Wednesday’s NY Times article “Twilight of the Imperial Chef” reports on cracks in the restaurant business’s “militaristic brigade system” and demanding star chef narrative. There is increasing pressure from within to be less tolerant of erratic, autocratic and abusive (sexual and otherwise) behavior of fickle, eruptive and self-serving white male chefs, under the creative genius excuse. Instead, it’s being increasingly acknowledged in an inclusive way that all restaurant staff, front and back house, chefs and helpers, are instrumental in getting a good meal on the table and creating a memorable customer experience.
In 2015 Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group initiated a shift to fairer wages and offering benefits in the restaurant industry, with higher menu items and no required tipping, a big change for an industry where tipping transferred part of the waiters’ compensation from employer to customer. It’s not been a unanimously adopted and totally successful model, but then such fundamental changes take time to be adopted widely.
The MeToo movement has finally exposed the previously condoned, pervasive, sexually motivated, and demeaning treatment of women by men in positions of power – inequality in favor of some and at the expense of others. The Black Lives Matter movement away from racism is finally being acknowledged by its culprits, the whites who enslaved colored people, and former colonizers – a movement away from inequality in favor of a few at the expense of many others. The pandemic has brought forth a greater interest in universal healthcare – a movement away from an unequal healthcare system that favors some at the expense of others. The same can be said for many other emerging movements, whether education, environmental, or social related. Notice what else is popping up once you pay attention to this new pattern.
All these patches of a new cultural quilt we are currently weaving together, are more We oriented and inclusive than the cultural narrative we seem to be exiting. These movements regard your rights, as just as essential as my rights in an effort towards equality instead of wellbeing for some at the expense of others. This is a huge shift away from the conservative Me-centered attitude with little regard for You, and we see the collision of both playing out politically on a grand scale right in front of our eyes and ears in real time. Collectively, many seem to be waking up to the realization that it’s not ok if some are privileged at the expense of others, and we begin to understand that we can only truly feel good in our own skin if all people are taken care of equally. It is very difficult for emotionally mature people to see others suffer. The emerging millennial values of transparency, authenticity, cooperation, meaning and value based living, and sustainability, espoused most noticeably by the 25-40 population segment, is who brings forth this new way of thinking because they live it. Are you seeing it?