Sequential Fall Organization: of a Quick & Affective Food-Order

Abstract. The organization of embodied participation frameworks, established social hierarchy, and affect is investigated using as data the patterns of a local American restaurants food-ordering sequences. The sequence generally consists of an un-reciprocated ritual greeting, an ordering directive, many supportive interchanges, a quick payment, and a queuing process for food pick-up. Such phenomena are projected into the big picture for various types of cognitive, moral & affective stances that are fundamental to both social organization and structural expectations, and how participants unconsciously categorize themselves into particular social stratums throughout the performance of mundane activities that constitute daily life.

2011
An Ethnography of Everyday Speech
By Wendy Choi

University of California, Los Angeles

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A Brief Introduction
This article investigates the sequential organization of an attentive and time-efficient food-order. Particular attention will be paid to the interactive organization of participant frameworks, including the dependence on body-to-body orientation and the supportive practice through various components such as ritual greetings, minimal eye-contact, and code-switching in the midst of question-to-question order-customization process, and the consequences of violating the components of mutual respect.
Time Interval of Date Collection

Due to the lighter flow of customers in the morning, the 6am to 11am interval for breakfast is selected for to collect fieldwork for this particular ethnographic study. The local diner Nogales Burgers operates uniquely from other diners in that food-orders are largely self-served rather than delivered. Its sequential organization represents that of a fast-food restaurant, with emphasis on quick service. During the breakfast period, most customers visit alone. They sit within their own private space, finish their customized meal in peace, and leave thankfully after they finish. Personal conversations within the food-ordering space tend to be brief, and they are not generally preferred by unfamiliar customers. It appears perhaps an implicit taboo against disrupting the food-ordering processes is in circulation.
The Restaurant Workforce

With regard to the restaurant management, the owner of the restaurant Peter Tsiramanes has also assumed the role as a head chef and often works overtime. Recognizing to the generally lighter flow of customers in a weekday morning, a single waitress Sol Sayune has been assigned the task of carrying out food-ordering operations. 1 Moreover, she is also accountable for assisting the chef in preparing toasts and performing the basic food preparation tasks (e.g. chopping, dicing). Due to the fact that Mr. Tsiramanes is normally present at the restaurant, waitresses have learned in time to routinely make-work. As Goffman described: It is understood in many establishments that not only will workers be required to produce a certain amount after a certain length of time but also that they will be ready, when called upon, to give the impression that they are working hard at the moment.2 Waitresses became accustomed to resuming their performance of cooking duties as the assistant chef even if there was no immediate order to be prepared for whenever they are free from serving customers at the ordering counter. (The designated servers for my chosen time frame were Chef Peter T. and Waitress Sol Sayune.)
Characteristics Leading to the Popularity of Nogales Burgers

With respect to the fact that this is not an actual fast-food chain restaurant but, rather, a local burger-joint-style diner, food orders are highly customizable. The menu merely functions as a quick-order guideline. For example, instead of ordering a listed item breakfast platter which consists of two eggs, two bacon strips, two breakfast links, & two pancakes, customers oftentimes issues an ordering directive for a customized breakfast platter that contains three bacon strips (extra bacon strip), one sausage patty (instead of links), two pancakes and specifies for two scrambled eggs (food-processing). Refer to Figure 1, the relative price for each menu
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From 6am to 11am on a weekday, there is about 15 plus or minus 3 food orders per half hour. Goffman, Erving. (1959) "Regions and Region Behavior." The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. p. 109

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item is greatly comparable to the prices of menu items of the popular quick-service chain restaurants McDonalds, Jack in the Box, Burger King etc., and Nogales Burgers is known for its supersized portions. Furthermore, one cannot request a sunny-side-up style egg from McDonalds, nor can one ask for extra Hollandaise sauce. Recognizing this fact establishes a healthy mentality for customers because they feel like they have found a great bargain at a local restaurant that is an advantage of local in-groups.

Figure 1. The glass-front entrance is completely covered with attractive promotional deals, such as $15.99 family meal deals with 4 large hamburgers, 4 bags of fries, & 4 cups of medium-sized soda.

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Spatial Structure Promoting Hierarchy & Food-Order Functionality

Most verbal communications occur at the front region of the restaurant, where the service counter is located. The service counter itself acts as a symbolic hierarchical divider separating the restaurants staff and their consumers. Interaction within the restaurant space, however brief, establishes a private and friendly environment in which customers are the first priority. Aside from the waitress supportive guidance throughout each food-order, the spatial arrangement generally educates customers with respect to the food-pickup process, the availability of dining utensils and condiment assortments, as well as the accessibility of entertainment.
Authority in Space Arrangement

It is important to notice that the food-ordering counter does not only serve as a spatial divider between the kitchen and the dining area. It also serves to reinforce the modern restaurant hierarchy between the restaurant staff members and their customers. Whereas service providers are consistently standing in their make-work position in the area enclosed behind the counter, the customers being served are free to utilize the large dining space in any socially-acceptable mode. There is no seating arrangements or entertainment available in the open kitchen for restaurant staff. Moreover, the only television in the restaurant is positioned so that it faces the dining section, and the back of the television faces the kitchen staff. However, viewed from another perspective, the kitchen is off-limits to customers, whereas the staff members on duty are free to access all parts of the restaurant (though they may not be using the space in the same manner). During the order-taking process, the waitress is usually engaged in jotting down the order details onto her notepad. Thus, the waitress is rarely optically engaged with her customers after the initial ritual greeting. Even so, the counter functions as a medium to draw a mutual attention focus: customers orient their body towards the counter and sometimes even rest their hands on it when making the order, while the waitresss body is oriented toward the counter and her customer while recording the details of the order. See Figure 2 for a better idea. It orients both parties party toward each other and preserves a zone of mutual attentiveness.

Figure 2. While the waitress is busy jotting down the order onto her notepad, the customer leans toward the ordering counter and stares at the menu above the counter. Both parties have their bodies oriented toward each other, nevertheless.

Nogales Burgers: Sequential Organization of Food-Ordering Quick-Service Restaurant, Self-Service Counters

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Spontaneous spatial structures such as the Order Here and the Pick-up Here signs communicate to customers the mechanism of the queuing process. Customers automatically learn to wait for their number to be called and pick up their order at the pick-up counter. During the wait, customers are free to select the condiments they need along the pickup counter and gather dining utensils for use and even to pour water, tea, or coffee

Dress & Adornment in Expressing Identity and Sanitation

Unlike other restaurants, the kitchen staff is not assigned hair nets to guard their hair from falling into the food they serve. However, kitchen staff (unless bald-headed) is given a plain colored cap to keep their hair tied away from the front of their bodies. They are generally required to wear a shirt with sleeves and an apron which matches the color of their caps. The chefs, on the other hand, dress in a traditional white outfit with a white apron in all occasions.

Figure 3. Dress & Adornment Waitresses are given color-matching apron and caps to guard their hair against falling into the served foods, while chefs generally wear a white hat and a white apron. The man at the rightmost picture is the owner Peter Tsiramanes, who usually does not wear a cap.

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Sequential Organization of Food-Ordering

According to Hutchby and Wooffitt, "there are describable ways in which turns are linked together into definite sequences," and this analysis aims to reveal this sequential order in a fastfood restaurant's ordering process.3 Also, we will demonstrate how mutual acknowledgment can still be established without the use of adjacency pairs, such as greetings and return-greetings. As mentioned earlier in the section of spatial organization, we can infer that a customers superior authority is established upon entering the restaurant space. In initiating the food-order sequence, a waitress awaits the customers indication of readiness as they move directly in front of the ordering counter. The waitress would then move on with a ritual greeting to demonstrate their respect and recognition of their customers presence. This ritual greeting in almost all the cases is unreciprocated. The majority of the customers would, instead, move on to issuing a food-ordering directive. With consideration to the information embedded in this directive, the waitress asks questions in a series of supportive exchanges to finalize the customized meal. Finally, a payment is made and the customer receives a queuing number. Spatial structures such as the Order Here and the Pick-up Here signs encourage customers self-education of the queuing process so customers would wait for their number to be called and pick up their order at the pick-up counter.

I. Unreciprocated Ritual Greetings & Ordering Directives

Waitress Initiates Food-Order Through the Ritual of Greeting

After mentally taking note of the customers presence at the ordering counter, the waitress verbally expresses her recognition with a brief greeting of Hi, Hey, or Yes? in initiating each food-ordering sequence. It is most routinely accompanied by direct eye contact between the waitress and her customer as an indication that the waitress is ready to receive the order. In some cases, a nod also with direct eye contact may substitute for the verbal greeting. Only in rare cases when the waitress is heart-warmed by a previous customer or by some event that lightened her mood, she greets her customers with a How are you? A face-to-face greeting with direct eye contact from the waitress becomes established as a ritual that affirms the waitresss attention for her next customer, thereby acknowledging each others role in the foodordering process. In all cases, these greetings are received as a yes for customers to begin their primary food ordering directive. Surprisingly, none of the customers reciprocate the waitresses ritual greeting with another Hi, Hey, Hello, and no customers truly replies to the question How are you? Nevertheless, the friendliness of the ritual greeting opens the possibility of access by both parties. At Nogales Burgers, we can infer that a waitress Hi, Hey, or phrases that we often receive as greetings merely serves as an instrument of mutual acknowledgment.

Hutchby, Ian, and Robin Wooffitt (2008). Conversational Structures: The Foundations of Conversation Analysis Conversation Analysis 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity, p. 41.

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A brief ritual greeting also serves as a marker in the hierarchical relationship of the restaurant environment, where the waitress job is to attend to her customers. As described by Goffman, Ritual is a perfunctory, conventionalized act through which an individual portrays his respect & regard for some object of ultimate value or to its stand-in.4 The conversations initiator inevitably the waitress designates her position as one of less authority in an environment where the customers are the first priority. In the food-ordering sequence, customers who pay for the services they receive are the message sender; and the waitressthe message receivers asks questions that operates as modifiers to achieve the objective of an interpersonal conversation, or the food-order.
Mutually Acknowledged Characteristic of Food Order at Nogales Burgers

The length of time of most food-ordering encounter is preferably short and objective because: 1. Most customers enter the restaurant with an appetite understanding that it is a quickservice restaurant. Most oftentimes, when a customer does initiate a conversation, the waitress would quickly end the conversation. (See Sol & Andras example below) 2. Kitchen staff assumes customers do not want to engage in personal conversations. 3. Kitchen staff acts very professional and consistently engages in different tasks, leaving no time for personal conversations. 4. The limited amount of kitchen staff members in the morning creates a busy environment, one that does not welcome non-objective conversations. Even though the brief food-ordering interchange is largely impersonal (with regards to how it didnt involve each partys progress in life) and almost purely informative of the food order, a friendly environment and a familiar sequence are nevertheless established by the welcoming ritual greeting & customization. After the brief greeting, most customers do not hesitate to begin with a directive on their orders, as demonstrated in section one. It is usually followed by supportive interchange during the customization of the specific order.

Food-Ordering Directive & Unreciprocated Ritual Greetings Contrary to our social expectations of appropriate behavior and adjacency pairs, no return greeting answers to the waitress ritual greeting. In reality, most customers do not hesitate to begin with a directive on their orders. It happens in every order. Even though customers fail to supply a greeting in reciprocation, there is no humiliation or embarrassment generated. The phenonmenon of responding to greetings with an ordering directive instead of a return-greeting is the result of an established norm in fast-food-ordering sequence over time. When hungry customers first enter the restaurant and see the wall full of distractive menu items, they became indecisive over what to order and the order primes their mind. With the modern principle the customers always come first in mind, the embedded superior identity of the customers is recognized once the customer enters the restaurant arena with the ritual greeting. In each set of food-ordering data I gathered from Nogales Burgers, the customers responded to the
4

Goffman, Erving. (1967) "Supportive Interchange." Interaction Ritual. Pp. 62-94.

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greeting with a directive on the simple order they have in mind, which is then further modified through supportive interchanges between the order-taking waitress and the customer. Other than the unconsciously function of exposing underlying social hierarchical structures, the directives are issued with the food-ordering objective of declaring the customers order. These unconsciously authoritative directives are softened by compromising clauses such as Lets have a, Lets see, Ill take, et cetera. In most cases, customers display certain doubts over their order and inserts pauses of thought through an un-breaking uh::::h to extend the duration of their turn in conversation & to indicate that they are ready to order while constructing a confident decision. In the initial directive given, intonation changes are not so prevalent. Some examples are shown below. 1 2 1 2 Sol: Rene: Sol: Todd: Hi Lets huuf uhh.. Brekfust~Special~wit~huevosas well How are you? Okay (0.4) let's see uh::hm.. egg~&~bacon sandwich... uhh, mm, uhh Wheat~toast.. to-go please ((nods and gives direct eye contact)) no:w Ill just eat my breakfast burrito. Yes? uh::h, Ill take a breakfast platter an::d

1 2 1 2

Sol: Max: Sol: Carlos:

Supportive Interchange in Food Order-Customization

Identification of Restaurant Hierarchy

Supportive interchange during a food order occurs in the form of positive ritualistic modifier questions. The objective of the conversation is to carry out a customized food order for the satisfaction of the customer. Perhaps Nogales Burgers does not have the best customers service in the quick-service restaurant industry, but mutual respect and politeness in affirming and supporting the restaurant service hierarchy classifies the interchange as a positive ritual. Throughout the conversation, each request, question and answer identifies the customer as the authorized individual with preferences different from other customers. The waitress attentiveness to the customers order, her supportive guidance by asking questions of modification, and her overall focus on the conversation all serve to generate a sense of authority and respect to the customer. Most commonly, the food-ordering interchange occurs as follow: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Sol: Hi Rene: Lets huuf uhh.. Brekfust Special wit huevos (0.8) as well Sol: Bacon? Rene: *hh uh wer~u~sayin? Sol: Bacon? Rene: u::::::h~naw!

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7 8 9 10 11

Sol: Rene: Sol: Rene: Sol:

(.98) ((Writing)) algo ms? (0.7) ((murmur)) mm NUtin, ya= = ThatsiT! ((nods)) mm

Again, the waitress Sols greeting is reciprocated by customer Rene Solis directive on food order. In this case, the waitress interrupted with a modifier question when Rene paused for an eighth of a second, absorbed in his thoughts over his order. For a moment, Sols question was left unanswered as Rene continued on to complete his previous sentence without providing any new information. Trained to detect her customers approval, Sol did not immediately interrupt again and allowed Rene to finish his chain of thought. Upon realizing that Sol has spoken, Rene initiated a turn-repair concerning what Sol was saying. This gesture authorizes Sol to repeat her question. In all the food-ordering interchanges, the questions and answers are brief and objective, and each order is structurally similar. Each modifier question is generated with relevance to the previous selected modification and each caters to the customers preferences, most commonly: 1. 2. 3. 4. Eggs: Scrambled/ Sunny-side-up Potatoes: Fries/ Hash-Brown Drinks: Size (Small/ Medium/ Large) Toasts: Wheat/ White

Most often, supportive interchange in food orders functions as a mechanism of mutual confirmation. It is not often accompanied by eye-contact because orders are taken down by pen and the order-pad and the waitress is writing the order down in every case. This is because every order, instinctively, positions both individual in a body orientation that faces each other. Thus, it is implied that each question and answer is directed at the two individuals oriented at each other. Here is an example: 1 2 3 4 5 Sol: Todd: Sol: Todd: Sol: How are you? Okay (0.4) let's see uh:hm.. egg & bacon sandwich... uhh, mm, uhh wheat toast.. to-go please o::kay, bacon & egg sandwich, togo? Yea, th:ats right. O:kay $4.30.

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Figure 4: Waitress Sol Sayune looks directly at customer Rene Solis to prompt an answer and to confirm that the food-order has been completed. Most often, direct eye contact occurs at the ritual greeting and during the payment time frame. Occasionally, however, a customer may take longer than usual to complete their food-orders due to external distractions: phone calls, their children, side conversations when more than one customer is making a single order. In these cases, the order is taken in the same manner, sometimes with slight disruptions, and more eye contact occurs as the waitress makes an often futile attempt to regain attention. Note the orange highlights, indicating Sols attempt to regain attention from a couple making an order while tending to their ex cited daughter: Example 3: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Sol: Andra: Sol: Andra: Sol: Andra: Sol: Andra: [nods to indicate she is ready for an order] Okay, Ill get a breakfast. Yeah, well see. Uhh, lemme have a... bacon, with sausage Uh:h p~late?= =Ye:a Bacon & Sausage? Howd you like eggs? ((stares)) ((look for daughter)) Scrambled. (1.07) & uh, lemme have u:h brunch

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Max: Sol: Max: Sol: Max: Sol: Max: Sol: Max: Sol: Max: Andra: Sol: Max: Sol:

((Turns around and walks to her child at the entrance)) Come back! ((Sol stares)) Max, you ready to go? no:w Ill just eat my breakfast burrito. okay~salsa? ((stares)) Irma dont do it again. Ou:uah t mira. uh:h CokeEl Coke. ((turns to own daughter)) ((turns to Sol)) What size? ((stares)) uhh, medium, general. Just one? ((stares)) no:o, medium? What size did I order? ((Spanish)) Medium? ((stares)) ((Spanish)) Grande. Y la medium por qu? ((Points to daughter)) She! Howre you ther: back home? Its going fine. ((turns to machine)) ((lightly to Andra)) Going fine, good to hear (9.75) $18.81.

In this supportive interchange, confirmation on the order occurs more than in other conversations as a result of the daughters active distraction. The waitress Sol also expressed a genuine concern over Maxs choice of beverages in the order with regards to the size of his family, which establishes a friendly and caring relationship between the staff and their customers. In return, the female customer (who seems to be previously acquainted with Sol) make an inquiry regarding Sols well-being. Reinforcing my pervious observation, Sol had ended the friendly conversation with a brief Its going fine and her return to the machine to input the order and calculate the prices. Unquestionably, the most common form of supportive interchange in quick-service restaurant (especially at Nogales Burgers) occurs to confirm or modify the clarity of the foodorder itself. It is interesting to note, that, with a more familiar customer, the chef himself came out to greet him, and turn-repairs and supportive interchanges occurs more often, more naturally, and with greater intonation differences. It can possibly be explained by the familiarity of the staff and the acquainted customer: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Peter: Gonzalo: Peter: Gonzalo: Peter: Gonzalo: Peter: Gonzalo: Peter: Gonzalo: Peter: GONzaLO!= How it goin? It is fine. How arre you? ALright. I ordered a steak sanwich. Steak Salad? Sanwich. Steak~Sa?= = a steak sandwich. You already ca::ll? YA! I already calledhere. ouu, oh-kay. [to Sol] This steak salads for Gonzalo?

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12 13 14

Sol: Ye:ah Gonzalo: Ya~yaya~ya. Peter: Gonzalo is here. Ou:kay. Hold on, its coming up.

Conclusion
The organization of the restaurants spatial structures guides its participants social interactions within the restaurant space. A restaurants hierarchy is thus established from the embodied participation frameworks: a mandatory ritual greeting demonstrating the waitress subsidiary position, a moderated food-ordering directive to demonstrate the courtesy of the customer, the waitress assuming an attentive and understanding position, et cetera. Such phenomena are projected into society for various types of cognitive, moral & affective stances that are fundamental to both social organization and structural expectations. For example, a bartender at Starbucks who is lesser in position when he is at work may gain a more superior position as a consumer at the restaurant Black Angus, where a waiting staff attends to the off-work bartenders preferences in his food-order; or, in a discussion to identify the most broadly suitable method to educate students who have no college-awareness, a high school teacher may be more empowered by experience than a university professor who does not experience these types of issues. All in all, these all serve to demonstrate how spatial organization can drive participants to unconsciously categorize themselves into particular social stratums and transform the performance of mundane activities that constitute daily life into activities that gives a unique identity to each individual.

References
Goffman, Erving. (1967) "Supportive Interchange." Interaction Ritual. Pp. 62-94. Goffman, Erving. (1959) "Regions and Region Behavior." The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Hutchby, Ian, and Robin Wooffitt (2008). "Conversation Analysis" 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity, pp. 41-65.