I've been thinking a lot about waiting tables this week. I'm glad that I don't do that anymore, because we're in the midst of a pandemic and because for several of the past few days I have hardly wanted to get out of bed, nevermind to go smile at people and sell them pasta. I also don't miss the utter disdain that people have for folks in the service industry. The servers, bussers, hostess, and kitchen staff that diners interact with are often seen as mere objects - either a hindrance or a conduit to them getting what they want. Restaurant ownership often treats you a similar way, as if you are disposable. If there are moments of appreciation they are short lived, and generally predicated on nightly sales.
I'm not the first person to remark on these dynamics, and I certainly won't be the last. If you're looking for more food industry toxicity, the recent and horrifying story about Mission Chinese will be right up your alley. Reading this piece brought me so viscerally back into kitchens and dining rooms of my past, even though I can fortunately say that I was never in quite so caustic of an environment. I'm sure that it did for many others too.
The thing about restaurants is that they provide a direct linkage between public and private, making your screaming toddler a visible occurrence for your fellow diners, and offering you solace in the form of a meal when you're feeling down (or hungover). I think that this is a phenomenally positive thing, because these communal spaces, and the spaces where our lines are blurred allow us simultaneous exposure to difference, and opportunity to escape our own tiny reality. They are both intimate and public, in a delightful sort of way. I think other people feel similarly - in general, people seem to like going to restaurants. If they didn't, I don't think they'd still be around.
So why can't people seem to put these two parts of their brains together? If I like restaurants, why am I seemingly incapable of being kind to my server? How can I so easily dismiss them as a person not worthy of my kindness or respect? The question again comes down to a complex relationship of status and the associated perception of that status. These status orientations are constantly in flux, and they determine what we deem to be appropriate behavior. They also point to a serious issue: culturally, there seems to be an assumption that if there is a certain type of status gap (i.e. I am your server, you are my customer), then the person with the higher degree of status is not required to act with common decency.
I'm thinking about all of this because of the Mission article, because my brain is a dumpster fire right now, and because I sincerely miss eating too-spicy-for-me red curry and drinking slightly too much white wine. It does relate though, I promise. In the context of our conversation about re-imagining educational spaces a la hooks, I was left thinking primarily about the "how." How do we design those spaces so that students and teachers alike can engage with one another in meaningful, vulnerable, and productive ways? How do we change our norms of discussion and understanding so that they don't only center hegemonic viewpoints and - moreover - that the very idea that centering non-hegemonic viewpoints isn't caustic to so many folks.
To me, the questions about these environments are linked. The way that we engage with one another, the kind of empathy and vulnerability that we have, whether we consider our actions at a later point in time should be part and parcel of both of these environments. Just because you leave the (ideal) classroom does not mean you are exempt from behaving in this way. Retooling these norms and these behaviors takes a great deal of work in all of our environments and social structures. That's a big, big job. Recognizing this, we can either say "welp, that's too big of a task," or we can approach it with a little caution and fear, but also with the mindset that we deserve to live in a world where we treat each other well. I don't know exactly how to do that, but I do have an inkling that it starts with kindness and that it happens piece by piece.
