I’m sorry to hear that.
My daughter in law did med school and residency at Stanford around 2009-2017 and I never heard those stories. I have a feeling that behavior like that was waning especially with more women in medical school.
Yes, I think the culture changed a lot. For the good…it’s apparent in the younger doctors today, including the men! My husband’s experience was decades ago.
its a physical blue collar business with a lot of dangerous equipment around too - but having been in white collar places my whole career there is plenty of bullying, obnoxiousness, unfairness and verbal abuse that I imagine is at least as bad. And this can happen in non-top down structures as well. There is plenty of bad behavior in any human organization. Id rather be bullied by a boss than by a whole crew in a communal situation, there is always going to be a goat
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I absolutely agree with the point that people are making repeatedly that anywhere humans are grouped that bad behavior is likely to occur. Of course it happens in white collar offices and high brow elite establishments. One difference in restaurant culture that is worth noting-- even in michelin starred kitchens-- is that restaurant jobs are often last resort employment; they have historically been one of the few places where violent ex cons, addicts and rejects have all been able to find work together. It really isn’t like other places. It isn’t the only place like that, but having worked in both billion dollar companies, ultra high volume catering (15,000+ meals a day), and restaurants large and small, the cultures are truly incomparable.
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One hopes that life and work continues to get better and fairer as we acknowledge and try to change injustice and cruelty as a country and a people. I’m hoping that the stories about terrible working conditions in restaurants will move the needle forward. Like many things it feels like 10 steps forward 5 steps back but I know that we have progressed slowly but surely in the last 50-60 years for women and poc.
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I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the USA is one of the only western countries w/o a reasonable social safety net, thus employers are having to cover health care, unemployment insurance contributions, etc.
But that would imply that there are even higher costs for non-US hospitality businesses to stay afloat.
Youre assuming that employers are making any contribution to healthcare at all…
We went to Mashama Baileys place in Savannah last year. Everything is a tasting menu. Party of two. 4.5 hrs elapsed between entry and exit. We were so annoyed. It felt like a 45 min wait between each course. Pricey too.
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Haha hubs and I as naive 20s had a set meal in Kyoto and the waitstaff scurried by us all the time unless they were setting or clearing. They didn’t check in, avoided all eye contact, and there was a language barrier. Us too. We didn’t want to be obnoxious but couldn’t get our bill to pay and leave for at least 30 min after we finished. I don’t remember what we actually did to ask for the check but we both felt it was over the top on our part. And yet we could not get their attention. Major culture gap.
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