And they don’t tip. They dont. They never do.
Samantha Bee and Jo Miller were on Fresh Air yesterday; it was good.
An excerpt:
Jo Miller is the head writer and showrunner.
GROSS: Let’s get back to, Jo, your work studying medieval Jewish history and planning to become a history teacher or a history professor. Was there a part of you thinking, what I really want to do is comedy, but I can’t do that…
MILLER: Yes.
GROSS: …I can’t become a comedian or a comic writer, so I’d better just keep to history?
MILLER: Yes. Yes.
GROSS: Why did you think that?
MILLER: Because I’m a girl.
(LAUGHTER)
MILLER: I hate myself like girls do. That’s exactly why. I was in – well, when Lizz Winstead started “The Daily Show” in 1996, and I was watching it from day one. And I had these little fantasies of going to work for Lizz Winstead. But that’s all it was, was a fantasy. I later did work for Lizz Winstead on “Wake Up World,” and she taught me so much. She’s a wonderful person.
When I was at “The Daily Show,” we would have interns, college kids every semester. And at the end, they would gather in the writers lounge and – to ask us questions. And we’d ask them questions about what they wanted to do. They’d be half men, half women. And if you – we’d ask them, do you want to be a writer? And go down the line. And the men would all say, yeah. I’m going to be a writer. I’m Jake (ph). I’m going to be a writer. I’m Carl (ph). I’m going to write. And the women would say, I’m Amanda. You know, maybe some day. I don’t know. I’m not good enough.
BEE: We’ll see. I mean…
MILLER: I’d like to. We’ll see.
BEE: …I don’t know. I might go into teaching.
MILLER: Yeah. And finally, one day I just had a meltdown. You know, somewhere between the unearned confidence of the men and the unjustified self-censorship of the women is the truth lies. Yes. Donna (ph), you were good enough. You just started. Do it, and you’ll get good. But – and we plucked some – our best writers out of other fields, like, you know, journalism, the best writers at “The Daily Show” like Tim Carvell, who’s running John Oliver’s show came from journalism.
And that’s – we’re not – the women are out there doing journalism, doing academics, doing social work, doing lawyer stuff. And we just have to find them because they’re sitting there like I was sitting in Ithaca going, I suck. Boy, it’d be fun to write for “The Daily Show” if I didn’t suck.
(LAUGHTER)
MILLER: They’re out there.
(LAUGHTER)
MILLER: It seems like a very far away dream.
BEE: Yes. It seems like a very far away dream.
MILLER: All the grad students who are listening – because every grad student in the world listens to this show, I know – try it. Put your stuff out on the internet. Put out YouTube videos. Put up – just put up your funny writings. Tweet funny things. Someone will find you.
GROSS: So, Sam, did you experience the kind of thing that Jo was talking about of thinking, like, I’m not good enough to actually be a comedian?
BEE: Oh, my God, of course. Oh, of course. I lived my whole life – I’ve been a fan of comedy and just like a very deep fan of comedy my entire life. But I never grew – I mean, I grew up in Canada, also. And, you know, comedy coming out of the United States is – it feels completely inaccessible.
I came to comedy very late in life for a comedy person – late 20s. It never occurred to me to do comedy in my entire life until someone literally forced me to do it – until friends who I’d worked on a play with needed to replace a woman in their sketch troupe, and they forced me to say yes to them and assured me that I would love it. And they were correct to do so, and I did love it. And it really changed the direction of my life. But – and I found that I was quite good at it, but someone had to force me into it.
MILLER: Maybe we need conscription if we introduced a draft.
BEE: Yeah (laughter).
MILLER: Force women into – because you and I were career waitresses.
BEE: Oh, yes. Oh, God, definitely.
GROSS: What kind of restaurants?
MILLER: Terrible ones.
BEE: Oh, God. I worked at pan – I worked on an all-night pancake house for a really long time and a terrible cockroach-infested seafood restaurant. I worked at a place where I had to wear a nametag. Aw, I don’t think it exists anymore. It was called Joe Badali’s in Toronto. And I had to wear a nametag that said Samantha Badali. I still have it.
GROSS: (Laughter).
MILLER: Wait. Like, you we’re all sister wives…
BEE: Every – we were all sister wives.
MILLER: …Or something?
BEE: Yeah. We were all…
MILLER: OK. That’s creepy.
BEE: …Joe’s wives – Joe’s concubines.
GROSS: Do you still have the waiter nightmares?
BEE: I still have waiter – I will never not have waiter nightmares.
MILLER: Yeah, still have them.
BEE: I honestly think that part of my very visceral reaction to Donald Trump is because I served so many people in the restaurant who were just like him. I have PTSD from it.
MILLER: Yeah. I worked in Washington.
GROSS: What do you mean when you say that? What are you picking up on?
MILLER: Douchey (ph).
BEE: A man in a suit – an arrogant business person in a suit.
MILLER: Oh, God, doing wine service for them…
BEE: Doing wine service.
MILLER: …Is the worst.
BEE: The man who is at the head of the table who says, if you give us good service tonight, I’ll give you a pretty sweet tip. Give us extra special service. I mean, that is…
MILLER: Hey, toots, right?
BEE: Yeah. It – its in my DNA (laughter).
MILLER: What do you like on the menu?
BEE: Oh (laughter). Do you serve grouper?
(LAUGHTER)
BEE: And they don’t tip. They dont. They never do.
MILLER: They don’t because nobody can see them signing the bill. So they’ll make a big, you know, show of taking the bill…
BEE: There’s a showmanship to it.
MILLER: …And put your 6 percent down.
BEE: The tip is very lean.
That’s good to know. It’s not at all surprising, but it’s good to know. Trump is like the most obnoxious kind of business bro who is annoying to the wait staff. Well of course he is.
I get what she’s saying about not thinking you can do it. I’ve been writing since I was five, and I still think I’m a fake, that I’m not as good. I have an assignment due on Friday in a class I’m taking, and I’m sweating that it isn’t good enough. The men in my program just waltz through the place, never apologizing for how sorry their work is (and it usually isn’t sorry; this is a graduate program, and the students have to meet high standards to be admitted). But the women, we apologize all the time. I wish it could be better, we say. It’s the best I could do, I’m sorry, we say. The men just belly up and read it out, confident that nothing is going to be wrong with it.
The same thing in my local writing group, and my playwriting group. The women present their work timidly, apologetically. The men thrust it out there, knowing it’s good, surprised if someone has a critique or says something could be a bit better.
I got a compliment from a man in my writing group at the last meeting; he said I was so far beyond the rest of them that there was nothing any of them could do to improve my work. I glowed for a week. Someone had validated me. Why can’t I just validate myself? If I saw my writing from anyone else, male or female, I would recognize that it is good. I put my own name on it, and I feel like it’s second-rate, not good enough.
I look back over my life, and realize all the subtle messages I got that led me to this lack of confidence. No matter what, nothing was ever quite as good as my brothers (who by the way never managed to create anything much, but no, they were brilliant). Nothing was ever quite as good as the males in my classes, no matter if my grades exceeded theirs. It’s strange how this happens to us, and we don’t even see it while it’s happening. So we might say (as quite a few women do) that we never experienced sexism. No, we experienced what is perceived as normal, but it is sexism still.
I can relate to the “not good enough yet, we’ll see”. People used to ask me “do you want to go on to more study after undergrad” and I would say “I am not sure, let’s see how I go, it would be good, but I don’t know” while inside there was nothing I wanted more. But no matter how much external evidence I get that I can (high marks, awards, scholarships), most of the time I still don’t really believe, or really FEEL, that I can. There are moments where what I want feels possible, even actual, and those moments feel like flying.
And as for the Trump induced PTSD: yes to that as well. I went into panic mode during and after that second debate when he brought Bill Clinton’s accusers in order to attack Hillary Clinton. I have no doubt it was because of my experiences in a long-term psychologically abusive relationship.
Elsewhere in the interview, they talk about dealing with Kellyanne Conway from a feminist standpoint – it’s good stuff. They’ve got to combine the acknowledgement of competence with the recognition that she’s successfully, capably achieved an awful, awful thing.
Also – it’s a relief to know I’m not the only one with table-waiting nightmares! Maybe there’s a support group somewhere….
Only the briefest experience with waitering, they got rid of me early on. Creepiest for me was serving a big batch of Mormon investors…not one woman would say ANYTHING. It was as if they were toddlers, or golden retrievers.
I should probably sue, since I seem to have missed out on the standard-issue bumptious self-worth that seems to be expected everywhere.
I don’t remember whether I’ve mentioned this in another comment already; I may have. I was at a half-day conference for women in my profession recently. Maybe 8 or 10 women spoke. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. apologised for something during their talks. I’m not really prepared. I don’t know that much about this. I’m substituting for so-and-so, she’s the real expert. I’m not that good at public speaking. I’m a bit messy today, I didn’t have much time this morning to get ready. Every single one. I noted this, and mentioned it to a few people…but the fact is, they have to do that, and will be punished if they don’t. I’m very confident about my abilities and experience–I’ve done a lot, I do what I do very well, I’ve been successful in my work, I add value, I know what I’m doing. But if I ever say any of these things, in a justifiable and evidence-based way, I’m criticised and demeaned. So in my experience if you’re female you’re better off sticking to the apologetic approach.
Guest @5, that drives me nuts seeing that happen. When I was young, just starting out working, after the first seminar presentation I gave (I was working as a researcher back then), my organisation’s Director came and saw me and offered a couple of bits of advice:
You’re the one doing the work, so you know it at least as well as anyone in the room and probably better.
Never apologise for your preparation or speaking ability, there will be plenty of people sitting there ready to knock you. Don’t do their job for them.
@Rob–that’s good advice…but it will backfire on you if you’re female. Please don’t give it to women.
Actually I realise I made a mistake in my comment (lol at me apologising)–what I should have written is ‘I know what I’m talking about’ (when I’m speaking on one of the handful of subjects I’m genuinely an expert in). But I don’t dare situate myself as an expert, or even insinuate, let alone directly state, that I know what I’m talking about–I will be punished for it.
guest, I am the only expert in my field at work, but I am constantly “explained” at. My supervisor rewrote one of my exercises once, and showed he had no grasp of the situation I was trying to impart, nor did he have any clue what reality was. It simply never occurred to him that he was challenging someone who knew more than he did about that topic. The male scientists around here he treated hands off, with respect, and never once tried to explain their field to them. But the interesting thing is, he never allowed me to be on a search committee, always explaining that I wasn’t qualified to evaluate that particular position – in spite of the fact that I had more qualifications for that position than he did (he was on the search committee) or anyone else on the search committee. I simply was not competent to do anything. Makes me wonder what they thought I was doing in my classes – babysitting? For college students? Horrifying.
On a quasi-related note, which day do you think is the absolute worst for serving staff? It might vary from establishment to establishment, but the ones located nears churches are pretty much unanimous: sundays. Enter sundaysaretheworst.com, a blog / journal sort of thing in which serving staff relate the joys of serving food to the sunday sermon crowds.
Note: prior servers read at your own peril! I am not responsible for any revived nightmares, seething rants, nor sudden spikes in blood pressure.
That,s not an apology, guest, that’s simply admitting an error, an admirable trait rarely seen these days.
…..maybe ‘acknowledging an error’ would be a better way of phrasing that.
Sorry. :-)