Dinner and Deception – Serving meals to the super-rich left me feeling empty
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Re: Dinner and Deception – Serving meals to the super-rich left me feeling empty
#2Fun dialogue between Pete Wells (former Editor of NY Times Dining) and Helen Rosner (features editor for Eater):
Re: Dinner and Deception – Serving meals to the super-rich left me feeling empty
#3It's interesting how much it really is a problem of alienation, not of the work itself.
Stage magicians who obsessively practice the same motion over and over own their work, own their output, and feel empowered by the hard work and the success it brings.
Waiters who do the same thing because a larger machine they do not identify with dictates it feel disconnected.
The work itself is a distraction from the real problem, which is that the employee does not believe that what they are doing is important or valuable and that they don't feel ownership over their own actions.
Re: Dinner and Deception – Serving meals to the super-rich left me feeling empty
#4The ending reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from Brazil:
Re: Dinner and Deception – Serving meals to the super-rich left me feeling empty
#5I love the commenters describing it as being like a scene from Bonfire of the Vanities or serving Egyptian pharaohs. Speaking from experience, there are plenty of poor people that are at least as aloof, entitled and rude to service staff as rich people, often times even worse. And corporate restaurants/stores mimic the same patterns as shown here, you just get paid less and treated worse.
Re: Dinner and Deception – Serving meals to the super-rich left me feeling empty
#6It's interesting how much it really is a problem of alienation, not of the work itself. Stage magicians who obsessively practice the same motion over and over own their work, own their output, and feel empowered by the hard work and the success it brings. Waiters who do the same thing because a larger machine they do not identify with dictates it feel disconnected. The work itself is a distraction from the real probl…
In high-school I worked in a restaurant. Not high-end, but decent enough that some customers expected a lot. Most customers were respectable human beings, but there were a few sad and pathetic misanthropes who acted as though paying money gave them absolute power over you. Those customers were enough to make the job feel a bit like prostitution. At a high end restaurant I'd imagine this effect is intensified, both by the amount of dollars changing hands and the discipline of the staff.
It's a shame that it would never work in today's world, but the ancient Roman holiday of Saturnalia is something direly needed today. If the ultra-rich spent one day a year in service to wage-slaves who normally serve them, it might make the rest of the year feel a little less empty for people like the author of this article.
Re: Dinner and Deception – Serving meals to the super-rich left me feeling empty
#7From the comments section:
This article is absurd in that this type of work is neither as good or as bad as anything remotely described here. Being a waiter, myself for 24 years including 3 star Michelin (NYC), was a practical, enjoyable professional job in which I dealt with the public. Guests were almost always friendly people looking to have an enjoyable time. This type of writing is bombastic and provocative but lacks any true substance. Every industry deals with the cult of personality. I'm sorry to say it but there's nothing to see here. It's just not that big a deal. - Chad Murdock
I have to agree...there are a couple of anecdotes of "inflammatory 1% behavior" and the overall style of the writing was nice, it just seems like the author is making a big deal out of basically nothing so that the NYTimes can stoke the anti-1% flames and generate more views.
Re: Dinner and Deception – Serving meals to the super-rich left me feeling empty
#8I love the commenters describing it as being like a scene from Bonfire of the Vanities or serving Egyptian pharaohs. Speaking from experience, there are plenty of poor people that are at least as aloof, entitled and rude to service staff as rich people, often times even worse. And corporate restaurants/stores mimic the same patterns as shown here, you just get paid less and treated worse.
> Speaking from experience, there are plenty of poor people that are at least as aloof, entitled and rude to service staff as rich people, often times even worse.
Yup. One of my brothers was a waiter for many years in a town where it was easy to tell the lower classes from the upper; it wasn't just common for him to receive no or little tip when he waited on members of the lower classes, it was the rule. In years, I don't believe he could count on one hand the number of times he received more than a dollar (on tabs of tens or hundreds) or a piece of mucus smeared on the receipt (yes, you read that right).
People are people, and many people are jerks. Money or lack of money just gives them different outlets to be jerks.
Re: Dinner and Deception – Serving meals to the super-rich left me feeling empty
#9It's interesting how much it really is a problem of alienation, not of the work itself. Stage magicians who obsessively practice the same motion over and over own their work, own their output, and feel empowered by the hard work and the success it brings. Waiters who do the same thing because a larger machine they do not identify with dictates it feel disconnected. The work itself is a distraction from the real probl…
In high-school I worked in a restaurant. Not high-end, but decent enough that some customers expected a lot. Most customers were respectable human beings, but there were a few sad and pathetic misanthropes who acted as though paying money gave them absolute power over you. Those customers were enough to make the job feel a bit like prostitution. At a high end restaurant I'd imagine this effect is intensified, both by…
You "imagine" the effect is intensified but you don't actually have any evidence to support it. I've also worked at a restaurant as a waiter. Despite it being a very low end buffet where the food was cheap and wages low I identify completely with the article (except nobody had a stroke while I was working). The only real difference was that the author and his co-workers were much better at their jobs than me and my own co-workers.
Wealth is a big red herring in this story, but I guess its a story no one would be interested in without.
Re: Dinner and Deception – Serving meals to the super-rich left me feeling empty
#10The article doesn't name the restaurant, but the author's LinkedIn profile says he worked at Eleven Madison Park. This makes some of the details seem more believable. Felix Salmon: "they’re IN THE CREDIT SUISSE building ferchrissakes of COURSE there were douchebankers at the bar"