Can 15,000 Brooklynites Be Wrong?
Alana Joblin Ain’s account of falling out with the Park Slope Food Co-op maps amazingly—and no doubt intentionally—onto accounts by those who’ve extricated themselves from sketchy sects.
The Co-op’s math, if nothing else, could use some re-examination; membership has almost doubled from 8,000 in 2002, yet the Co-op still requires “2.75 hours [of work] every four weeks for each adult member of a household” and a “penalty” of two makeup shifts for every shift missed, with the makeup shifts to be served before one’s next regular shift. Unless the amount of work has also doubled since 2002 this would seem to create a potentially absurd amount of surplus labor. Not to mention this:
Caledonia Kearns, 40, a single mother who works full time for a nonprofit group in Brooklyn, found herself owing six shifts this summer. A member for a year, she planned at first to use vacation days to work her way out of the hole.
And this:
One recent morning, I went to the co-op office to check my status. A fellow member-worker pulled my file: a collection of index cards that highlighted every job and misstep since my initiation into the club. Next to me, an elderly woman was being grilled: “Did you tell your squad leader that you had a medical emergency?”
There’s a reason that societies for thousands of years have opted for currency as a way to measure value.
I went on a date once with a Co-op member who was wreathed in resignation to Co-op culture even while asserting the moral superiority of membership—though granting, grudgingly, that with my schedule, maybe my preference for green markets wasn’t unreasonable. It was a beautiful evening, clear and still, and we were outside in a restaurant back garden, but I wasn’t willing to spend any more time like that, even in exchange for dessert and coffee. I gladly paid my own subway fare and went on my way, free.
