Katie Malone

Course: English 485

Instructor: Dr. Paul Sawyer

Assignment: Ethnography

Introduction

I performed this ethnographical research as a participant. I explored the culture of employees in a restaurant by examining and recording the restaurant’s environment, employees, benefits, and policies. This account is detailed to the best of my knowledge, and the identities of the participants have been withheld.

Setting

You don’t get to park in the parking lot. You have to park at the nearby corporate home-improvement center. Their parking lot is huge and there are plenty of extra parking places. From there, you walk along a fenced drainage canal, across the parking lot or behind the dumpster of the neighboring restaurant, and across the parking lot to the back door of The Restaurant. Hash and blunts have been smoked and cars have been detailed in the parking lot. To the right of the back door is the employee smoking area where there is a Smoker’s Outpost that frequently catches on fire because some employees use it like a trash can. There may be anywhere between 0-12 chairs and 0-4 empty kegs scattered around at any given time. The kegs are often used as a place to sit down when the chair count is low. Right next to this is the dumpster and the grease trap. Ripe smells often emanate from this area.

Upon entering the back door, on the left wall is a corkboard with the current and following weekly schedules. Here you will also find various announcements for mandatory meetings, up-coming classes for bar cards, and/or emails regarding a company policy or procedure. There is a white shelf, high over-head, that holds printer paper and plastic replica oyster sacks (to package t-shirts). Hanging from the shelf are employee and left-behind customer jackets and sweaters.

To the right of the back door is the managers’ office. It is not very big, maybe 10”x6’, and four managers share it: Sid, Haywood, Milton, and Beulah. It is painted royal blue and has typical office equipment and supplies: two computers and monitors, two desk chairs, file cabinets, first-aid kit, staples, rubber bands, paper clips, hole puncher, extra silverware and utensils, a tool box, etc. On the walls hang clip-boards with food, liquor, and supply order sheets. Under the in-boxes, you can find the request-off book which is a small black day planner where employees indicate which days they will need off. This office is also a hot-spot every Thursday when paychecks are handed out.

To the right of the office door is the t-shirt cabinet where employees and customers can buy uniforms or souvenirs, respectively. Beyond this area are the prep room, store room, the dish room, and the kitchen. Latoya works in the prep room, sometimes with other line-cooks, during the day. You have to walk by her to get to the storeroom where dry goods and paper supplies (napkins, toilet paper, to-go boxes, etc.) are located. At any given time the prep room will smell like raw seafood, brown sugar, or crab boil.

Gillette, Popeye, and Slim work in the dish room. The walls are lined with racks of clean cooking utensils. A roll cart holds all the dinnerware for serving, which servers are responsible for clearing. The ice machines are located nearby and the scoops sometimes get buried in ice, because employees forget to put them back in the bucket. A radio tuned to WQUE 93.3 plays on top of the stainless steel dish washer. On Sundays, it is tuned to the Saints games.

The kitchen looks like a long corridor lined with stainless steel appliances. There is a grill, a toaster, a 50-gallon kettle, a convection oven about the size of a hot tub, a couple of coolers, a steam table, and three double basket fryers. The fresh air vent overhead emphasizes the current climate by blowing directly on the necks of the fry cook and griller, hot air in the summer and chilled air in the winter. In charge of this outfit is Milton, the kitchen manager who performs line-checks to ensure proper temperatures and storage of the food. He typically works during the day while the supervisor, Patton, keeps things in order at night.

The kitchen primarily cooks fried seafood including shrimp, oysters, crabs, crawfish, and catfish. Po-boys, platters, and salads are offered. They grill chicken, shrimp, burgers, and tuna. They serve rice dishes, such as gumbo, red beans, and jambalaya. They fry onion rings, crab claws, meat pies, chicken wings, and hushpuppies. Desserts range from pecan cobbler to Bananas Foster cheesecake, and bread pudding is complimentary on birthdays. Some employees love to sing “Happy Birthday,” and others hate it or refuse to participate.

The wait-station line is often the busiest spot in the restaurant. Here, the Expo makes sure the food is prepared correctly and asks servers to run food. Servers run food, fulfill requests for lemons, napkins, or ketchup, place their food orders, and process payments here. This is where coffee and tea are brewed. Line cooks refill their drinks at the soda fountain. Bus-boys take out trash, replace soda syrups, and clear bus tubs of dirty dishes. Hostesses get high-chairs and pick up to-go orders; bartenders refill their condiments. Servers and bus-boys are constantly coming in and out of the dish room, as well as the dining room, and into the wait-station, which leads to occasional collisions and near-collisions with each other.

The dining room is connected to the bar and the party room. There are 23 tables in the dining room, five in the bar, and the party room can hold 30 people. All tables are covered in black and white checkerboard table cloths with condiment caddies placed in the center or at the edge of the table. Mirrors line some of the walls and posts. Neon signs glow beer logos on every wall. Saints and LSU memorabilia and art are mixed in with the neon signs. Customers often complain that the temperature is too low or the fans are on too high. Some of the servers, bus-boys, and shuckers agree with the customers. Some disagree.

The bar seats nine people and has a glass-encased grill station attached to it. Beyond them is a walk-in cooler that holds cases of beer, white wine, and kegs. The walk-in cooler is often disorganized and reeks of beer. Sometimes rubber floor mats are placed behind the bar. Sometimes they are not. Shelves are lined with bottles of vodka, gin, tequila, rum, whiskey, and cordials. Cabinets hold kosher salt; bottles of bitters and Worcestershire; wine, Collins, and rocks glasses; soda and to-go cups; and snifters. Beyond is a giant mirror with a neon sign, glowing The Restaurant’s logo. Customers have been arrested in, kicked out of, or enjoyed sports games in the bar.

The back room can serve parties of up to 30 people. It is equipped to show Power Point presentations and has its own a/c system. The walls are completely lined with mirrors, and neon beer signs hang. Customers are welcome to decorate the room for their reserved party. However, it is more commonly used as the eating area for night-shift employees. Some employees are better at clearing their dishes from this room than others. Servers are often found in here, straightening their hair and applying make-up. And, at night, the bartenders use the tables to lay out wet bar mats to dry overnight.

Employees

There are certain employees that only work at night. There are also ones that work only during the day, only on the weekends, never on the weekends, or on any shift available. They range between the ages of 19-63. Most are female and high-school graduates. Few have G.E.D.s or college degrees, some are college students, and some have children. Some are single mothers, none are single fathers. Some have other jobs and some live in half-way houses. Some smoke cigarettes, some are homosexual, and some are vegetarian. Many drink, some smoke pot, and a few self-medicate.

For the most part, everyone gets along and hangs out together after-hours at bars, restaurants, and each other’s houses. Topics of conversation vary and depend on the dynamic of who you are working with. Paris and Bunny like talking about sex, but not necessarily amongst each other. Leroy talks about fishing. Pierre talks about his latest baking endeavors or past drug experiences. Shatzwell makes random pop-culture references. The college students (Jane, Bubbles, Princess, and Toots) talk about current classes, financial aid, and professors they have. However, topics of conversation change as quickly as the shuckers shuck oysters (about a minute and a half a dozen).

Huckster has been heard singing Eddie Holman’s “Hey There Lonely Girl,” while dressing po-boys and joining Grant in Janet Jackson’s “What Have You Done for Me Lately.” Penelope collects Red Crème Soda and Diet Barq’s Root Beer cans to recycle and brings left-over parsley stems, lettuce, and stale bread to her chickens. Cars, Avon, furniture, and home appliances have been. Money has been collected for employees that have been out sick for extended periods of time. Flowers have been sent to employees that grieve over lost loved ones. Flour was thrown in Sid’s face by Shorty. Trash has been thrown on the hood of a car, glitter has blown out of the a/c vents of another car, and mayonnaise has been wiped under car door handles by those employees who like to prank each other.

Benefits

Employees at The Restaurant receive several benefits. These include shift meals, paid time off, tuition reimbursement, and Employee Appreciation Day. The Restaurant is a well-established corporation and can afford offering their employees these benefits.

Several menu items make up the list of shift meals. No add-ons or substitutions are to be made. Each employee gets one per shift. If the employees are working a double shift, they are allowed two shift meals or one meal (any menu item) at the maximum price of $15.00. If you are working a day shift, you are allowed to eat meals before 10:30 A.M. and at the end of your shift. If you are working at night, you are allowed to order them no less than 30 minutes before your shift starts. You are not allowed to order at any time after this. Some employees bend these rules, some have gotten fired for it, and others wouldn’t dream of it. Exceptions will be made for religious beliefs but not for personal preferences.

Any employee who has worked at The Restaurant for at least six months receives two paid days off. Those who have worked there for a year receive five days. And, after ten years of employment, they get ten days. You are paid your hourly rate for the average amount of hours worked during the last tax year. If you are a server, you are paid minimum wage. Getting paid for time off requires a form be filled out and approval by Turner, the Human Resources Director.

Tuition reimbursement is offered to any employee that is pursuing a higher-education certificate or degree, attends full-time, and works at least three shifts per week. A form needs to be filled out and turned in to Turner each semester to be eligible and receive benefits. Payments start at $150.00 and max out at $600.00. They are dependent on your G.P.A. and tenure at The Restaurant. Tuition is offered in the spring, fall, and summer. Checks are typically disbursed a week after your final grades have been turned in to Turner. It should be noted that if you receive tuition reimbursement payments, you are not eligible for the Hope education tax credit when filing your tax return.

Employee Appreciation Day is held annually and all employees must attend. Upon arrival, each employee gets a raffle ticket. The Restaurant closes for an hour and the meeting begins with Turner presenting each employee a tenure award. The awards get better the longer you are employed. However, every five -year mark the award is better. So, theoretically, your award may be more valuable at five years than it is at nine. After the awards are given out, iPods, Saints hats, knife sets, The Restaurant memorabilia, and a plasma T.V. are raffled. Everyone gets an award. Some win a prize.

Policies

The Restaurant has numerous policies and a handbook that explains each in detail. The uniform policy is pretty typical. However, The Restaurant has a few others that are quite unique. These are the Chicken policy and the Fire Engine policy.

The uniform policy requires all employees to wear The Restaurant’s t-shirt and jeans or pants that are not frayed at the heels. The t-shirt must be tucked in before entering the back door. All employees must wear belts, deodorant, and non-slip shoes. Kitchen employees must wear hats bearing The Restaurant’s logo, aprons, and plastic gloves when preparing food. Servers with long hair have to have their hair pulled up, off their shoulders. Beards and moustaches must be trimmed and maintained.

The Chicken policy is The Restaurant’s smoking policy. It is a policy that has been amended and tends to wax and wane in enforcement. It started when Nicholson, the General Manager, decided only one employee was allowed to smoke at a time. And, in order to be that person, you had to have the chicken, a small rubber chicken hanging from a long silver necklace. It worked, with the exception of the occasional employee smoking behind the dumpster or on the side of the building. Most of the smokers hated it. Most of the non-smokers loved it. After a few weeks, Nicholson gave us a Flava-Flav decorated clock, which allowed two employees to go at a time. The chicken and the clock both disappeared long ago, but LSU wristbands have replaced them.

The Fire Engine policy started not that long ago. An anonymous employee went to the headquarters of The Restaurant and filed a complaint about the allegedly rampant sex and drug talk. Rumors started flying. Nicholson held an employee meeting on the issue shortly after, when an employee was fired for possessing a pain-killer in her purse. One employee, Paco, asked what we were to do if we felt we were in a compromising conversation, and Nicholson suggested using a safety word, perhaps Fire Engine. Thus, the Fire Engine policy was born. It has become a common joke among employees who feel the situation was blown out of proportion. Several servers, Kiki, Jane, and Shatzwell, wrote a song about it to the tune of Salt-N-Pepa’s “Let’s Talk about Sex.”

Conclusion

The culture examined is made up of a diverse group of people, all with one thing in common. That thing being they work at the same restaurant. These people may have other similarities or beliefs and traditions in common with each other, but they can’t all be grouped as one and represented as an ideal example of this restaurant’s culture. As a participant who has worked in this culture for eight years, I have witnessed many changes. I’ve seen the location change, the entire management structure dwindle into a new one, and employees come and go, some sooner than others. With all these changes, the culture too has changed within this restaurant. If I was to research the ethnography of this restaurant five years prior (before moving locations and Hurricane Katrina), this entire report, from the setting to the policies, would be drastically different. Therefore, the ethnography of this culture is constantly changing and will always be changing, due to social, economic, and environmental factors and the turn-over of the employment staff.

Instructor Comments: Katie Malone’s ethnography, “From Your Car to Clocking Out” is a wonderful example of what ethnographers call thick description.  Her eye for highlighting detail among the everyday operation of a restaurant is exceptional.  From her descriptions of coworkers to the Smoker’s Outpost, she brings her audience into her community.  A well-written ethnography does just this--makes the reader feel as if he is there.  If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant--any restaurant--her essay will ring true to you.