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| ISSUE NO. 674 |
| OVER THE PAST FEW WEEKS . . . we've been giving concrete constructive criticism regarding the culture of the application and hiring practices. This insight comes from over a decade of linking people looking for meaningful food work with the (often small) food and beverage businesses that need their labor to survive and thrive. It's our job to take these practical examples that people share with us (alongside our own experiences) and the narrative that they weave, reimagine better ways these processes can benefit all, and share those examples so they are easier to implement and practice. That is how culture changes: little by little, until the tide has turned. But today we want to take one step back from the nitty gritty of ideas and implementation, and highlight a theme we see coming up again and again. This theme shows up in our analysis of application and hiring - but also in job posts, in the cadence of everyday workplaces, in our personal lives, and in intense conflicts, near and far. The theme is: disposability. My family often tells a story about my maternal grandmother. That circa the 1980's, she was taking her television - likely 20 years old at that point - into the repair shop. It would cost her more to fix the old television than to buy a new one. They thought it was so backwards that she would choose to repair something that seemed obsolete. But this ethos extended far beyond that one example. As someone who grew up during WWII, we could see the ways that she took such great care of everything around her. It was partially due to her limited household income for so many decades - constraints breed creativity - but also partially due to a thrift that ultimately honored things that were well made, and showed care to maintain them. In essence, she does not see anything as disposable - something I know because I am the grateful recipient of a great many things that she no longer needs, but can't stand to dispose of. This is a sentiment honored by indigenous cultures around the world, who live in reciprocity with the land and all of its offerings. To our generation, this feels harder, largely because the whole system has skewed toward the opposite. Things are made to be disposable, for the express purpose of ensuring that people will keep consuming. And we all get swept up in the cyclone. Today, we're showing up to anchor you down - to take some moments to stop and recognize the ways in which we are conditioned to believe that everything is disposable - whether that is employees / employers, romantic relationships, friendships, clothing, the land, or people who are labeled as 'other'. The truth is that maintaining anything takes a lot of work in the form of knowledge, patience, listening, observation, and practice. We've been conditioned to believe that this work is not valuable because, more often than not, it slows down the need to spend money. But we can take back the definition of richness. For us, success will be when the status quo represents practices rooted in support, care, and repair. To that end, we have an announcement: for the first time in 14 years, GFJ is raising its job posting prices. As of January 1, 2024, an individual job post will cost $75, and our job packages will increase accordingly. We introduced the Pay What You Can option during the pandemic, and it's been an important part of our ability to serve as many people as possible. It has also shifted our business toward reciprocity in the sense that those who can afford to pay the full rate will offset the price for those who can't. But we have also absorbed that cost over the last few years of introducing it, and we are seeking balance so we can continue to bring improvements, and re-invest in our community (hiring writers and photographers, and sharing profits with organizations who do the necessary work that we can't do.) If you are inclined to take advantage of current rates and snatch up some job packages, we will honor them throughout the whole of 2024. Thanks for sticking with us, and please reach out if you have any questions. We'll leave you with reflections on 2023 from A Growing Culture: "As dark as it seems in this struggle, each of us carries light in the form of dreams, beliefs, and reasons to fight back." Tay + Dor photo by Christine Han for GFJ Stories |
tidbits...resources on anti-racism, environmentalism and food culture AKA stuff we're reading / listening to / watching / noticing / thinking about / captivated by this Tuesday . . . |
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