'The Bear' Nearly Breaks Sydney. In Real Life, Every Business Does.

[Celerity]

In FX’s ‘The Bear,’ a new employee is the unsung hero of a failing restaurant.

https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/humans-being/62cda4a5e8839b00204be39b/the-bear-breaks-sydney-in-real-life-every-business-does/



Culture change is a slow process. I have experienced it several times in different companies and organizations, where processes are failing or employee morale is exceptionally low. Attempting to do meaningful work can feel futile, and optimism is worn down by the fatigue that comes with working in a place that seems broken. When I’ve found myself in such a scenario, the thought of quitting has come with the guilt of being part of the problem: Staff turnover is often at the heart of workplace dysfunction, as the people who could improve the place are the same ones it grinds to dust. On bad days I’ve told myself that it’s “just a job,” and on the good ones I’ve indulged in the feeling that improving a business means something more—changing the lives of co-workers and the people we serve. I believe most of us have been there at least once in our lives, deciding the “right” thing to do: working harder in hopes of changing a place, or leaving it to its decline.

I grappled with that thought as I watched The Bear, a tense new FX series available on Hulu. It’s one of the best shows of the year so far—it currently boasts a perfect 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes—and it’s one that will stick with you after its short eight-episode run. The show is about a young chef, Carmy, struggling to keep a family-run restaurant, the Real Beef of Chicagoland, solvent. Carmy inherited “the Beef” after his brother’s death, and although Carmy is something of a culinary prodigy—a high-end chef who worked in the best restaurants in the world, won multiple awards, and was named Food and Wine magazine’s Best New Chef—he suffers from grief and anxiety. And the restaurant is hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

Carmy is committed to turning the place around, but the Beef is a failing neighborhood staple that serves sandwiches to working-class locals, not an upscale restaurant like he’s used to running. Carmy wants to save the restaurant but also make food he’s proud of—two ideas that might not be compatible, but both of which would mean changing the kitchen hierarchy, their recipes, and the customers they serve. It puts Carmy in the position of being a hotshot interloper to his crew of recalcitrant kitchen staff, and the Beef in the middle of an internal culture war. On one side is Richie, a chaotic longtime employee of the Beef and close family friend who is losing his footing in the restaurant; on the other is a young sous-chef named Sydney, who shows up with ideas for new processes, services, and recipes. In our real lives, most of us are Sydney, working to make things better, or Richie, working to keep them the same. Few of us are Carmy.

Watching The Bear is like a waking stress dream (think Uncut Gems or Whiplash meets Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential), but it’s refreshingly original in how it plays with its character tropes. Carmy is the troubled genius who nonetheless values respect; Sydney is the mentee who believes in him, but is learning that she needs to speak harshly sometimes; and the two of them are surrounded by a stubborn crew who will follow their leaders into success or failure, but who are also charming and have unexpected depth as characters. While Carmy’s struggle with grief is the center of the series’ emotional conflict through line, I found myself paying the most attention to Sydney.



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[pandr32]

1. Hopefully, there will be a season 2