Literacy Practices Pertaining to the Training Process in Restaurants- By Abby Weisenberger

For my ethnographic essay, I chose to study newly employed servers in the restaurant industry. The focus of this essay is the writing practices and genres used by the servers during the training process in order to become part of this discourse community. The restaurant business is a fast moving pace job that needs to have an organized group of employees in order for the restaurant to be successful and profitable. In order for this to happen, the servers need to know how to effectively communicate with fellow employees and their customers. With this said, the proper requirement’s to become a server need to be met by having an effective training process that teaches the server how to communicate and the other elements that go along with this job. In order to successfully enter into the discourse community of servers at a restaurant, one needs to be properly trained in order to obtain the correct knowledge and understanding of the job. I will look at the different literacy practices involved in the training process that allows one to enter into this discourse community. This is important to accomplish not only to keep the restaurant running smoothly, but because the various literacy practices found in the training process can be applied for any type of discourse community that requires substantial amounts of communication.

After observing, interviewing, and reading scholarly sources on this topic, I have come to the conclusion that the training process waitresses and waiters go through in order to be part of the discourse community is crucial for the restaurant to function appropriately. Within this training process lye numerous types of literacy practices that construct the overall process. Grant Cairncross states in his article that, “The importance of training has been identified as a way to achieve professionalism, improve the levels of service quality, improve consistency and maintain a set standard. Additionally, it helps to increase the experience of staff, ensure they do it the right way, guarantees standards and systems of work, attains timeliness and reliability, increases communication and stimulates staff while helping deliver the economic bottom line”. Through this statement, one can see the overall goal that the training process wants to achieve to make their restaurant and employees the best it can possibly be.

The key part of my primary research was done through observation, in which I went through the process of getting trained with a newly hired employee at O’Charley’s restaurant. Through this observation, I got to explore the different task one was asked to accomplish during the training process in order to become a member in the discourse community of other servers at the restaurant. Some of the task were to pass a written test on the menu and overall customer service, memorize the different abbreviations of the foods, learn how to communicate with the customers and fellow employees properly, and follow along another server for a few days to see how the job is done. The number one task the server has to perform is to pass the test. This is an important practice of literacy that is used in order to enter into this discourse community. Most people only think of taking a written test in school, but a large amount of jobs require a written test to be performed and passed to attain that job. The four page long test was written with multiple choice, fill in the blanks, and short essays that tested on the ingredients of the meals, proper customer service, prices of the different foods, and the various types of glassware used and when. Also, a few changes were added to the general menu for the month of May, which resulted in the servers already in the discourse community to take another test on the updated menu. This type of literacy practice allows for the server to know the material in-depth to the point that will satisfy the customer’s needs and questions. Below is a clip from my interview with a newly employed waitress briefly describing the test that she had to pass.

Menu test by weisenay Another assignment that was emphasized in the training process was the act of language use through abbreviations. When observing the process, I noticed the manager showing the server how to punch the meal title into the computer, which contained short abbreviated words or letters for the different types of meals ordered. Also, I observed a few phrases spoken between the employees that I was unsure of the meaning. Later, I asked the manager the reasoning behind abbreviating the meal titles. Basically, she said the servers are trained to learn short-handed abbreviations of the names of the meals so the cooks and everyone in the restaurant is on the same system and communication level. This allows the cooks to know the exact order by matching the abbreviations with the meal that it correlates with. By using abbreviations, it makes communication between the servers and the cooks easy with little confusion and keeps the restaurant running smoothly and the customers happy. This type of short-handed language used with the computer system by the servers is the primarily written language used between the employees within this discourse community. With out this language, communication between the employees would be immensely affected. An article about the importance of waiting staff in restaurant service gives some feedback on how vital it is to be properly trained on communicating with other employees through the known language they use. The article discusses an interview with some of a staff at a restaurant and states that, “The chefs who contributed to the interviews pointed out several problems they found with waiting staff, and they often blamed inexperience or inadequate training. They raised the issue of poor handwriting on the order that had been taken from the customer and putting this order in the wrong positions so that it was not given the appropriate attention (Pratten)". If the restaurants required abbreviations and language is not properly taught or learned by the trainer and server, communication within the discourse community can be negatively effected. A picture is attached below, which shows some of the abbreviations that are used.

While observing the overall behavior of the restaurant employees, I recognized that the spoken language is a major literacy practice within this discourse community as well. I observed a few phrases spoken between the employees that I was unsure of the meaning. An example is, “You are cut”, which simply means the server is done taking customers for their shift and has to complete “side work” before one can leave. Other types of language or restaurant lingo was briefly discussed in the training process that involved knowing the table numbers and sections, which made it easy for the server to know which tables they were taking care of. This type of language or lingo is merely within this discourse community and is something focused on in the training process as well as acquired with time and experience. If this language wasn’t prominent in this discourse community, the restaurant would be chaos and no direction or organization would be maintained to keep the customers happy.

During the training process, the server was introduced to more than one menu. In my interview with a recently hired waitress, I analyzed her responses to a few questions about the menus and saw the importance of audience. Three different menus ware used, which included a children’s menu, a general menu for ages eleven and above, and an alcoholic menu. The menus represented the audience it was geared towards by the written work on the menu and the overall portrayal. The children’s menu included cross word puzzles, pictures to color, and a short simple description of the kids meals, while the general menu included longer descriptions of the meals, with pictures of only the various foods. Similar to the general menu, the alcoholic menu included only alcoholic beverages and was given to customers of age. With this said, the different menus could represent different types of genres within the discourse community, in which the language and presentation of the menu are geared towards a certain audience. Another audience-based gesture that I observed within this discourse community was the language spoken to the customers. Previously discussed, there is a well-known language between the employees that is taught in training, but there is also a language spoken to the customers that is different. The language spoken to the customers is more formal and professional based, which involves the server speaking the full name of the meals instead of abbreviations and a requirement to make the customer feel welcomed and comfortable. This shows the different languages and communications within this discourse community depending on the audience one is speaking with. Below is a clip of the waitress describing the different menus.

Audiences by weisenay

Through my ethnographic research, I have become well aware of the different literacy practices emphasized in the training process to become a member of the discourse community of servers. If the literacy practices involved in the discourse community are properly taught and learned during the training process, the overall discourse community is able to perform with better communication through the use of various language activities. The primary literacy practices that enable one to become part of this discourse community are efficient language use to promote productive communication and passing a written test that shows knowledge of the task within the community. From the study done on this discourse community, it is clear to see one needs to be properly trained to complete and understand the correct literacy practices that are within this discourse community that make it successful.

Work Cited

Cairncross, Grant, Simon Wilde, and Lucinda Hutchinson. "Training and Service Quality—A Case Study Analysis of Regional Australian Restaurants." Tourism & Hospitality: Planning & Development 5.2 (2008): 149-163. Hospitality & Tourism Complete. EBSCO. Web. 31 May 2011.

Pratten, J. "The importance of waiting staff in restaurant service." British Food Journal 105.10/11 (2003): 826.