#seriously though how is carmy and syd giving mentor and mentee

[beauspot]

i feel like we talk about the way that sydney affects carmy and how she’s helped him but we should also talk about his affect on her. (i swear this is the last thIng imma say about them for now 😭) sydney over qualified for the job she’s doing at the bear, same as carmy, they both have these big plans for the restaurant but the difference is carmy is thinking long term where as syd is in this constant state of “we gotta go go go right now. now or never.” as she talked about before it’s part of the reason her business fell through, she got too big too fast. that being said she is also over prepared for most situations, for example showing up a a week into her new job with a 30 page thesis on making the beef successful. this is probably partly because of her personality since she(and honestly this applies to most chefs) is type A, but i think it also has to do with the fact she is a black woman in a field dominated by white men.

Now if you’ve ever worked food service you know that shit is no joke, people want their food and they want it cooked perfectly and they want it right away, they don’t care how busy you are, how stressed you are, it doesn’t matter and this in turn affects the way kitchens are run. people feel like they’re waiting too long they’ll leave affecting profits meaning people get paid less or fired. the more prestigious a restaurant the more is at stake because reputation is half the reason people go to expensive places. now the show is dramatized for sure but this toxic kitchen culture is very real and we saw how it affected carmy. syd has had to go through similar shit(while she wasn’t working under that DEMON that carmy was she still worked with a grade a asshole chef) while also dealing with racism and misogyny and undoubtedly sexual harassment. people underestimate and at the same time expect perfection out of you when you’re a black woman. people hesitate to give us jobs and then act the most harsh to us when we mess up. so syd feeling the need to do everything herself and taking extra measures and not being able to take criticism stem from a place of people probably having hid their hate in “criticism” so she takes it personally even if it isn’t.

anyways you might be wondering why i think this ties into syd and carmy’s relationship. basically it’s the way he treats her. he doesn’t baby her but carmy speaks to her so softly. when she has these huge ideas he doesn’t try to destroy them and make her feel bad for wanting more, he just kindly explains that they’re not at that place or he needs to think or she needs to be patient and he always makes sure that he reassures her it has nothing to do with how talented she is. having people constantly screaming at you or trying to make you feel small can do irreparable damage to someone’s psyche and that’s the last thing he wants to do, because not only does he respect syd, he cares about her, whether he knows it or not. he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings and as soon as he does he regrets it and apologizes. he doesn’t do that with ANYONE else in the show. the only other people he apologizes to are his sister and marcus and to be quite honest he does worse stuff to them than he does to syd. she messed up the system after he told her to check it twice and then he yelled at her(which wasn’t ok he already established that) but he still felt like she was the one he’d done the most wrong. i mean richie got STABBED and carmy told him he deserved it and he NEVER apologized. obviously there’s a reason WHY.

I’ve said this before but even in the midst of losing his shit(because of again a mistake that sydney made!!!) he stops to ask if she’s good, repeatedly. as she’s quitting he begins to PANIC. we see at the end of the season that sydney has ditched the rose colored glasses she wore specifically for carmy and we’re going to see where that puts their relationship next season as i don’t think this issue is fully resolved even though they’ve agreed to open a new place together.

wait edit: i’m not sure he ever does apologize to sugar. i think i just made that up in my head. he says sorry for not asking how she’s feeling which…i don’t know if that’s an apology really

second edit: he doesn’t just vocally reassure her he’ll stare at her unflinchingly until she confirms she’s alright and that THEY’RE ok

wait THIRD edit: someone on here pointed out that carmy is like his brother in a way because he looks up to him, that’s his hero and so he pushes people away the same way mikey did and that’s ANOTHER REASON syd is good for him. she pushes and she won’t let him do that shit, not with her