Are You My Customer?

Recent service industry hero tales like The Menu, A Gentleman in Moscow, and The Bear are not crafted for the people whose work they romanticize, but for their bosses, managers and customers. What message are these stories meant to deliver?

Are You My Mother? is the title of a children’s book I loved to read to my son. In it, a baby bird falls out of its nest and wanders the earth, asking backhoe diggers and cats if they are its mother. Like that baby bird, lost in the disorienting psychic space of the post-industrial service economy, equally confused workers find themselves asking people,…