Being Nice is Underrated: Tekulo Recalls! Episode One
Entry posted by Kaleidoscope Tekulo
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Okay, it looks like that last entry did its job fine. Seventeen upvotes? Pfft, I didn't even know seventeen members visited the blogs. XP (And I don't mean to belittle coming out or anything. It's actually very important. But I might save my opinions on it for another entry at a later time)
Anyway, I thought it would be neat to start using my blog for personal stuff that isn't just ranting. Not gonna lie, I kinda wanted to make that last entry more like the ones that were super personal about my anxiety and stuff, but I think I can do better by better organizing my thoughts and expressing myself through different means.
Anyway!
Thoughts on being nice:
So, back when I was at Culinary School, I was super anxious at just about everything. I was in a new city, I didn't know anyone, I was socially awkward and shy and I hated my life with a burning passion for some reason. I was in the Baking and Patisserie program, and so I woke up around five in the morning or so and had to walk from my apartment complex about five or so blocks to our first class in a hotel building which started at six. That class normally lasted around an hour and then the baking students would walk five or so blocks to our next class which was for our general education to get an associate's degree. Those classes were mixed with Culinary students, who probably woke up at six thirty or so, maybe. They had their Culinary classes at night or in the afternoon. I actually did take a Culinary class too in my first month, which was mandatory.
So, the Culinary Classes and the Baking and Patisserie classes kinda had an unspoken rule about them from what I could tell; Baking students were nice and Culinary students were mean. And that's not the absolute truth of the matter at all. Believe me, not everyone in the Baking program was super nice, and not all of the Culinary students were horribly mean. It was just this unwritten trend brought about by circumstancial evidence. Culinary students were not allowed to bring their food home with them because a while back a Culinary student threw their food at a pedestrian on the street (that was the basic story anyway, I never got the exact facts of what happened, but we were all aware that this rule was in place). Baking and Patisserie students, on the other hand were allowed to bring home the food they prepared because there had never been an issue with the students of that particular program. Not gonna lie, though, I was tempted to throw a pie in some students' faces because of the social implications of that. (I'm going to point out here that this is an excellent example that being nice is not the same as being a good person)
See, when we got to our desk classes (I'll call them this because we sat at desks for these classes while we stood for our food preparation courses) the Bakers, we had all of these breads and desserts that we could share with the Culinary peeps. The Culinary peeps, on the other hand, had their classes later, and they weren't allowed to bring food back anyway. This lead to some disputes. It started with students who didn't want the excess calorie intake who started giving away their food with no worries to the Culinary students. The Culinary students were obviously the only ones interested, typically, because the Bakers already had products of their own to take home. This would also be a good point to mention that we also could not give away the food we made to people on the street as a school rule (See, there was a legal issue in the past where someone got sick after they ate food made by a student. They blamed the school because they thought the food they consumed was not prepared properly. Again, I never got the exact facts of this. This was just a story, but it was the reason given for why that rule was in place). So, basically, not wanting to be wasteful, the Bakers who didn't want the dozens of pastries they made in class were happy to get rid of them for Culinary students who were aware of this rule and ate at their own risk. They were probably happy to wake up and have some pastry for breakfast for their first class in the morning. I know I would be.
And that went on for a little while and things seemed to be working. But time changes things. Over time some of the regular students who got the pastries started getting impatient with the Bakers, demanding them. And I mean being straight out rude. Now, the Bakers who didn't want their food anyway, some of them honestly didn't care and just scolded them to not be so hasty (which of course nobody listened to anyway). The rest of the Bakers, though, we got kinda impatient with the others. The best way I can describe it is unspoken hostility. We didn't like the way they were treating our peers, our friends; The ones we hang out with at five fourty five, just chatting and bonding while waiting for class to start.
It didn't help that the biggest offenders were jerks in general. Obnoxious, late to class, difficult, complaining that they got in trouble even though they were the ones causing the problem half the time, etc. I honestly don't recall too many people in my Baking classes that were like that, but there were times when I had to switch classes. Trust me, it was not a Culinary only issue. Though, every situation is different. So, I guess this is just a look into my personal experience and opinions on where social biases can come from. And, yeah, there was more to it than just this, but students being rude did not help break an image I noticed that formed in my head while attending class. As for my personal take, anyone is capable of being rude, and both parties played a part in enabling such a bias to form. But more on this subject later.
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