someone's house it isn't that easy. And it doesn't matter if you live in a nice gated community in OC or if you're in the projects in Watts. Your employee is working in someone else's environment that you have no control over. Again, if that doesn't scare the crap out of you as an employer, then you're totally out of touch with what employers have to deal with every day.
So what do you do? You put whatever controls in place that you can to make DAMN sure you're providing a safe, secure workplace. In a brick & mortar spa it's easy. The CMT can just walk out of the room. Some spas even have hidden panic buttons that the CMT can push to summon help. And you (and your management) make sure that if any guy crosses the line or attempts to cross the line, you throw his sorry ass out of your business and even report to authorities if necessary. You have to back your employees up 100%. If you don't, you're setting yourself up for major trouble.
Secret shoppers: I mentioned this and got openly ridiculed. Being behind closed doors, there's a lot of room for the CMT to cross the line too. Not only sexual misconduct stuff, but stealing products, stealing clients, offering their own retail products that are cheaper than what the spa offers, etc. The ONLY way you stop those things from happening is to plant the thought in their heads that we have people going in for services who report back to us. Every spa owner I've ever met does that. I have a handful of them. Some of them are just friends of mine who are regular customers who tell me what goes on. Some are random people who I reimburse for their massages and nobody but me knows about them. Nobody but me knows how often they come in or how many there are. In reality they don't come in very often. I have a busy spa and don't have to be giving away a lot of services. But the point is they're out there and the staff knows they're out there, so it's a cheap and easy way of keeping them in check. I will stop short of saying I know what Zeel's or Soothe's standard business practices are, but I'd be stunned if they weren't doing something similar. It costs next to nothing and it's an easy quality control tool. You just find a small handful of people who you occasionally have book a massage and give you feedback. They're not employees or even contractors. If you think it's a laughable matter, then again you're out of touch with reality. All it would take would be for a female CMT to get groped in a couple dudes' houses. Best case she quits, worst case she hits you with a harassment / unsafe workplace claim.
Now, I heard Zeel and Soothe compared to delivery services like instacart. Just pay the driver a little extra to make an extra stop on the way and pick up some stuff not normally authorized for delivery, no problem because "everyone needs money. " News flash: Massage isn't instacart, or postmates, or door dash. It's a licensed profession. CMTs have to go to massage school which costs a fair amount of money, and they have to take an exam, and they have to pay licensing fees. They can't legally practice their trade without their credentials. It is their way of making a living. If they do something improper and get their credentials suspended, now they have to find something else to do for a living. It's not like they're just downloading an app that enables them to deliver groceries for money as a little bit of a side gig, and if they get in trouble with that company they just go to a different one. In massage, if you screw up, you're done. You'll never get another massage job again anywhere in the US.
Think there's no "blacklist" for therapists who get in trouble? Think again. Being a licensed profession, every legit massage business that exists does a full background check, not only on new hires, but usually once a year after you've hired them. Part of that background check includes checking in with the state certification agency. If they have an infraction against their license there is no way for them to hide it. All of their current employers will know, and any future prospective employers will know. There's your blacklist. If someone gets fired for giving handjobs or anything else, industry standards demand a thorough investigation, and that includes reporting the incident to the certification board (or licensing board, depending on the state). IN ADDITION TO THAT, there is a relatively new nationwide "Employment Verification Database" for spas that will include any such incidents. Again, this is something that only came about in the past year or so, mostly as a result of the dumbass shenanigans that happen at Massage Envy, but it is quickly gaining traction. Today it is at least theoretically possible that someone could lose their credentials in California, move to another state, go through the licensing process there and completely evade detection. Once the new database gains traction that will no longer be possible since there is a national database in addition to the state database.
Is all of this harsh and over the top? Remember that you're a business owner who probably invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in your business, so you have to go to all extremes to protect that. You don't want to risk losing everything because a couple of your employees were giving handjobs under the table and you chose to look the other way.
So laugh all you want. This is all the reality of the industry and how things work. If you still think this is all "hilarious," I have nothing left to tell you that will change your opinion.
Depends on what you mean by small business friendly
[QUOTE=Taws6;5839893]Too bad we don't have a list of cities that are small business friendly.[/QUOTE]If you mean AMP friendly, you don't need a list. We all know where the hot spots are. If there's a lot of MPs there that have been around a long time, you know what the city's attitude about them is.
My city is very small business friendly, but its muni code requires all massage workers to be CAMTC certified. If you're a legit massage place the certification is a given anyway. You're not going to hire anyone who isn't certified so it’s not that big of a deal. Some cities will only require one person on staff to be certified, or one certified person must be on shift at any given time. Cypress and Stanton are like that. Of course it's no surprise that when they get visited for a random inspection there's never any certified therapists to be found. It's all a matter of how lax the city wants to be in its enforcement.
Years ago when I lived in Downey, and long before I ever thought I'd find myself owning a spa, I went on a ride along with a Downey PD officer for a day. He actually pointed out every MP in town to me. There are about 6 of them and they've all been around for 20-30 years. He pointed out the blacked out windows, the neon open sign, all that stuff. He said they know exactly what goes on in there, but as long as they don't become a public nuisance and draw a lot of complaints they generally just let them be. They'd rather have it happening in there where it's contained and relatively harmless than in say the cheap motels in town where there's usually other stuff going on (drugs, street prostitution, armed robberies, and various other criminal activity). There's even an AMP in Downey right across the street from a high school. It's been there for at least 25 years and it doesn't bother anybody. If you weren't a monger you wouldn't even know it existed. Now if used condoms started showing up in the neighborhood that would be a different story.
