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.
Hi Lia,
ReplyDeleteOh wow, my service-worker past-self was nodding so hard to this post! Your connection between educational and restaurant/service spaces is provocative and apt. I find myself thinking about how, just as the implications of hierarchy doesn't end at the delineation of server and guest (e.g., restaurant owner to kitchen manager to line cooks to dishwashers, etc.), so, too, institutional structures of status exist at multiple levels in the university setting and draw the boundaries many of us have to work with/in as we conduct and participate in the classroom. How do we - as grad students and those who are TAs - abide and enforce administrative directives (from the provost to our instructors and/or supervisors) and maintain personal integrity as we work to cultivate vulnerable, transformative learning spaces? Dannels gestures toward how “imagining new possibilities and narratives about who you are as a teacher” - I suppose such critical reflection is particularly appropriate (p. 213). It also strikes me that problem-posing as modeled by Freire is an imperative practice that works to empower others and invites an awareness of how all the structures fit together. Maybe this is how we begin to "retool" the norms.
In sum, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on #rethinkingstatus in the cafe and classroom! In truth, within the context of COVID-19, both make me want take a break and scream in a walk-in freezer (then a slap a smile back on and continue doing the work). :)
-Leah
Hi Lia,
ReplyDeleteYour opening about the service industry truly made me smile as a previous service worker myself. I enjoyed your choice of words with the term disposable. One lesson that I learned growing up includes that everyone is unique. Additionally, everyone is also replaceable. Work to develop a strong work ethic, and love what you do, and it won't feel like work anymore.
Reading the story about Mission Chinese truly stuck an unsettling feeling in my mind on how people can be so cruel.
I agree that status draws towards how people act in different positions. I see your connection on how do we engage in different contexts, according to hooks. Learning how to merge between both settings breaks from the previous norms of education simply on the discipline within hegemonic viewpoints.
Talking about the problems takes one step closer to ending the problem, so thank you for sharing this piece. Steps to learning how to break the system with kindness together, my friend. One step at a time. We shall try.
Hi Lia!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences. Your post very much highlights how, regardless of location and due to the inherently social nature of interactions, experiences are (mis)educational. I think that capitalism perpetuates the myth that working class folx are literal servants to the economic elite. It's shitty how these values get instilled across class lines and lead to false class consciousness.
Your observations about merging the public and private spheres very much reminds me of Audre Lorde's call that, due to private nature of violence, we should strive to make relationships public. Restaurants, as you observed, can be one of those spaces where that's more easily embodied. Building from this, Angela Santomero theorizes about the necessity of radical kindness: “Radical kindness means rooting all you say and do in kindness, being unconditionally kind all the time, to everyone. It means going beyond situational niceness or merely “doing the right thing” and, instead, living from a place of compassion.”
I think that if people were to adopt of radical kindness during our interactions, maybe can start changing the world--one meal at a time