News Channel
Thursday, December 22, 2005 at 09:58AM by Charlie O'Donnell Link: AFB's Blog Home.
Last week, the NYT published an article where a restaurant owner, Gabrielle Hamilton, interviews a blind man for a cooking position. Now, I don't know if you've ever had any interaction with many blind people, but with the right tools around them, they can accomplish some pretty amazing stuff. At GM Asset Management, there's a Canadian bond trader that is blind. (Can you imagine all those quotes wizzing by on braille! Amazing!)
Anyway, so it seemed like this applicant had some trouble in these surroundings... The article rips the guy apart with stuff like "His eyes wandered around in their sockets like tropical fish in the aquarium of a cheap hotel lobby..."?
I mean... how do people get away with stuff like that? The whole piece is basically making fun of this visually impaired job applicant. How do you run a customer facing business with that kind of attitude? I don't think would stand for an article like that if the owner was making fun of the applicant's race or even if the applicant was in a wheelchair. How would Gabrielle feel if we made fun of a smaller female chef who couldn't carry a heavy item?
The article is here.
Gabrielle's restaurant is called Prune. You know what's really ironic? I checked out some reviews and I found these two:
From Dine.com... "Prune Restaurant & Bar...
opened it's doors to the discriminatingly hip east village crowd
one year ago." Yes... definitely discriminating.
From Gayot.com... "Prune may
not be the most appealing name for a restaurant (it’s for the owner’s
childhood nickname, not the fruit), but once inside any prejudice
disappears." Obviously hasn't been there lately...
If anyone knows Gabrielle Hamilton, I'd say they should urge her to write a public apology.
Reader Comments (8)
If you've been to Prune -- which happens to be a wonderful but small restaurant -- you know the kitchen is tiny and incredibly frenetic. I can't imagine Ms. Hamilton allowing someone almost entirely blind to have a work trial in there for even one shift. He was undoubtedly putting himself and everyone else who works in the kitchen in genuine danger. The possibilities for injury rank right up there with driving on the interstate -- and this guy surely did not have his commercial driver's license. I wouldn't want him driving my kids to school and I wouldn't want him standing over a hot fire next to my sister the cook! It's not a pre-judgement thing, it's a demonstrable-lack-of-capability thing.
I also tend to favor deeds over (much later written-for-the-Times-magazine) words. It was apparent from the article that Ms. Hamilton and the rest of her staff went extraordinarily out of their way to make this guy's experience as safe and positive as it could have been, given that he was not ultimately able to do the job.
Colorful description notwithstanding, what matters is that she more than lived up to what she promised the job applicant and nobody got hurt in the process. To me that is the very essence of not discriminating. FWIW, Prune happens to have a kitchen- and wait-staff made up of people of every conceivable color, shape, size, ethnicity, race, and sexual orientation. Not to mention being considerably less misogynistic than the typical New York restaurant kitchen.
Sorry Charlie, I really think you are wrong on this one.
-Motts
Ms. Hamilton certainly doesn't deserve kudos for her version of interviewing someone who is blind. Being visually impaired does not bar you from kitchens or restaurant jobs. People who are blind make breakfast, lunch and dinner all the time. Trust me, I do it everyday. And believe it or not, there are several successful chefs who have vision loss. Ever heard of Danny Delcambre? (http://www.esightcareers.net/View.cfm?x=506#section_5) He's both deaf and blind... he's also a successful restaurateur.
The sad thing is when I started the article I thought I was going to read a thought-provoking piece about handling disability issues in the workplace. Instead I was treated to an insidious, offensive essay that left me feeling ill.
What I found most egregious about Hamilton's article is her utter lack of sensitivity. She writes about her interviewee as though he is inhuman and openly mocks his disability. There is no excuse for publicly belittling someone with a disability just because they applied for a restaurant job. In my opinion, Hamilton exploited her job applicant and mocked him for her own benefit -- in the New York Times, no less. That's unforgivable.