Waitressing

Something I was pondering the other day as I had dinner on my own at Saizeriya (It's a Japanese Italian Diner) is how waiters and waitresses get trained. In the interest of not having to write out "waiter or waitress" every time, I'm going to use them interchangeably. If I use one, I mean both/and. If I use both, I am addressing something specific. If I end up using one more than the other, you've read into it too much and spent time counting it. Consider my narrative voice and the labour/joy of writing.

Waitresses need to remember a lot of orders and faces. They need to be able to place an order with a face in a spatial location within a restaurant. I was thinking about it and one of the obvious ways to manage this is to use shorthand on the checks. But beyond this, will it hold up to tens of orders in a crowded bar or restaurant? What about in a 5 star restaurant where the added pressure of reputation dwells?

I imagine waitresses need to be able to take a lot of psychological stress. This being especially true in cultures that demand perfection. When a customer could at any fault cause a scene, the waiter is under an invisible pressure to perform. When the customer could be an inspection officer or a ratings board commissioner, there's also another pressure to perform. When, in countries that do have tipping, your performance as a waiter determines how much money you make, there's yet another pressure tacked on!

What are the coping mechanisms to that? Rather, how do waiters circumvent this pressure? By doing their job well and to the T. How do they do that? The following is theory, as I am not, and probably won't be in the future, a waiter. Shall we?

I imagine that though waitressing involves a fair amount of rote memorization of orders and the menu, it also involves a more nuanced view of people. That is, they may over time pick up on food stereotypes. Granted everyone has their taste of choice, but are there not also similarities in diets according to people types? I am not talking about outright racism towards the consumer, but an internal thought process that may aid in memorizing the orders. For example, working at a late night diner you may come into contact with truckers and policemen. In theory, and over time, you would find the foods that they tend to have on their late night runs. Is this not a logical assumption?

I find that most people would see this as racism when this is actually stereotyping. Stereotyping helps us get around our diverse world, as long as we recognize stereotypes don't define people and there are always outliers. Prejudice is a way of thinking against a particular people group and racism usually indicates some sort of action (i.e. genocide, segregation). Yet another musing to come after this.