They Write About Working When They Don’t Do the Work
December 4th, 2009
This article — I didn’t write it, Hayley Gorenberg did — from the new issue of my food coop’s newsletter is too good to let it languish in the PDF archives so I’m putting it up to be linked to. The referenced NYT article is so dumb, and not the first of its kind. I love my coop.
By Hayley Gorenberg
The work requirement at the Park Slope Food Coop seems to have provided as much work for writers as it has for those who stock our shelves over the years.
A lavish late October spread in the New York Times, complete with multiple color illustrations, was just the latest media foray by a one time (or “none time”) Coop member railing against the work requirement.
Call this article meta-writing, writing about writing—and the reaction to writing.
The Times tract, by Alana Joblin Ain, opened this way: “I bounded off the Q train in Brooklyn one night last winter and headed to Union Street, past the yogurt shop and the firehouse, to do some grocery shopping. But my plans soon went awry.
‘You’re suspended,’ the entrance worker at the Park Slope Food Coop announced as I swiped my membership card. Some entrance workers speak softly, but not this one.
“Worse, there were a dozen other shoppers within earshot.
“Flushed, defeated and taken aback—I knew I owed the Coop some work, but I didn’t know I had been blacklisted—I slunk around the corner for a takeout burrito. But no amount of mushrooms and spinach could diminish my shame and guilt.”
Such reactions to the Coop’s work requirement, a great equalizer and virtually unique among food cooperatives nationwide, are the focal point of most Coop-critical writing. Certainly, the New York Times article touched a nerve with some Coop members.
The Gazette’s Erik Lewis submitted his own letter to the editor to the Times, in which he commented, “ ‘Flunking Out at the Food Co-op’ is a disingenuous screed perhaps more aptly titled ‘Self-Involved Disgruntled Employee Tells All.’ The 15,000 cooperators (members of the Park Slope Food Coop) who somehow find the moral and physical stamina to fit the Coop’s work requirements into their own busy schedules are hardly to be swept aside by the assertions of a shirker individual and some of her shirker friends.”
Several members responded online to the Times article with their own thoughts about the work requirement:
Wrote one, “The Coop represents a unique business— and social—innovation—one that ought to be studied, one that provides lessons for other organizations and businesses…. retail organizations and businesses in general have more to learn from the Coop’s business practices (a.k.a. ‘rules’)—such as how to incentivize people and harness human capital—than to hear about how an individual could not keep up with her 2.75 hours per month work commitment. This, in my view, would represent an article worthy of the New York Times, versus one’s sense of entitlement to benefits, which, frankly, require work. The Coop provides an unambiguous value proposition. One can’t just buy into it; the Coop’s value proposition requires one’s time.”
Commenter “TJHillgardner” wrote philosophically: “Working at a food co-op is a classic social compact. It IS fundamental to the entire purpose and the sense of community. The shame and the guilt should not be used as an indictment of the Coop. Sometimes shame and guilt are rightly felt. In line with ‘don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time,’ I guess we now have ‘don’t buy the broccoli if you can’t do the time.’ ”
And “Bridget” added her two cents: “As a newish member (Aug 2008) and a decidedly non-crunchy cynic when I joined, I am now firmly in the camp that says we shouldn’t be more mellow. I have definitely been on work alert and close to suspension a few times. I can grouse with the best of them and have had my fair share of run-ins with cranks and quirks and organic evangelicals. BUT, I love that everyone has the same rules, the same benefits…. And my kids and I eat so well for so cheap. This place is unlike anything else and wow, that is hard to find these days. It only works because of the rigid rules and we just aren’t used to really having rules anymore. It’s not complicated. Just work 2.5 hours every 4 weeks.”
In addition to the recent New York Times feature, the Coop has appeared in an array of New York-centric magazines, journals in Scotland, Scandinavia, and Japan, and in hundreds of entries in the online eatery guide “Yelp,” where Karen F. from Philadelphia (did she really have to flee that far to duck the work requirement?) commented earlier this year, “I could not live up to the work requirement so now I buy stuff at the higher prices along with everybody else…. Oh and I too, think that riot would ensue if you came in wearing a Palin T-Shirt.”
“It’s so interesting that [publications] are interested in people who fail to be good members as opposed to the thousands and thousands of members who are successful and quite successful for long periods of time,” said General Coordinator Joe Holtz. “Why aren’t they more interested in the fact that we’re having to thwart the growth of our membership through [limiting] the size of our orientations despite these alleged horrors? Why aren’t they interested in that? What has made this organization grow to over 15,000 people? I think that’s interesting! Do they think that’s interesting? No. They just want to talk about people who can’t keep up with the work.”
Holtz, who noted that his response is routinely solicited—though not fully quoted—in articles about the Coop, quickly warmed to the topic (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he became a bit heated): “They don’t ask the good questions, the smart questions. Instead they do articles about people who couldn’t keep up and resent it or feel guilty about it. And that’s baloney.”
“We think letting members come in and make the choice whether to work or not is detrimental to our strength. But they don’t want to hear about that,” he said. “What they should be asking is, ‘Why do you think this makes you strong?’ ‘Why do you think it would be detrimental to let people pay not to work?’ I’ve got plenty of answers to those questions, if they have the time or inclination to ask them, but they don’t ask them.”
Some writers don’t ask questions, and simply express themselves independently, as they do on the Yelp! blog.
“Let me start this off by saying I am quitting the Coop,” said Priya P. “I missed 2 shifts = 4 makeup shifts (11 hours). No way. I thought I could do it and 2.75 hours a month doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is.
“Yet I am still giving the Coop 4 stars because of the high quality food it offers. I am a huge foodie, so I love browsing through the aisles, looking at all the interesting items they have. They have dried goji berries, carob covered raisins, algae pills, organic beauty products, Indian spices—you name it, they’ve got it.”
A few months later, Yelp! poster Di L. weighed in to critique the writing and writers on the blog itself: “It looks like a lot of people complain about the Coop in their review but half of them aren’t even members. If they were members, they were members for about 3 seconds. Lame. Stop writing reviews.
“I don’t think their rules are outlandish. I work crazy hours in non-profit. AND I work at a bike shop on the weekend. I still manage to work my shifts with very little effort. Seriously, I waste 3 hours in front of my computer on a daily basis. Surely 3 entire hours a month at the Coop can’t be that hard to manage.”
We Are Indeed Different
A member-owned cooperative is different from a store that allows anyone to shop, or even from a cooperative with a “tiered” membership that allows some to join and work and others to pay a premium for the privilege of not working.
And to make a work-centered arrangement function, some penalties for failing to work come into play, or, as Holtz put it, “We have to have a few rules to protect the thousands and thousands of people who do work so they don’t feel like idiots.
“We don’t have a customer,” he continued. “If we had customers I probably wouldn’t work here. I wouldn’t be that interested. There’s nothing wrong with having customers; plenty of wonderful people have them. We just don’t. Why aren’t they writing about that? It’s like they’d rather sit back and not really learn. I don’t get it!”
Of the New York Times writer, who he said interviewed him several times over the course of two months, he reflected, “She seemed like a perfectly nice woman.”
He noted that she took many of his comments out of context and that his cooperation extended only so far; he did not follow up with her after the fact. “She doesn’t want to hear from me afterwards. No one ever does. It’s not going to happen.”
No More Mr. Nice Guy?
Yet Holtz continues to respond to the requests for interviews. “My basic policy is that I’m going to cooperate. If they want to do an article about us, they’re going to do an article on us, whether I cooperate or not,” he predicted. In the wake of negative articles and misquotes, he indulged in a bit of fantasized conversation with the next imagined wanna-be interviewer who might call him: “Are you a writer? Oh, my new policy is to hang up on you!” He quickly explained why he had not chosen that approach: “I could say, ‘It hasn’t worked out, so I’m not going to talk to you.’ But I don’t think that’s in the best interest of the Coop—antagonizing the press,” he concluded philosophically. “One of the cooperative principles is to educate the world on the nature of cooperation. I’m not going to be hostile.”
He believes that even articles critiquing the work requirement ultimately drive membership numbers higher and pointed out that the New York Times piece had remarked that the bathroom floors at the Coop are clean enough to eat from. “I was so proud of our Maintenance Committee, proud of our members who use the bathrooms, who take care of the bathrooms. I was just proud!”
“Someone from a coop in a different state emailed, ‘What effect will [the New York Times article] have?’ I wrote back, ‘The effect is…creating a bigger pool of people who might someday join the Coop.’ This kind of attention where the person is whining about not being able to keep up with the work, has to take the train and still wants to come…. If I was reading between the lines, I would think, ‘Who goes grocery shopping by train in New York City?’ A thinking person, reading that, is going to say, ‘Maybe I should check it out someday!’ I think the effect is to make the Coop more known among people who might join as well as more known among people who would never join.”
And why so many written analogies to Stalinesque state rule? “Americans expect choice, and here we’re blocking choice,” said Holtz. “It’s insulting to some people, but we’re making decisions based on what we think is best for the longevity of the Food Coop. We have the nerve to tell you to bring your own plastic bags. We have the nerve to tell you, ‘If you want to buy bottled water, go somewhere else!’ We’ve got a lot of nerve. And I think the members should be proud of that.” ■
