The Self Behind The Scenes

The person who serves you at the table has another world to face when he goes back into the kitchen. Sociologically it is not just a world where he can unwind and be himself, it is also a world where he can fraternize better with people of his own staff. The waiter is caught between to spheres in this world of appearances and it is not to say that here is a hypocrite, it is to observe that there are mechanisms out there which hide what the average person may see like the average person who goes into a public restaurant to eat where the kitchen is off limits.

Where did all this start? I suppose it began with the need to separate private from public issues. Such might be in the restaurant, in a mechanics shop or in a governmental institution. The governmental bureaucrat will do the same behind closed doors in parliament to discuss business, whereas he will be in clear view of public scrutiny when debates are viewed publicly. Behind those doors he may swear to his hearts content about a news coverage, and no reporter will know the better. Today with the proroguing of parliament more than citizens would like to see, people would like to view and hear about that business such as issues concerning the building of Haiti and the treatment of prisoners from Afghanistan. Not seeing what the government is doing does not satisfy thousands who no longer have the image that government wanted to project as though they were sitting during an average parliamentary session.Instead they have visions of extended vacations at the taxpayer’s expense and maybe just a little bit of dialogue along the way.

The self need to be checked even though the people in question may shout privacy and that is because like the government or mechanic they are working for the citizen who pays them directly or indirectly. One such method I laud video taking that could be argued as a breach of privacy but not when the person is a public employee and there to serve the public. Such is the case if the public transit person who has been a mockery in Montreal, not all but a few have given a bad name to the group. One such person mocked his passengers as he couldn’t get to his seat another was found to be chatting away on company time while passengers were waiting for him to keep to the bus schedule.