Ethnographic Exercise 6

Manpreet Kaur
Nov 4 · 3 min read

The first place that I visited was a restaurant called First Watch. During my visit, I witnessed multiple interactions between the staff and customers. The first thing I noticed upon walking in to the establishment was that there were multiple groups of people sitting along the window and standing by the door waiting to be seated. The man at the counter took down people’s names and put them into a list on a tablet in order to be seated. As the first person you see and talk to when stepping in to the establishment, he smiled a bit but seemed a bit flustered, which made sense because he was surrounded by people that wanted him to seat them during a busy time. The waiters that served each table were wearing aprons with the restaurant logo on them and seemed friendly, frequently smiling and asking the tables if they needed anything else and if the food was okay. At the table that I was seated at, the waiter was a gentleman in his late 40’s (estimated), and stopped by the table frequently to ask how we were doing. He also stopped by while we were waiting for our food to tell us that the food had been burned so he asked the cook to remake it which is why it was taking longer than expected. He made eye contact with both myself and my friend, and made quick jokes before he left the table to address other customers. Having to smile and explain situations, like a messed up meal, is doing emotional labor because there is a need to prepare for the response that the customer will have. Also, as a server, having to be constantly in a good mood, dealing with frustrated customers and still having to smile and be friendly is emotionally laborious.

The second place that I visited for this assignment was Jimmy Johns. During my time there what I noticed about customer/employee interactions was that when there was a customer that the employee seemed to know well, assuming they were a regular customer, the person taking the order was very nice, joking and laughing with the customer while taking the order. Later there was a customer that didn’t know what they wanted and looked at the menu for a long time and continued to ask questions when they stepped up to the counter. The employee, an african american female in her 30’s, tried to be polite but her voice sounded strained and she was not making eye contact with the customer. She seemed annoyed by the indecisive nature of the customer and did little to hide it. The employees were wearing jimmy john shirts and hats, which clearly distinguished them as employees of the establishment. Dealing with and being polite to customers that are indecisive is emotional labor and in the case of this employee, she did little to hide her annoyance at the customer.

There were no conflicts that occurred at either of the establishments while I was there. There were distinct differences at both places, for example at Jimmy Johns, both of the employees were african american women, and the customers that came in were students or hospital staff. At First Watch, there were 4 women working but the rest of the staff were white males, and the customers were majority white. At food service establishments, there is a large amount of emotional labor that takes place when dealing with customers that might not know what they want and have questions, get frustrated for whatever reason, and all in all may just be in a bad mood. Also, because many people working in food service have to rely largely on tips to make a decent living, there is pressure to be overly nice and present yourself extremely well in order to please customers.