RES: Social

We decided on a color-coded system in which different types of customer behavior are categorized as yellow, orange or red. Yellow refers to a creepy vibe or unsavory look. Orange means comments with sexual undertones, such as certain compliments on a worker’s appearance. Red signals overtly sexual comments or touching, or repeated incidents in the orange category after being told the comments were unwelcome.

When a staff member has a harassment problem, they report the color — “I have an orange at table five” — and the manager is required to take a specific action. If red is reported, the customer is ejected from the restaurant. Orange means the manager takes over the table. With a yellow, the manager must take over the table if the staff member chooses. In all cases, the manager’s response is automatic, no questions asked. (At the time of our meeting, all our shift managers were men, though their supervisors were women; something else we’ve achieved since then is diversifying each layer of management.)

In the years since implementation, customer harassment has ceased to be a problem. Reds are nearly nonexistent, as most sketchy customers seem to be derailed at yellow or orange. We found that most customers test the waters before escalating and that women have a canny sixth sense for unwanted attention. When reds do occur, our employees are empowered to act decisively.

The color system is elegant because it prevents women from having to relive damaging stories and relieves managers of having to make difficult judgment calls about situations that might not seem threatening based on their own experiences. The system acknowledges the differences in the ways men and women experience the world, while creating a safe workplace.

I think it’s really important to talk about how different people have different power fantasies.

For example:

For some people, the idea of someone redeeming a villain is a power fantasy.
For other people, the idea of a villain being defeated is a power fantasy.
And for other people, the idea of a character owning their villainy is a power fantasy.
I would argue a lot of fandom conflicts re: villains come from people being unable to see that their fantasies, which put them in control of a narrative (and all three of these are designed to give the author or reader control of the narrative in different ways) are someone else’s horror stories.

I think this is a really interesting look at power fantasies and I personally have experienced all three, regarding different characters.

I would argue, however, that most of these fandom conflicts actually come from the reverse situation. That is, it’s not people looking at their own fantasies and being unable to see that these fantasies are horrifying for others (though that does, of course, happen).

I see, more often, people looking at other people’s fantasies and declaring them to be horrifying. That they are objectively bad and harmful and representative of whatever it is people find to be dangerous. And that, in fact, their fantasies or empowering at all, but rather symptoms of societal sickness.

So rather than saying a lot of fandom conflicts re: villains come from people being unable to see that their fantasies are someone else’s horror stories, I would say that a lot of fandom conflicts re: villains come from people being unable to see that different people have different fantasies in the first place. That it’s not that they’re thinking of their own fantasies at all. But that they’re seeing only their own horrors in the fantasies of others.