I’ve always said in an alternate life I’d like to be a baker. And seeing that I’m only 30, I keep telling myself it’s really not too late to make that happen in this life. So when I saw an ad for cooperative bakers at a pizza and sweet shop I’d heard of, I immediately signed up for the orientation. In their materials, they discuss how they train you as a baker for 4 months before the shop opens (and pay you a fair wage during this time). It seemed like a no-brainer: I’m currently freelancing and not making much money, and someone would pay me while they taught me how to make morning buns and thin pizzas? Sign me up.

I received an email about the orientation, informing me it would be 3 hours and I was required to stay for the whole thing. Yikes. But hey, it was kismet. This was the answer to my “alternate life” dilemma. At the orientation, I learned all about collectives (as Arizmendi is a collective based on the Cheese Board in Berkeley) and communal decision making. I started to get a little nervous. I have a strong, domineering personality. But hey, I wanted to learn how to make kookie brittle and chocolate chunk cookies for the masses.

Then we did a scenario where we were told we were stranded on a desert island; we had a list of 10 courses of action and we had to rank which one to tackle first. We did the exercise first on our own and then handed them in to the orientation organizers. Then we got together with groups of 6-8 and had to make a “communal decision.” So instead of voting (apparently the easy fall-back way in which our society looks to solve problems), everyone must be heard and everyone must feel like they “can live with the decision” before we moved on. Looking at my other group members, I got a little more nervous. And a teeny bit skeptical. Our group didn’t get all that far.

Towards the end of the orientation, the leaders made an announcement: they usually don’t single out individuals because that’s not what the exercise is about, but “Can Megan Gordon please raise your hand?” Compared to the answers the survival experts gave, I’d scored 100% on my individual ranking. I tried not to make ‘I told you so’ eye contact with a few group members who had questioned my strong feelings that calming the hysterical individual on our island is, obviously, our first priority.

I just finished Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone, a lovely food memoir tracing her history and memories of food growing up. After college, Reichl moved to Berkeley and lived in a communal-type housing arrangement while working at The Swallow, a restaurant collective that sounds quite similar to the bakery collective where I’d applied. Of her experience there, she notes: “It was a typical Swallow meeting; everybody had an opinion, nobody had a solution. We talked for four hours and we did nothing. The only decision we made was to add Antionette’s new chocolate pumpkin cake to our repertoire.”

I must echo Reichl’s implied sentiment. When everyone has an opinion and itmust be consulted, heard, and taken into consideration before a decision is made–how can any definitive decision be made that everyone feels good about? Does everyone really need to feel good about every decision? I love the idea of collectives. I really, in my soul of souls, agree with it and appreciate all of the time the bakers spent educating us. In fact, I went to the 9th Avenue shop the next day for a slice and to say hi (remember me– I’m Megan Gordon from the island…).
But it’s just not my bag. I want to learn how to make those cornmeal cherry scones, but not that badly. Instead, I learned something else about myself: apparently, I’m your go-to gal on a desert island, I quietly excuse people who disagree with me, and I like a good democratic vote every now and again.