All this public self-flagellation and apologizing is over the top and wrong headed. Deal with your issues internally, and don’t drag your customers into it. My sense is that anybody who had the great good fortune to work at Noma under any conditions whatsoever and add the opportunity to be inspired by the great work there as led by Rene should be profoundly grateful regardless of the rigor or difficulty of the working conditions
Hey Alex! I’m one of these “anybody who had the great fortune” people here in the flesh and I wanted to tell you that your “sense” is not necessary here. You can keep it to yourself. We need more apologies and while we’re at it I’d like to say neither René’s or MAD’s have felt like much so far. It’s a lot of blah blah blah without any real reflection on what it means in terms of turning blind eyes and building frankly DISGUSTING cultures in the name of innovation and creativity and hilariously, sustainability. Enough with this idol worship Noma was a luxury brand like any other.
I hear that the work experience wasn’t good for you. Why didn’t you just quit right away and let someone else have an opportunity that they would have perhaps relished?
I have been a happy and satisfied customer that would prefer over-entitled former or current employees not air their grievances in public. Great things are often accomplished by difficult people. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Alex your line of thinking is exactly how harmful structures maintain their power without any reform. MAD is following a budding culture of accountability and transparency. People in this industry are often taught to accept abuse as a right of passage & within the eye of storm it’s easier to brush it off. Often times, when we leave, we are able to realize the harm it’s caused us. While NOMA inspired so much, two things can be true at once. Look into dialectics - it might do you some good.
This structure is “harmful” only to those who do not wish to participate in it yet irrationally insist on staying employed in it. I’m confident that there are many employees who do not consider the NOMA structure to have been “harmful” and many others who in full knowledge of the environment would have loved to join NOMA.
Thanks for your your concern for my good, but lets consider another dialectic: a rigorous and valuable working environment might be what you choose to call “abusive” but also be essential to the character of the mission. There’s are lots of examples of this in the military.
If NOMA were a monopoly and people had no choice to work there I would feel differently.
And none of this debate addresses the foolishness of the decision to make this whole episode public to your customers; it’s really a turnoff and undermines the hard work done to have created beautiful experiences.
None of this means anything until you admit that these things have been common knowledge and you have been turning a blind eye to them for years. You can write this shit to the public who treat the top tier of the food world like gods or mysteries but to those of us who gave away years of our prime to the Michelin kitchens run by your founding members or executive team, we know you all knew and you all had no problem exploiting us and enjoying your celebrity and weaving stories about how real cooks suffer in pursuit of greatness. Fuck that. All these statements stink of PR disaster management and my own community of recovering fine dining chefs are laughing watching this. How embarrassing for you all to have held these tyrants up for so many years.
All this public self-flagellation and apologizing is over the top and wrong headed. Deal with your issues internally, and don’t drag your customers into it. My sense is that anybody who had the great good fortune to work at Noma under any conditions whatsoever and add the opportunity to be inspired by the great work there as led by Rene should be profoundly grateful regardless of the rigor or difficulty of the working conditions
Hey Alex! I’m one of these “anybody who had the great fortune” people here in the flesh and I wanted to tell you that your “sense” is not necessary here. You can keep it to yourself. We need more apologies and while we’re at it I’d like to say neither René’s or MAD’s have felt like much so far. It’s a lot of blah blah blah without any real reflection on what it means in terms of turning blind eyes and building frankly DISGUSTING cultures in the name of innovation and creativity and hilariously, sustainability. Enough with this idol worship Noma was a luxury brand like any other.
I hear that the work experience wasn’t good for you. Why didn’t you just quit right away and let someone else have an opportunity that they would have perhaps relished?
I have been a happy and satisfied customer that would prefer over-entitled former or current employees not air their grievances in public. Great things are often accomplished by difficult people. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
God, this take is so tired and gross.
Alex your line of thinking is exactly how harmful structures maintain their power without any reform. MAD is following a budding culture of accountability and transparency. People in this industry are often taught to accept abuse as a right of passage & within the eye of storm it’s easier to brush it off. Often times, when we leave, we are able to realize the harm it’s caused us. While NOMA inspired so much, two things can be true at once. Look into dialectics - it might do you some good.
This structure is “harmful” only to those who do not wish to participate in it yet irrationally insist on staying employed in it. I’m confident that there are many employees who do not consider the NOMA structure to have been “harmful” and many others who in full knowledge of the environment would have loved to join NOMA.
Thanks for your your concern for my good, but lets consider another dialectic: a rigorous and valuable working environment might be what you choose to call “abusive” but also be essential to the character of the mission. There’s are lots of examples of this in the military.
If NOMA were a monopoly and people had no choice to work there I would feel differently.
And none of this debate addresses the foolishness of the decision to make this whole episode public to your customers; it’s really a turnoff and undermines the hard work done to have created beautiful experiences.
You’ve never worked in restaurants.
None of this means anything until you admit that these things have been common knowledge and you have been turning a blind eye to them for years. You can write this shit to the public who treat the top tier of the food world like gods or mysteries but to those of us who gave away years of our prime to the Michelin kitchens run by your founding members or executive team, we know you all knew and you all had no problem exploiting us and enjoying your celebrity and weaving stories about how real cooks suffer in pursuit of greatness. Fuck that. All these statements stink of PR disaster management and my own community of recovering fine dining chefs are laughing watching this. How embarrassing for you all to have held these tyrants up for so many years.
It was about time.