Student Name

Dr Bailie

English 2089

10 August 2019

Chameleons

Everyone has heard the phrase ‘Only death and taxes are certain in this life.’ I can

promise you, anyone who works in the service industry, is open to the first one and is constantly

cursing the second one applying to cash nowadays. The food service industry is both vast and

complex in the array of demographics whom both work or are guests within the industry. The

workers themselves make up a discourse community full of every background imaginable. This

melting pot of backgrounds, to me, reflects the same melting pot of the early immigration booms

of the USA, mainly because in my mind the purpose is the same, finding a better path for life.

Whether food service is your way out of minimum wage, maintain flexible hours for your kids or

simply to stay afloat financially during school or another rough time. Personally, food service

has always offered hours I prefer and the money is far better than every job I’ve worked

(particularly in finer dining). Making north of $20 an hour after taxes in today’s world without a

degree or certifications is a godsend. Due to this I’m 3-4 times better off than if I was working 40

hours of minimum wage work, plus I have the option of benefits which most minimum wage

positions won’t allow access to via hour manipulation. At my current job, my ability to produce

money for myself and the source of the love/hate relationship I have with work, is the menu. The

source of everything I have available to serve to a customer is located on this artifact (and some

others such as a draft list, bottled wine list, etc) and the entire context for my interaction with

someone is based on the following menu.

2

Fig. 1. Parkers Blue Ash Taverns current dinner menu.

3

Fig. 2. Parkers Blue Ash Tavern Drinks Menu, this does not include draft beer or bottles of wine.

My first job in food service was during my time as a student at Case Western. It was a

means to put easy money on my table talking about food and drinks I liked to take part in. It was

4

an easy fit for my personality and helped me in the pursuit of my goals. Fast forward a number of

years and I choose to reenter the food service industry once I became a civilian again. Rejoining

again was for both familiar and new reasons; starting school again, flexible hours, having

experience in the field, good money, availability for two jobs, to name a few. Once I entered

employment at Parkers Blue Ash Tavern and thus renewed my membership in this lovely

discourse community, I was made familiar with many standards and practices, all of which are

listed in training manuals or employment handbooks. The hands on training persists of learning

about the menu, preparation and serving of all the menu items. This begins the never ending

process of understanding the full menu, preparation and manipulations. This extends to cocktails,

wine and bourbon as well. During the actual training phase I would simply observe all the food

as it left the kitchen, noting the garnish, side items, substitutions or changes to the meal, sauces

and even the plating method. Doing this daily is a piece of the constant practice and fine tuning

we do to our craft within the discourse community.

But there is more to be done, the discourse has to take place. I will focus on when I

discuss food and beverage with guests in order to keep the subject related on discourse related to

the menu and the pertinent rhetorical situations it brings on. The first question asked by myself

after pleasantries is always, “May I get you anything to drink other than water?” or some version

of that. Rarely do I attempt to suggest anything as an up sale tactic unless they are already

looking over a certain section of our menu and I thus can clearly see their interest in an item.

This is my attempt to be observant, courteous and considerate, words not in the capitalist

vocabulary. This is often where the first real discourse comes into play, “I’m in the mood for a

nice bourbon (could be any alcoholic beverage).” is a phrase I here quite frequently. It’s a simple

statement from the guest that opens the door, instead of me forcing the door open by asking,

5

“Would anyone care for a bourbon this evening? Waiting for the customer to open the door to a

new rhetorical situation by referencing a type of drink or an item on the menu is the meat and

potatoes of my job, pun intended. After a brief bit discourse followed by a selection or a tasting,

rounds out the first round of discourse pertinent to the menu itself.

The menu holds even greater weight over the second round of the discourse, starters and

entrees. Asparagus is a tasty side item we offer that is a two dollar charge as a substitution item,

is sauteed in oil, never butter, with a pinch of salt and pepper. Oh, and be sure to know that’s

90/10 olive oil/canola blend we saute and fry in. That is a small amount of information I have on

hand for people asking about the asparagus. I can do this same exercise with the orange

horseradish marmalade the tops the blackened swordfish, to the quality and local of that fish, to

the spice level of our blackening seasoning, and literally everything else on the menu. That menu

is a guide for my guests to ask me questions or inquire, I use very little information from the

menu itself in my talks with my guests, I merely use it as a guide for them to ask me things and

to point out some items they might also enjoy. The dessert menu is something I use seldom, so

that if there is any interest in sweets I can focus on painting a picture of our sweets rather than

you briefly reading over the 5 options we have. To me that tiny dessert menu is a detractor, so I

lean on my mental menu and word of mouth to educate the guest in what we offer. In this case

the physical lack of a menu causes a late meal reminder of my expertise on the subject matter

and lets me hold the important position of the menu for a brief moment. The function of the

menu is what’s important; that menu could be verbal or a long front and back document full of

selections. Knowing what that menu is capable of and anticipating the many rhetorical situations

that can come about based on the selections listed is what makes me an expert, on this particular

menu, within my discourse community.

6

Based on everything I’ve mentioned so far I think it’s very clear that this discourse

community I continually reference, matches the description of a discourse community laid out by

Swales in his work “The Concept of Discourse Community.” The first two criteria, having a

broadly agreed upon set of goals and having mechanisms for intercommunication between

members are both met with ease. Making money and appeasing guests are our rules plain and

simple, while we intercommunicate via every way imaginable; talking, hand gestures, phones

and even formal and informal meetings. The third and fourth criteria laid out by Swales require a

discourse community to use its participatory mechanisms as a method to provide information and

gain feedback as well as requiring a discourse community to take ownership of a genre and seek

change and improvement through its implementation. These means of inter communication I

previously mentioned are used to discuss the happenings and changes day to day, both regarding

our service and our products, satisfying the third criteria.

The fourth is easily appeased simply the ever changing employee handbook, rotating

draft menus changing, menu updates and daily word of mouth specials. For the fifth and sixth

criteria Swales stated that a discourse community must have its own lexis and have a revolving

door of membership based on discourse expertise. Every specific job would have its own lexus in

this discourse community, one easy example is Waffle House servers barking out orders to the

chef in some language you only understand well if you’ve worked there or drink enough to end

up at Waffle House a lot. The last criteria is met by having a hiring process, training process and

then a certain level of experience, or time served as we often allude to it as, in order to be a

member of this discourse community. This coast to coast rag-tag group of chameleons serving

people we do not like, making money for a company we typically show disdain for all while

smiling certainly makes up a proper discourse community in the eyes of Swales.

7

The reasons for anyone joining are very circumstantial in this discourse community. As a

previous manager Michelle once said, “No one plans to work in food service, it just happens,”

and my coworkers and I embody that quite completely. This anecdote plays a heavy hand in the

impact this discourse community makes upon its members. Nearly every server I’ve ever spoken

to, when asked, has a job in an entirely different industry they would vastly prefer to work

within. These facts, mixed with the constant nature of requests being made at our behest during

work, creates a bitterness towards people and interactions with the public. Yet, all servers’

money depends on their customers happiness to a large degree, thus we constantly work to

satisfy customers whom we as a discourse community have a general disdain.

What this environment means for us within the discourse community, outside of the jabs

at guests and complaints about orders or attitudes from our customers, is a real desire to unplug

from human interaction when outside of work. Even with coworkers, it is frequent that we all

want nothing to do with one another after hours, preferring solitude and decompression from the

human experience. Without diving into any psychology or behavioral sciences, I will state,

members of this discourse community tend to excel at interacting with other people, yet can be

exhausted due to the repetitive, exercise like feel of such interactions. Underlying bitterness

towards the general public and a disdain for interaction aren’t exactly what I would call positive

side effects of the community. Within our discourse community we often play the chicken and

egg game with these frustrations and our time working within the industry.

Other, more subtle, changes in my behavior have come about as a consequence of having

membership within this discourse community throughout my life. The need to ‘blow off steam’

that has arisen for me is rivaled only by my time spent on active duty. That’s a strange parallel to

come across, but it is one I see many other members of this discourse community share with me

8

as well. I often say or hear the phrase ‘I need a drink after this’ or a number of other phrases

related to vices of choice, upon reaching the middle of a shift. Attached to this need to destress is

also a need to not be an inconvenience while de-stressing. Whenever myself or any member has

any interaction with another person, whether it’s buying a drink, ordering food, getting a bottle

of water at Kroger or waiting for a clerk to reach you in the electronics department, we are

constantly thinking about it from their side.

Being a member of the food service industry has two primary side effects for its

members, empathy and stress. As discussed both of these attributes are very focused on human

interaction due to the nature of the lifestyle and job required for membership within this

discourse community. An interesting discourse community where our normal discourse

regarding topic expertise is actually with non members or guests while our ability to discourse

and our feelings about that discourse are honed and shared within the community. This constant

back and forth between interaction with non members and members all day, is the main reason

for the most entertaining consequence of all, the Two Face like ability to flip our outward facing

emotions in the blink of an eye, which equates quite well how we work everyday, constantly

shifting to whatever simple responses our guests give in response to the simple questions we ask,

forever playing chameleon, on and off the clock.

9

Works Cited

Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Genre Analysis: English in Academic

and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990. 21-32. Print.