5 Disgusting Truths About Every Restaurant (From a Chef)

Everybody knows a waiter with more industrial horror stories than the Hellraiser series. But how much of that stuff is real, how much is embellished, and how much of it was just a hallucination from eating last week's leftover specials? We spoke to Justin Croft, a chef with 15 years of experience in the industry, and John Kolka, another chef with more than a decade of experience, about what really goes on behind the scenes in restaurants. When it comes to food, these guys have seen it all. You haven't. And, to be honest, that's probably a good thing.

#5. Restaurant Owners Will Do Anything to Save Money (Including Poisoning Employees)

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During his stint as a restaurant manager, Justin was compensated with a base salary, plus incentives in the form of a food cost bonus, a labor cost bonus, and a cleanliness bonus. In other words, if he didn't toss too much food, sent employees home when business was slow, and kept the health inspection scores high, he could make bank -- or, at least, enough to open and maintain a bank account. That's what the phrase means, right?

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"Sorry, Hamlet, your ass just got retired."

"Pot roast that was past its date became the 'family' meal served to the staff," he said. "Once, while working at a gastropub in London, the owner told me to take the moldy hamburger patties that had been sitting for weeks and serve them to the employees. How does that fit into the bottom line? Well in the U.K., at-will employment isn't the way it works -- [employment] is all done via contract. At this particular restaurant, the contract stated that 2.50 (GBP) would be deducted from your pay every day for your shift meal. So, instead of breaching contract, he would rather risk sending his employees to the hospital, which doesn't cost him anything because the U.K. has the National Health Service."

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"The Queen says, 'Dig in.'"

Ah, but screw the staff: If they didn't want to be poisoned, they would get jobs at the poison control center. You're a customer, and you're only wondering how this stinginess affects you -- the diner who specifically requested a table so far away from the kitchen that your waiter technically qualifies as a delivery guy. Well ...

#4. What You Order (and When You Order It) Determines How Fresh Your Food Is

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In Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain advised the world not to order fish on Mondays, and that's still very much the case today: Fish specials on Mondays are the fish that didn't sell over the weekend, as are fish soups or appetizer specials. Also, considering that a $30 filet mignon probably cost the owner about $28 to put on your plate, you can see how a suspect steak gets sold even after the staff watched its soul crawl back into its body and start haunting the sous chef.

"People who prefer their steaks well-done are a godsend," said Justin. "Because overcooking is the best way to cover up anything foul. You serve up the fresh meat to those who want it rare to medium -- well-done, you make sure you use up the ones your boss specifically set aside for that temperature."

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Anything crawling around in there can simply be fried up and served as garnish.

But, then again, if you're ordering your fine steaks well-done, you may deserve it. In his experience, John was never told outright to serve spoiled food. He was, however, taught how to disguise spoilage in order to serve it without customers noticing it. For example, with seafood that's starting to turn has a very distinctive ammonia odor, you can rinse it in cool salt and lemon water, which hides the scent long enough to serve it -- without the customer thinking you marinated their appetizer in Windex.

"As an executive chef, I was too strict to allow anything like that to leave my kitchen," he said. "But, I have seen it happen. I've seen steak that was brown and smelling of decomposing flesh cooked and served after covering up the rot by finishing it in the oven or steaming it on the flat top with beef broth."

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"Just glue it all together and grill 'em up."

But, isn't that what health inspections are there to prevent? Exactly! That's why you're totally safe ... if you eat there the day of inspection: "It was nothing out of the ordinary for the owner to frantically tell us to double-check all the dates and to 'throw the P&L out the window' whenever he got a tip that inspectors were on the prowl," John said. "Which we did, of course. Old product the owner wanted us to special off (don't eat the specials) or make soup out of. Never eat the soup. Never."

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That ain't cream.

#3. There Are a Hell of a Lot of Drugs in the Restaurant Business

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Why do this job? "I do it because I love food," John said. "For my ninth birthday, I asked for a deep fryer and a fry cutter."

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Playing G.I. Joe with him would result in the crispiest, crunchiest Cobra Commander ever.

Oh, and the other answer is drugs. Lots and lots of drugs.

"We refer to ourselves as lifers or kitchen dogs or whatever -- it's different wherever you go but the mentality is the same," Justin said. "Some of us didn't have the chance to go to culinary school but loved watching Grandma cook. Some of us are convicted felons who need a steady job because no one else will give us a second chance (actually very common -- most restaurants don't perform background checks). We all work hard and play hard. Most of us, including myself, are alcoholics or drug addicts -- restaurants normally don't drug test either."

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"You can cook, you can breathe, and you're probably not the puppet of a talking rat ... you're hired!"

That's right -- there's a good chance that your appetizer was prepped on the same counter the chef does lines on.

"Drug and alcohol abuse is rampant in this industry," John said. "I've also met a few former criminals -- but I, for one, don't think that's a negative aspect (they deserve a chance to make a wage they can live by). Of course, some use this industry as a means to continue their criminal activity. The town I'm home-based out of had three restaurants shut down due to drugs being trafficked out of them, one of them through the drive-through."

Which, in the few states where marijuana is now legal, is actually a hell of an idea. Dibs!

#2. Your Food Might Suck Because of Waiter/Chef Relationships

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If you're a server, you don't want to fuck with the cooks.

"Servers, as a rule, couldn't cook a Lean Cuisine," John said. "Yet, they have no qualms about telling me how to do my job. I once had a server tell me a well-done steak wasn't 'well-done enough.' I asked her if she knew the proper temperature of a well-done steak. She replied, 'I know what they look like! I've been a server for nine months.' So, I popped it in the microwave for three minutes and served a leathery piece of tire. Needless to say, she wasn't tipped from that table."

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The first and only time anybody microwaved steak and was happy about it.

That brings up another good point: Servers, seriously do not fuck with the cooks.

"I've worked at restaurants where the servers 'tip out' the rest of the staff, and even though they make enough in tips in one good night to pay my rent, they still complain about it. If a gentle reminder that I'm the reason they get tipped in the first place doesn't end the bitching, I'll purposefully fuck up every single order they have, proving my point by ensuring shitty tips."

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"Don't worry -- burgers are supposed to be mixed with tinfoil and wax. It's the new trend."

Cooks are a vengeful people.

#1. The Kitchen Is an Incredibly Stressful, Violent Place

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Even outside of a Carl's Jr., the kitchen is a gross and unforgiving lawless land:

"This job is fucking brutal," John said. "First, you will absolutely cut yourself, and unless you have a digit hanging by a string of gristle, you won't have the luxury of leaving to get it stitched up. I've filleted a knuckle while slicing garlic. I've dropped a knife that rebounded and buried itself in my hand. I've sliced the tip of my thumb clean off with a potato peeler (there was a nub of bone sticking out like a goddamn horror movie prop). I've had second- and third-degree burns over about 20 percent of my body (not all at once, but throughout the years). Below my neck, my body is covered in scars.

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"Where did you get that?"
"Vietnam ... ese pho place."

"But not only is it physically brutal, it's mentally brutal. I worked at a resort that sat like 200 people in the dining room. We had a 5-foot flat top, a six-burner stove, and two deep fryers for a menu that had everything from full breakfast to burgers to lobster pasta. Imagine juggling this:

"Fifteen burgers and buns, eight ribeye steaks (three rare, one medium, two medium-rare, two well-done), four Mediterranean linguine dishes, one order of steamed mussels. And that's only three tickets. More are printing out that you haven't even seen yet, and two servers are asking for an ETA for the appetizers on them. The dishwasher broke the damn machine again, and you're the only one who knows how to fix it, and your sous chef has somehow managed to deep fry her hand and is bandaging herself while the fries for your 15 burgers are starting to burn.

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"Fuck it; call them Cajun-style. Next!"

"Now, a ticket comes back -- your last order went out wrong because the server heard/wrote it wrong. That order has to be fixed ahead of all the others that are still cooking. And, speaking of still cooking, are your rare steaks ruined yet? Those bastards are 14 bucks a pound, and you just fucked up two of them. Hopefully, another ticket comes in the next 10 minutes or else you'll have to figure out what else you can make them into -- (soup?).

"Congratulations, you just made it through the first 15 minutes of your shift.

"Perhaps because of all that, the redundancies that most businesses have in place are nonexistent in the kitchen. There's simply no one else to do your job. I've run a 102-degree fever and couldn't call in sick. Now, imagine I'm cooking all that food I just described for all those nice people ... while having strep throat."

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"Just put your head over the pasta station. Steam that shit out."

Or ... don't imagine it. Thanks for all the hard work, John and Justin -- but, ignorance is sometimes bliss, and we'll take a little disease and a lot of bloodshed if it means we don't have to boil our own hot dogs.

5 Stories That Will Change Your Opinion Of Famous Companies

It's been said that corporations are people. That being the case, it should come as no surprise that like so many of us, they have some skeletons hiding in their closets -- dirty little secrets from their past that they'd prefer everyone just not talk about. That's never going to happen, of course. We discuss some of the lesser-known dark sides of famous brands on this week'sUnpopular Opinion podcast ...

... where I'm joined by comic Maria Shehata and Cracked editor David Christopher Bell. I'm also talking about some of them in this column today. Go figure!

#5. Target Quietly Treats Employees As Shitty As Walmart Does

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Target does a great job of escaping the same "evil corporation" accusations that regularly dog their main competitor, Walmart. In fact, until that unseemly data breach put a huge dent in their reputation, Target was named among "the world's most ethical retailers" seven years in a row. They deserved to be kicked off that list well before they gave everyone your credit card number, though, because they treat their employees like complete and total shit.

Gawker has done a masterful job of tallying up their myriad abuses and shenanigans. Among the highlights is a story about a former manager who was fired for working during his lunch break ... just weeks after filing a complaint about being forced to work during his lunch break. That sounds like the worst straight-to-DVD Friday sequel imaginable.

In another incident, Target shut down a store for seven months for "remodeling" after it nearly became their first store to unionize.

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"You should stay and hang out, though!"

Another store undergoing similar renovation work at the same time wasn't closed for nearly as long. They never explained the discrepancy, other than presumably muttering something under their breath about being able to break your kneecaps for asking so many questions if things still worked like they used to in dad's day.

If you doubt Target's dedication to union busting, look no further than the batshit insane anti-union video they make all employees watch as part of their job orientation.

If you don't have time (you don't), it's basically 13 minutes' worth of two Target associates going good cop / bad cop on new employees over the uselessness and greed of unions and their rigid work rules.

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You'll never guess which one is the bad cop!

It's not all union busting, though. In another shocking incident, a Target employee with Asperger's Syndrome committed suicide after management put him through the act of "parading," a technique used to embarrass workers who are suspected of wrongdoing into keeping on the straight and narrow going forward. He was handcuffed and walked through the store past fellow employees to a back room, then walked back out -- still in handcuffs -- and taken to a nearby police station, where ... no charges were filed. It's still not really clear what he did to warrant being disciplined, just that he clearly didn't take it the way management hoped he would.

#4. T.G.I. Fridays Was The First Singles Bar

Wikipedia

Have you ever heard the phrase "as sexy as a T.G.I. Friday's" before? Of course not. Who would say such a thing? That place can be described in a lot of ways, but "sexy" definitely isn't one of them. Mention the name nowadays and people think of loaded potato skins and workers who have to wear inordinate amounts of "flair" to show their personality. That's not true, by the way. It used to be a requirement, but they stopped after Office Space made a mockery of them for it.

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Every person who's ever served you also wanted to shoot you.

No surprise there. Things change, you know? Speaking of change, how about the fact that, despite its current reputation as the place you only go if you're forced to drink with kids in tow, Friday's was started for a completely different reason. To put it bluntly, founder Alan Stillman wanted "to meet Pan Am stewardesses."

This was New York City in 1965, when going out and meeting people meant going to private cocktail parties at random apartments or hanging out in dive bars, which single women tended not to do back then. This was not conducive to Stillman's goal of securing flight attendant strange, so he figured his next best move was to just open a bar of his own.

The atmosphere catered to singles in their 20's and 30's, and his plan worked. In no time at all, people were lined up around the block to get into NYC's hottest new club ... T.G.I. Friday's. Remember the Tom Cruise bartending classic Cocktail? The first bar he works in ...

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Do those awnings look familiar?

... is that very first T.G.I. Friday's. It's been rumored that Cruise's character is actually based on Stillman.

Soon, word of this newfangled "singles bar" -- the first of its kind, depending on who you're talking to-- made its way around the country. Interest was high enough that Stillman was able to branch out and open a second location in Memphis, Tennessee. If you've seen the documentary Nothing Can Hurt Me, which is about massively influential Memphis band Big Star, you probably count yourself among one of the people who was absolutely flabbergasted to hear the local T.G.I. Friday's talked about like a booze-and-drug-soaked madhouse that had more in common with CBGB or the Viper Room than a Chili's or Applebee's.

Nothing Can Hurt Me
T.G.I. Friday's in the '70s, ladies and gentlemen.

The antics apparently carried over to a third location in Dallas, where stories abound of men in gorilla suits who would routinely storm the building. A news columnist suggested putting the menu in a time capsule "to show future generations where all the madness began." It's at this point that I'll remind you that I'm talking about goddamn T.G.I. Friday's.

According to Stillman, it was expansion that put an end to the chain's raucous lifestyle. As it turns out, mall developers aren't too keen on the idea of moving a rock 'n' roll dive bar into their parking lots when a place that's willing to sing "Happy Birthday" to your kids is also an option. In order to grow, Friday's had to grow up. Fucking sellouts.

#3. Russia Takes Their Anti-American Anger Out On McDonald's

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On the long list of people you should consider feeling sorry for, it's highly doubtful that the McDonald's corporation places anywhere near the top, if they even make the list in the first place. After all, we're talking about the crown jewel of the fast food industry's war on our right to not have diabetes. There are entire documentaries dedicated to the horrible effects that their decades of runaway success have had on people around the world.

So it's with kind of a heavy heart that I say here, on the record, right now: "Hey Russia, quit being so mean to McDonald's."

Here's the thing: When Russia was finally opened up to investors from the west, McDonald's was one of the first to get in on the action.

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Business was slow at first, on account of their inability to fit the entire nation inside one restaurant.

Given their country of origin and their dominance in the global market, it's no surprise that some in Russia eventually came to see McDonald's as an embodiment of America itself. As such, whenever we do something that makes them mad, Russia starts being kind of a dick to McDonald's.

In July of last year, just weeks after sanctions imposed by the US took effect, Russia had the Filet-O-Fish removed from stores in that country, claiming an investigation had revealed its calorie content was two to three times higher than advertised, as if that's the biggest concern with fish from a Russian McDonald's.

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Made from 100-percent Lake Pigeon!

They took it a step further a few weeks later by shutting down several McDonald's locations, including the first ever, which is still the most popular one in Moscow. As funny as the thought of a piece of shit government taking out its anger on a piece of shit of corporation may be, there's a huge hitch in that, unlike in this country, popular opinion in Russia hasn't turned against McDonald's. If anything, the people of Moscow were just upset over losing one of the few cheap places to eat in the city. Many spoke out in favor of McDonald's, writing the store shutdowns off as nothing more than a politics.

As tensions between the two countries increased throughout the year, Russia pulled the biggest dick move of all. After shutting down even more stores, they launched an investigation into Ronald McDonald House Charities on suspicion of money laundering. Do you understand how corrupt you have to be for the Russian government to investigate you for corruption?

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Reminder: This man will fucking kill you.

Way more corrupt than Ronald McDonald House, that's for damn sure. The entirety of Russia's "case" against the charity is that they listed some of their assets under "other" on a tax form that was posted publicly on their own website. No one posts evidence of money laundering to the Internet. That is just not how crime works.

When asked if he'd received actual reports of wrongdoing, State Duma Deputy Andrei Krutov said he had not, but added, "I haven't heard any gratitude either." So you know, obviously they're guilty.

Listen, Russia: Stop being a dick to McDonald's. That's America's job. It's like having a shitty younger sibling. You might hate them at home, but that doesn't mean everyone else gets to hate them in public. That tends to make a person angry, and what's happening to McDonald's in Russia right now, as an American, should also make you kind of angry.

Fuck them still in every other way, though. Until the McRib comes back.

#2. Coke Operated Like A Drug Cartel In Mexico For Years

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Coke and Pepsi have been fighting the Cola Wars for years, with no clear sign of things coming to a peaceful end any time soon. Traditionally, it's always been a close fight, with Coke's market share hovering somewhere around 40 percent, with Pepsi claiming closer to 30 percent. How that came to be is a damn interesting story in its own right, and we'll get to it, right after this one.

For now, let's focus on the Coke vs. Pepsi war as seen in other countries. Like Mexico, for example, where Coke holds an awe inspiring 70-percent share of the "drinks that will rot your teeth" market. That's a pretty big disparity compared to their lead over Pepsi in the States. How did they pull that off? Simple: In Mexico, Coke operates like a bunch of goddamn thugs.

The Coca-Cola Export Corporation, as they're called in Mexico, carved out that massive market share by going around to individual retailers and taking time out to threaten each one personally. Basically, shops were told they would no longer be allowed to sell Coke if they stocked drinks made by their competitors.

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"Will you stop being dramatic? Of course you can still sell cocaine."

Obviously, not being able to stock the most popular drink in the country would mean financial disaster for most store owners, especially those in the more impoverished areas of Mexico.

This presumably started as far back as when NAFTA finally paved the way for America to ruin Mexico. It went on unchecked until 2002, when a lone store owner, a woman named Raquel Chavez, finally fought back. She'd been told her Coke supply was being cut off after she started selling a rival soda brand from Peru called Big Cola.

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Grab one with your dominant arm and remember to lift with your legs and not your back today!

Rather than bow to their demands, she said their actions were unconstitutional, adding in this interview, "I didn't really know if it was unconstitutional, but I said it anyway."

As we've learned so many times in this country, it doesn't matter if it's constitutional or not, so long as you say the word "unconstitutional" and aren't afraid of taking that shit to court. Raquel Chavez was more than happy to file a lawsuit. I know, like a Mexican shop owner is going to take down Coke in court, right? Well, they might if Pepsi joins in on the lawsuit. That happened, and in 2005, the Coca-Cola Export Corporation was ordered to pay $68 million in damages, with well over half ... going to Pepsi.

Not exactly the outcome one would've hoped for, but still, a win is a win. Also, this wasn't the first time Pepsi exploited Coca-Cola's shadiness for market-building purposes.

#1. Pepsi Thrived Because Segregation Existed

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Walter Mack, a Pepsi executive in the 1940s, was a progressive man who supported progressive causes. As such, when looking into ways to expand his brand's reach in the marketplace, he noticed something unfortunate. In all of Pepsi's advertising at the time, African-Americans were either completely ignored or depicted using only negative stereotypes and imagery. That's when he was struck with what turned out to be a revolutionary idea: Treating blacks like actual people.

Sensing a massive opportunity was afoot, Mack brought in an African-American man named Edward Boyd to head up a team that would create marketing geared toward portraying black people in a positive way. Like this ad, featuring a family throwing down on a six-pack at the dinner table ...

Wikipedia
White People Magazine award winner for Most Terrifying Ad of 1947.

Of course, this was still the 1940s, so Pepsi's efforts weren't exactly applauded. Boyd's team faced constant threats and harassment from the racist masses almost every step of the way. They persevered, though, and were even able to use Coca Cola's blatant racism to boost their market share further after Boyd distributed a Time Magazine report about a Coke executive's support of Herman Talmadge, a staunch segregationist who also happened to be the governor of Georgia at the time.

The campaign was a rousing success, so much so that it's credited with launching the concept of niche marketing. Pepsi's market share increased dramatically, even overtaking Coke entirely in markets like Chicago.

Unfortunately, this otherwise positive story does come with the obligatory reminder that, at the end of the day, this is still corporate America we're talking about.

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They only have one boss.

Pepsi's newfangled business tactics didn't sit well with people within the company and various affiliates who didn't want to be portrayed as exclusively marketing to blacks, for fear of pushing away white customers altogether. Walter Mack, progressive man who supported progressive causes, dissuaded those fears in front of an audience of 500 or so Pepsi bottlers at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in the most sad and pandering way imaginable, saying, "We don't want it become known as a nigger drink."

Like I said, this is corporate America we're talking about. Would you expect the story to end any other way?

5 Ways The Gaming Industry Is Way More Sexist Than You Think

Every time an industry dominated by one gender starts to become more diverse, the transition period is bumpy. Female politicians were dismissed by their opponents, women soldiers had to fight for their right to fight, and male flight attendants were ridiculed for their passion for infuriatingly tiny peanut bags. Now the video game industry is going through that same rough transition, so we spoke to a few women in the industry about it: Brianna Wu and Amanda Warner of indie game developer Giant Spacekat, game journalist Katie Williams, and another journalist who shall go unnamed for now, presumably because she understands how dumb the Internet can be about this stuff.

#5. My God, The Harassment Is Coming From Inside The Industry!

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Brianna wrote an article for Polygon about the anonymous harassment of women in the industry. So of course she got a lot of anonymous harassment for it, because irony is a complicated concept, but being shitty is pretty basic. Since we talked to her, it's only gotten worse, and death threats containing her home address have come pouring in. If you're a woman in the game industry and you're vocal about wanting to be treated like a human being, hate mail is just another part of your day. That constant stream of abuse can pour over into your friendships, marriage, and professional life, because negativity is a liquid, and it always settles at the bottom. And trust us, you don't want that shit all up in your soul: It tastes of old hot dog water and partially digested Jagermeister.

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The best souls taste like cotton candy and rainbows.

Every woman we talked to has encountered the attitude "You just need to suck it up and be strong." But, as Katie points out, that's putting the onus on the wrong person.

"I see that as kind of victim-blaming. It's not other people's fault for being terrible human beings; it's your fault for not being able to deal with it. There's something wrong with you, not them. And that's a really sad attitude for people to have to put up with. But it's quite common. I think every woman in the industry knows it, whether they admit it or not."

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"Honestly, have you considered Steve, Chris, Frank from accounting, and Chad's feelings
at all during this? Sounds like you're being a bit self-centered."

If you're a woman, you're not allowed to have an emotional reaction to threats that would obviously provoke an emotional reaction in anyone. At least, not without being accused of hysteria. Then you're just a crazy chick taking mean words on the Internet too seriously, and your problem isn't real anymore. That's an awful phenomenon, but it's almost expected at this point: If there's one thing the Internet is good at, it's pornography. If there are two things, it's porn and anonymous dickotry. What really gets you is the harassment that comes from within the industry, and you don't even have to be vocal to encounter it. Amanda ran into an old acquaintance that was looking to get into game development, so she gave him her contact information. She received an email with all the usual professional niceties, but also this gem:

"By the way, I don't want to sound like a creep, and I know you have a husband, but I just wanted to let you know I think you're smokin' hot. If your company ever needs any help play-testing or contract work, let me know!"

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Try that line at a job interview and let us know how it goes.

"I know you have a husband, but ..." is like the "I'm not racist, but ..." of sexual advances -- whatever comes next will sound bad in the best of circumstances.

Amanda said, "I can hear the dudebros saying, 'You should just take the compliment,' but what's so hard to communicate is that it's not a compliment. It's totally out of context and unprofessional. It was unwanted and has no value beyond making the issuer feel powerful and generous."

The unnamed journalist (we'll call her Laserbeam, because our parents never let us name anythingcool) we spoke to was chatting with a colleague about game review scores at a big networking event, when another guy butted in, looked at her, and said: "Yeah, I'd rate her 4 of 10. Well, I'd give her a 9 out of 10 for looks, but personality, 1."

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So, apparently he sucks at both common decency and math.

Laserbeam walked off in stunned silence, because flaming uppercuts are sadly still limited to Street Fighter. Someone else approached her immediately after wanting to know what she and the editor of a major gaming news site were just talking about.

"That was a really terrifying experience for me, knowing that this guy who was disgustingly sexist and felt entitled to come up to me in a bar and rate me wasn't just some guy, but was the editor of a really well-known publication that has a lot of power. It's something I've only told a few people, because in this industry you don't want to make enemies."

#4. Women Are Still Fighting Bizarre, Outdated Stereotypes

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While society has moved past a lot of stereotypes surrounding women, the idea that they're inherently inferior at math, programming, and other STEM subjects is weirdly persistent. Despite the fact that study after study finds that boys and girls are more or less equally capable at math, women continue to be underrepresented in STEM fields. In fact, the numbers are trending down, from 34 percent in 1990 to 27 percent in 2011.

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As represented by this graph, possibly. It's not like we'd be writing Internet comedy
if we were good at this stat stuff.

There are a lot of social and cultural factors at work there, but the ridiculous stereotypes that women encounter don't help. When Brianna and Amanda attend conferences, people assume that their husbands are the game developers and they're just the doting wives. This is despite the fact that Brianna's husband, while very talented in his own right, once took around 50 lives to beat the first level of Super Mario Bros.

Jesus, we're sorry, but some sort of nerd implosion just happened in our brains. We're going to have to beat up your husband, Brianna.

Nintendo
There are like two jumps. Come on, man.

At best, Brianna and Amanda find most people assume they work in marketing, HR, or another one of those girly fields, because who's ever heard of a female engineer? Like, why bother with all those numbers if they're not being used to calculate how much you can save on new shoes, right?

Katie went to school for game development and was the only girl in many of her classes. Her fellow students assumed she didn't know much about games, and her teachers assured her that they would make the class easier for her because they knew she wasn't really into gaming, which are weird assumptions to make about someone who explicitly decided to study the subject. It sounds ridiculous, but when you're told something ridiculous often enough, you start to believe it.

"I often felt like I couldn't contribute anything to the class, even though looking back now I know I absolutely could. It was very stereotypical stuff, which sounds ridiculous now, but it added up. I still find it really hard in hindsight just to describe how emotionally impacting that can be on a person."

#3. Many Women Will Have To Choose Between Family And Career

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Video game development is rarely a 9-to-5 job, especially in the months leading up to a game's release. And that makes development a man's game, because it's hard to work 80-hour weeks while also raising a child, which we're told need to be fed once a day and should have their diaper changed weekly.

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"Remember, he needs to be watered at least twice, and make sure to roll him over now
and then so both sides get sunned. All right, I'm off to the office for 18 hours."

Amanda was working at a major studio and was about to go on maternity leave when she was asked, instead, to start putting in more hours. "Boy, I sure have a lot more free time on my hands now that I'm about to give birth!" is not a sentence you often hear. She was able to find more flexibility at Giant Spacekat, but not all women are so lucky. In her words, "Not having that flexibility drives women out in droves." She's not wrong -- 56 percent of women leave the technology industry mid-career, a rate double that of men. Men in the industry have kids too, of course, but because women have the babies they're traditionally the ones who end up taking care of those kids while the fathers spend their nights bringing us the gritty, violent, morally gray reboot of Kirby that we never knew we always wanted.

Nintendo
"Nightmare is good, but what about Death Land? And instead of sucking up enemies,
he eats their flesh, zombie-style?"

To be clear, there isn't a shadowy cabal of game makers looking to exclude women by forcing them to choose between their families and their careers. On the contrary -- most men in the industry would be happy to see more female colleagues.

But ... #notallmen.

#2. If You Talk About These Issues At All, That's All You're Ever Known For

Hill Street Studios/Blend Images/Getty Images

Katie once wrote an article about the time a PR representative took the keyboard away from her and played the game they were demoing on her behalf. All the while he explained the basics of the medium as though she were a newcomer to the phenomenon of "moving picture amusements" and not someone wearing a press pass. She was immediately accused of making the story up by some readers, because when has a man ever been condescending to a woman regarding technology?

Bell & Howell, Datacomp, Voco
Aside from, you know, all the times?

Other readers said it was her own fault for not speaking up and correcting the misconception, while still others suggested she was exaggerating it on account of all her crazy female emotions. The implication is always that she's just looking for attention -- these aren't real problems; Katie just wants to further her career. Brianna has encountered the same kind of thinking:

"Having an opinion on my own equality makes people singularly stereotype me in that one way. It's amazing to me that having the opinion that I should be treated equally makes people only see me for that."

Michael Blann/Digital Vision/Getty Images
"So let's get started on the game design, and please don't all be huge assholes to me. Thanks!"

By speaking out about these issues, she's no longer seen as a game developer who also happens to express her opinion on equality within her own industry; she's a radical man-hater who seems to be accidentally making video games once in a while. Just falling into piles of code and emerging with platformers stuck to her ass.

#1. Progress Is Being Made!

Andrew Olney/Photodisc/Getty Images

If everything you just learned makes you sad, then we have good news! Everyone we interviewed agreed that the industry has made significant progress over the last few years. Also, Cracked bought a pony! AND YOU GET TO NAME IT!

andylid/iStock/Getty Images
"Ginequine."

The fact that we're even concerned about diversity in gaming is a huge change from just a few years ago, when most game studios were worried only about what shade of stubble their white, male space marine protagonist should have. But if it's going to keep improving, Brianna says, men need to take part too:

"I think what men need to understand is that their voice is, frankly, more important than mine in talking to other men and getting their behavior to change. If I call out a guy, he instantly gets extremely defensive, and I'm just some pissed-off feminist chick being hysterical like women are. But if it's a guy talking to a peer, it has more credibility with the kind of men that need to examine their behavior. So, when you see guys saying awful things, just speak up about it. Because we can't change this without your help."

Digital Vision./Photodisc/Getty Images
"Look, the Covenant are the ones destroying humanity. Focus your death threats on them."

It's easy to see criticism of your beloved pastime as a personal attack, and that's why otherwise normal gamers have such a knee-jerk reaction to this conversation. Especially since most geeks have felt ostracized by society for their hobbies already -- any confrontation raises the shields, even if that confrontation is meant not as an attack but the start of a conversation. All you can do is try to highlight the "good" options in the dialogue wheel.

You can learn more about Giant Spacekat's first game, Revolution 60, at its official website. You can follow Brianna on Twitter here, and Amanda here. Katie's on Twitter too, and she also has a website.If you're not sick of clicking on links yet, you can read more from Mark at his website.