Blog #8

Serving is something that can be looked at very differently depending on the place that a server is serving food... servingly. For example a server that works at a at a three Michelin stars rated restaurant could be looked upon differently compared that to your average diner server. I do not think of a server as anything negative regardless of the restaurant where I am currently eating because I feel many of these servers we encounter are just ordinary people trying to make money.

Mirabelli introduces the idea that waiting tables is simple not just a repetitive skill that requires little school education, He infers that it is a practice that takes years to master. Marabelli talks about how a fellow waiter, John Harvey explained that it took him 10 years working at the restaurant before he thought of himself as a master waiter.

I myself have been in the hospitality business for 2 summers and have found that my line of work is as unappreciated as waiting tables is. Yes, the jobs that I preformed at my hotels were repetitive and sometimes little school knowledge was needed in order to do said jobs. I, however realized that what I did on a day-to-day operation system was actually a very confusing task. I was tasked with multiple things to do around the hotel and do many different things in order for the hotel to function smoothly with minimal slip ups. I had to know what to do every day, if I was unable to preform certain required tasks I had to solve the problems at hand. Only on a few occasions was my intelligence insulted, mostly by angry guests looking to just cause problems. One instance that particularly annoyed me (and there were quite a few) was a time when I was working in the lobby of my hotel reading the entrance for check-ins. I had to assemble a water dispenser and put accenting fruits in it as well as put out little finger foods for arriving guests to sample. I also was one of the first workers that interacted with the guests so I had to not only be knowledgeable about every plausible and implausible question by the guests, but I also had to have a deep knowledge of the greater San Diego area and the prices and times of attractions as well as places to eat, things to do and general questions.

One day a women came and started talking to me as I was setting the lobby for check-ins. We began to talk about the hotel and she asked if I did anything else. I responded by saying that I attend San Diego State and am pursing international business. She then by my surprise raised her eyebrow and scoffed and said that I was really putting that degree to use sarcastically Instantly I was agitated with this heinous... person but remained calm and reiterated that I was ATTENDING SDSU and had not graduated yet... (with a smile on my face of course)

A real art form that servers as well as jobs similar to mine is that you have to learn to deal with people and have patience, which is a very difficult task. Mirabelli furthered my understanding that just because a certain job does not require a mass amount of formal education does not mean that it is a cakewalk of a job. Serving tables is an integral part to society as they are the middle man between chef and customer.      

Your Fellow Blogger,

Kina Bramlette