A Message From Your Friendly Neighborhood Waitress

Here's a message from your friendly neighborhood waitress.
But before I go on, check out that link. We've been talking about this book at work this week because all the company head honchos are going to be in San Antonio soon for a book signing and so we're suddenly on this stupid cleaning kick on the off chance that they'll actually stop by our restaurant. I haven't read this book and I'm not going to, because I can tell just by hearing about it that I would HATE it. An alternate title for the book could be "Everything Ashley Hates About America Right Now."
Here's a quote about the book from the page, if you're feeling too lazy to click the link:
In a unified, third-person voice, the three [authors] declare their intention to "help twenty-first-century American leaders think anew about the people they serve—a people that, despite an increasingly multiracial society, "seem to be seeking more homogeneity in their lifestyle choices." Since the 1990s, they argue, the key to winning the hearts, dollars and votes of the American public and its leaders is appealing to "the three C's, connections, community, and civic engagement." Drawing on interviews with the middle class "exurb" residents who eat at Applebee's restaurants, as well as their own inside knowledge, the authors declare that the pattern holds across the greater part of the American spectrum. Though their narrow interview sample is a weakness, they draw conclusions about the political arena, where lifelong Democrats voted for Bush in 2004 on "gut instinct"; the business world, where customers at the more than 1,700 Applebee's restaurants deem it "a second home"; and in megachurches, which fulfill Americans "need for belonging and purpose in a new century."

I don't know why I'm so worked up about this, but if I can't rant about it here then where can I? Agree, disagree, whatever. But here are the problems I have with just that single paragraph:

1) Actually, before we even get into the paragraph, let me just say that I have major, major problems with the idea of the Applebee's corporation as a good role model, or ANY part of "corporate America" as a good role model, really. As the daughter of a "Mom and Pop" restaurant owner I obviously have something personal at stake here, and the fact that I want my father and everyone else like him to be able to continue to be successful has a lot to do with my general disdain for chain restaurants. I'm not going to try to pretend I'm not a hypocrite. After all, I eat at Chili's and the like just as often as anyone else. I'm also not saying that there aren't some damn good chains out there, because there are. (P.F. Changs, anyone?) And some megacorporations are obviously better than others, and who's to say that Applebee's isn't in fact one of the better ones? I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that in terms of fair treatment, a caring and concerned work environment, and so forth, a small, non-corporate workplace is going to be better than a giant corporation 9 out of 10 times. It does get complicated. My parents, as much as they care about their employees, can't possibly provide benefits to everyone simply because they're not a huge, multi-million dollar corporation. So there are disadvantages, sure. Obviously there are way too many factors for me to possibly break it all down here. All I will say is that if I dropped dead tomorrow I'm pretty sure that the Applebees corporation wouldn't give a damn, and probably wouldn't even notice. So no, I don't think this is a model to emulate or admire. That whole "Howdy neighbor!" feel is nothing but a facade, and the fact that there's an entire book glorifying that facade is very depressing to me.

2) "a people that, despite an increasingly multiracial society, "seem to be seeking more homogeneity in their lifestyle choices." I think this is pure crap. It's a chicken-or-the-egg thing. Are we as a nation really wanting everything to become homogenous across all cultural groups and seeking out generic places? Or are we being forced into a homogeneity of lifestyle choices because Applebees/Starbucks/Walmart/Barnes and Noble/pick your corporation of choice are monopolizing the market and forcing any other options out of business? There's something to be said about convenience, and there's a lot to be said for cheap prices. I get that. But you can't convince me that we're really such sheep. I want things to be different. I don't want San Antonio and Boston and Seattle and New Orleans to be completely generic and interchangable, and you can't make me believe that anyone else in their right mind wants that, either.

3) "Drawing on interviews with the middle class "exurb" residents who eat at Applebee's restaurants, as well as their own inside knowledge, the authors declare that the pattern holds across the greater part of the American spectrum." Fine. Fine, I'll admit it. I will admit that the customers that frequent Applebees for microwaved steak dinners are probably a pretty good sample of your average middle class American. But that fact is fucking depressing as hell. Because if that's true then the majority of Americans are a) kind of stupid, b) boring, c) lacking in some very basic social skills [when the fuck will this country learn how to tip?!], d) close-minded, and e) sadly deprived of cultural experiences [I get that a variety of"cultural experiences" as I mean it in this sense-and really, that's a poor way of expressing what I mean-are directly proportional to how much money a person has. I've had that thrown in my face many times: "Don't be so judgmental, not everyone grows up with the money to have the experiences you had." And I get that. I get how lucky I am, BELIEVE ME. I honestly do say thank you to God/gods every night that I was born me and not somebody else. I've been very lucky so far. But the fact that a lack of money keeps otherwise intelligent people trapped in a tiny, close-minded world is a fact that I hate and would love to change in an ideal society. Every single person should be given many, many opportunities to read great books, and have theatre experiences, and travel outside of the town they were born in to both better and worse places, and see thought-provoking films, and eat tuna that didn't come out of a can, and meet people of different races and sexual preferences, and all of these things should happen more than once or twice in an entire 13-year education. I could go on and on about this for days, and if I ever somehow magically have major money in my life I promise right now that I'll be spending very large amounts of it on making sure that as many people as possible get all of those opportunities and more. I'd love to fund study-abroad scholarships, for one thing.]

4) "Though their narrow interview sample is a weakness" So the entire damn book is based on poor research practices. That's the most important sentence in the entire paragraph and the fact that pretty much everyone will ignore. There are many, many, many Americans that don't fit the Applebee's demographic. And yet there's a certain element at work in our society right now that's out to make all of us that don't fit that demographic feel subversive, and un-American. And there's something very wrong with that.

5) "lifelong Democrats voted for Bush in 2004 on "gut instinct" Well, whoop-de-do. I'd venture to say most Americans vote on "gut instinct". And that's not a good thing. We vote on "gut instinct" because we don't bother to learn enough details about the candidates and the platforms to truly make an informed decision, so all we're left with is that gut instinct. That, or we dislike all the candidates so much that we just have to trust our gut instinct to choose the lesser of two evils even though we don't agree with the majority of either platform (admittedly, that's how I made my choice in the last presidential election: who do I hate less?). This is assuming that we bother to vote at all, of course, and most of us don't.

6) "and in megachurches, which fulfill Americans "need for belonging and purpose in a new century." In my mind, megachurches represent everything that is wrong in the world today. There is nothing uplifting about a church with 10,000 members and a pastor that needs a microphone and a rock band and a lighting designer to get his message across. I believe religion should be a deeply personal thing, and how can anyone get personal attention in an environment like that? I realize I'm sort of biased about this because my general feeling on organized religion is "eh". I was raised Lutheran, but nowadays my feelings about organized religion are very complex. My parents claim that everybody goes through this and I'll come back to the church when I'm older, and who knows, maybe they're right. But as of right now I haven't been to church in probably three years, and I don't feel like I'm missing much. There are certain things I really like about church. I like it as a place to build a sense of unique community. Singles groups, groups for people with specific issues, youth groups, community service groups, I can get behind all of that. I wish there were more non-religious groups like that, actually. I also like church purely as a place for gathering knowledge. Whether I ultimately choose to have faith in what I learned from the Bible or not, I am still glad I had all that Bible study as a kid just to understand all the references you come across in everyday life. This is still very much a predominantly Christian society and anyone that doesn't know at least the basics is at a disadvantage. But the older I get, the more I just can't support many of the church teachings. I'm just going to come right out and say it: I don't see how any intelligent person couldn't at least question the whole Jesus thing. To me, blind faith is an act of stupidity, not something to be admired. I'm not an atheist. I definitely believe there is some sort of higher power and that there is some ultimate purpose in life. And I desperately want to believe that there is some sort of afterlife, if only because I want to know that when I lose someone in this life it's not really, truly the last time I'll ever be with them in some way. But I guess these days I'm sort of agnostic more than anything else, because I absolutely believe that there's some sort of higher power but I don't think I have the ability to understand it and figure it out. And I don't think anybody else does either. I need to see the logic in something to have faith in it, and there's very little logic in Christianity or any religion, for that matter. Some days I think I'm on the verge of a sense of spirituality and religion that works for me. A couple of years ago my friend Meg and I got sort of jokingly got obsessed with pagan holidays for a while, but then I started actually doing more research and I hate that there's such a stigma attached to that and that so many pagans seem to be those sort of witch wannabes in t-shirts with wolves silk-screened on them (Kymberli will get that reference, even if no one else does) because, honestly? And I can't believe I'm admitting this...but a lot of pagan beliefs click with me more than anything else. If I have to have faith in something to survive in this world, trying to believe in females as higher beings or at least equal to men and a sense of energy flowing throughout the world (which actually IS logical to me) and teachings that accept sex and birth and death all as natural parts of life that shouldn't be secretive or shameful, and that accept all types of people even if they don't believe the same thing, well...I can try to find faith in that much more easily than I can try to find faith in a man who walked the earth two thousand years ago claiming to be the son of God and a religion that--if the crazy conservatives are to be believed--says that women should be subservient to men, that some of the most loving, amazing, wonderful, good-hearted people I know are evil and will burn in hell just because they happen to fall in love with people of the same sex, that sex in general is wrong, and that if you don't believe exactly what the group believes, well, you're fucked.
I just can't get behind the idea of being a disciple to others. Everyone should have the right to believe what they want to believe. How does my not having faith in Jesus Christ possibly have any affect on those that do? I'll just stay over here doing my thing, and you can stay over there doing your thing and praying for my soul or whatever. Just don't pray to my face and try to force me over to your side, and we'll all be happy.
I believe in the golden rule. I believe that we should all treat others as we want to be treated. And I believe that a) that fundamental rule can be taught without any sort of Christian overtones and b) the majority of super-Conservative Christians don't seem to understand that fundamental rule.
At any rate, megachurches scare me. It's just one more way that Americans are being sheep. It's very cult-like, and the whole phenomenon frightens me.
And incidentally, I think there are a lot more people out there in the world that feel like me than there are religious fanatics. So why does it seem like the fanatics have such an advantage right now?

Ugh. Anyway, I have a feeling I just rambled and that made no sense at all whatsoever. But thinking about that book really knots me up inside, so I had to get that out. And that's about as religious or political as this thing will probably ever get, incidentally. I'm not a great debater and while I think I have more compelling arguments than, say, "because God says so," I still shy away from talking about topics like this because I think there are plenty of people out there who could make my exact same points in a much more logical and profound way than I ever could. So yeah.

And now that the introduction has become THE WHOLE ENTIRE ENTRY, let me just wrap up with what I was going to say originally:
When you're out with your group of friends at a restaurant, and you're a young college student (probably just out of high school) and you think you're being really cute and amusing as it takes you all ten minutes to debate about what you want to eat and you're all talking really loudly and laughing extremely loudly and then you somehow manage to knock over not one, not two, but THREE glasses of water in a two minute period and you have to shriek and leap over to the next table and one of you has to literally fall on the floor laughing and everyone in the entire restaurant is staring at you? Contrary to what you may believe, those looks are not saying, "Ah, the exuberance of youth. How I wish I was carefree and in college again and spending a Friday afternoon laughing with my friends!" They're saying, "Quit making a fucking scene and shut up so I can eat my meal and enjoy the company of my table instead of having to listen to every word you scream across the restaurant."
Keep that in mind in the future.
And yes, I'm being a total hypocrite for the second time in this entry because I admit that I've been part of that scene-making table before, more times than I actually care to admit. But having experienced it from the other side, I'm really, really going to try to not let it happen again.