The Restaurant Life

In class, we discussed the concept of discourse communities and spoke about some examples. A discourse community that I belong to and has greatly affected my life and my personality is my restaurant. I currently work at a restaurant in the South End known as Estelle's. I both bartend and waitress. I feel like being apart of a restaurant staff adequately fulfills the six requirements of a discourse community that Swales has laid before us. The first requirement is that a discourse community must have a broadly agreed upon set of rules.  The restaurant I work at has an unspoken set of goals, to adequately serve and accommodate those that dine at the restaurant, but we also have a written set of goals created by the owner. The second requirement is that a discourse community must have a mechanisms of intercommunication among it's members. The main foundation for the adequate functioning of a restaurant is communication. The forms of communication range from conversations to meetings and emails. It is highly important that we can all get in touch with one another to coordinate shift changes and anything else that is going on in the restaurant that we all need to be aware of. The third requirement involves participatory mechanisms to provide information and feedback. Participatory mechanisms are crucial to keep the restaurant functioning. The fourth requirement consists of the possession of one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. One of the genres that exist in my restaurant is the concept known as "pre-meal". Pre-meal is the meeting that happens a half hour before we open and a half hour before the dinner shift begins. Pre-meal consists of those staff members who are scheduled to work that following shift along with the manager on duty and the executive chef. Pre-meal is a known and uniform concept throughout the staff members and is very important to attend. Any important news is relayed to the staff during pre-meal along with any specials that chef has prepared for the evening. Another big topic discussed during my restaurant's pre-meal is any new beers. We are known for our 150 different beers offered and the managers and owners like the staff to be both aware and familiar of the beers and what they taste like. The fifth requirement is that the discourse community has acquired some specific lexis. The restaurant world has a lot of different words and sayings that are not common outside of the restaurant; one of them being the word and concept of pre-meal. Others are the phrase "86" which means the restaurant has ran out of something, "flying fingers", which means that the restaurant group owner is arriving and "runners", which is what the chef yells when there is hot food in the window that needs to be brought to the corresponding table. Lastly, Swales says that a discourse community must have a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. The restaurant staff runs on a hierarchy that starts with the owners, down to the managers, followed by bartenders, servers and in some cases trainees. I think I can relate to 'The Cafe Owner Problem'. I have worked in different restaurants since I was 18 and from what I have experienced, they all had the same goals, means of communication and lingo. Although the staff members of each restaurant don't communicate with other staff members from a different restaurant, I feel as though the values, training and requirements remain the same, therefore making all restaurants a discourse community.