Yongho Kim
Ethnographic Interviewing
February 2, 2004
Interviewed 3:45-4:20
Transcribed 8:05-10:33
In the first floor lounge of Wallace Hall, sitting in a group of sofas around a table in the middle of the room. Recorder on the table.
Before starting the interview, I explained the informant that he could pick his pseudonym. He said he wasn’t really concerned about his privacy, and that it was OK to use his real name. I told him he could decide after we finished the interview. I also told him that any subject matter that might make him uncomfortable may be skipped or put off-the-record at his discretion. Then we ran the recorder.
Y: So.. I am in an ethnographic interviewing class, and what we have to do is to study a small social group, and how they work.. how they view the world, how theyt classify the world, and so. And I can’t really study Bon Appetit because there are some restrictions
S: Can’t study.. students? Does ti have to be somebody separate?
Y: Yeah, well, it’s too familiar, and that doesn’t work.
S: And this is a practice.
Y: Yeah, a warm-up practice. One gets used to it.
S: OK
Y: The goal of having this interview, is finding out about your world, trying to find out as much as possible about how you perceive work, how make things work.
S: OK.
Y: Are you alright with that?
S Yeah, should be fun.
Y: So tell me. What’s your role in Bon Appetit?
S: Last year I worked as the regular student server, but this year I have been one of the student managers, which means that I get to paid for eating dinner, whereas I clocked at 5:00 now I get to clock in at 4:30 so that’s.. neat. My job is to basically all the student workers be one of the two or three student workers who are ultimately responsible that all the work gets done. So if something doesn’t, I’m one of the two people who get blamed.
Y: You said you get to clock in at 5, what’s clocking in.
S: That’s just when you punch your time card. And start getting paid when you’re on the time card, on the clock. And so this is sort of like a joke. It’s like strawberry (?) because they get paid to eat.
Y: And if you’re a regular student worker you don’t get to clock in early?
S: No, although some people do clock in early, and get paid to eat, those bastards, when I find them [slap with hand] they get.. they don’t look so pretty no more. They have to work back alley putting up dishes out – they can’t serve food because otherwise they may drip blood in it. I’m usually the baaad cop. They have two student workers: good cops and bad cops. No I’m just kidding.
Y: Really…
S: Might be an idea to try.
Y: How many student managers are there?
S: Ah.. I don’t know.. like let’s see there’s two or three at nights, seven nights a week, and everybody works like maybe two or three shifts, so, ten? I’m not a math major.
Y: So you guys work only at night? What about the morning?
S: No, there are student managers working at lunch too, which is why it’s ten and not seven. You saw the math I was doing in my head. So, yeah. Something around ten, maybe.
Y: So whenever/….
S: I can look that up for you, if you want the actual number
Y: Whenever there is a shift, there’s only one of you.
S: No, two. Which is nice.
Y: And what is a shift?
S: Shift.. (smiles) it is the duration of the time you work. My shift are usually four thirty to seven, Saturdays and Sunday nights. Ah.. just like any other job.
Y: Is shift the time you get paid for?
S: Yeah, uh.. well… I guess.. you are trying to get into the lingo of Café Mac.
Y: Yeah, yeah.. (laughs)
S: I’m sorry but the word “Shift” is not unique to Café Mac. I don’t use it in any unique way. So I guess it pretty much means that I’m responsible for being there which fdoes not , isn’t entirely the time you get paid if you’re on the lower people because you don’t get paid for dinner but you’re supposed to be there so we can hand out jobs.. and make sure everyone knows what’s going on.
Y: So for you as a student manager, you get paid for the work.
S: So for me, eating is work. Because I have to make sure everybody’s got their pigs in the row, and shift gears. I gotta organize the troops.
Y: Ah I see.. so if you’re a student worker, you come in, you eat, and check in.
S: Yeah, if you work a lunch shift, you usually do work and then eat afterwards.
Y: How does a typical shift go like, what do you do,
S: Well, at first when you’re working there you make sure everyone is there, call the people, assign tasks to everbody, say, “You there, you go serve the pasta”, “Ah, I don’t like serving pasta, can I go to South, with my friends, so that we can screw out, and” “Oh we already got people in south” and, yeah. Actually my workers are really good I shouldjn’t portray them as whiny, but… and I am also the laziest person, which is great. So if any people in your class work for Café mac, or work underneath, they should know they do a better job than I do. Except than one guy. That one guy is an asshole. Bastard. Uh, aha! Nevermind.
Y: So do student workers get to choose their spots?
S: Yeah! We usually try to accommodate what people want. Especially if people are vegetarian, and they don’t want to serve meat, or if they don’t want to serve pork, we try to accommodate them within reason. Or people don’t wanna do lifts, probably they’ll end up serving than having to bring out clean dishes.
Y: So do vegetarians have trouble serving meat?
S: Well for instance Robert Bebop he used to work at VCafe Mact and he was pretty strongly opposed to serving meat. They found him a different job that didn’t require to serve meat. They moved him to stations that doesn’t have meat. If there isn’t [any stations] they put him in backup, which is, bringing, like plates out. That’s, see if you’re looking for lingo, it’s exclusive café mac. I think “backup” is probably one of the only things we have. That might be a food service thing, I don’t know if it’s unique.
[At this point I was hearing “back alley”]
Y: You mean behind the doors?
S: Ah.. it just means, sort of. Yeah, it makes people take out the clean dishes, and clean stuff up. And.. all the other stuff that doesn’t get done by the servers.
Y: Oh, the backup.
S: I don’t know, they call it backout. That’s what they call it, I’m using the same word.
Y: Are you like, those guys who go around with this.. um… what’s this.. this small towel?
S: Yeah, like a washbox? Yeah, yeah.
Y: And also the student managers?
S: Sometimes, all café mac employees carry washboxes, it’s just.. we need to keep the place clean, no? Yeah, the backout.. like people.. wipe stuff out. IF someone breaks the glass, it’s the manager’s job to clean it out, because the backout people are lazy bastards.
Y: So people who are new, how do they distinguish between student workers and managers?
S: Almost all of the student workers who aren’t managers are first years, and most of the managers aren’t. Although, we got a couple first years working this semester.
Y: As managers?
S: Yeah, last semester.. last year they do that all the time. Second semester. Ah.. how do you differentiate? You know actually there are some people, like when they are new at managing, they basically do the same things as the student workers who are back alley, and get paid more, and sometimes, this is what I did last year, when I Wasn’t a manager. You basically act like a manager even though you’re not. And you just do the… (Y laughs) well I didn’t boss people around as much last year when I wasn’t actually a manager, you just you look around for stuff and you do it. And I guess being a manager is being the same thing except that they hold you to a higher level of accountability, or something. So it’s almost like they just find the people who work harder than the other people, and get them the title of managers, so that they get paid more because they deserve it.
Y: So if you’re a student worker you have some free time? Like you can work extra if you want to?
S: Some people will do caskets, while others.. I mean there’s some downtime when like, there’s nothing to do, and some people stand around, and some people go check their friends.. and within small amounts this is all fine, I’m usually going to chat a decent amount myself, but I always try to calculate it so it’s nothing.. we’re not out of anything. Because I’m employed somewhere while I’m doing that. And I’m pretty responsible about that.
Y: You mean that..
S: Yeah some people are definitely more responsible than others.
Y: When does it happen, like when do you have..
S: For instance at the beginning of the meal when you know that everything, like it’s all placed, there’s silverware, milk is full, etc, like usually takes a while for people to finish eating and put dishes through the machine so there’s no dishes to bring out, so there’s about two fifths into the night yourself. Yeah, this is incredibly boring.. I’m sorry for
Y: no, actually it’s pretty interesting. I worked in Bon appetite during the reunion, one day, when there’re all these crazy parents and umm.. so you’re giving me a lot of info. So like do you get promoted as student manager?
S: Yeah, like they kind of pick people who they like, and say “hey, if you stay here next year you can be a manager”… it’s the highest paid job on campus, other than the trust funds (Y laughs) well you know, people who go and call up the alumni, bug them for money, they do important work. God bless them. Ah… yeah.. what else do you wanna know?
Y: How do you vclose up the place?
That’s a lot of work.. people who are serving have to clean their station. We dump out the excess food that can’t be saved.. they have to clean off all the glass, the counters, the heating things.. meanwhile we have to clean up the beverage machines, makes sure they are all full, and ready to go in the morning, turn them off, and stuff.. bring out all the clean dishes, all the trays, the glasses and so forth. And that’s .. it. Wipe off all the tables, spray the sanitizer.. that’s about it.. but we find other work to do. Like there’s health inspection coming up, we do extra work over there. Just make sure everything is clean and presentable and ready to go for the next day. So that next shift you can have a working dinner.
Y: So you already explained what goes on in between the opening and closing, right?
S: No, I mean, I guess yeah in between you replace the stuff that runs out, and keep stuff filled, food, dishes, beverages, napkins, whatever.
Y: How do you organize all that work? Do you come up with it on the spot?
S: A lot of it is, sort of everybody know, this is back alley people, not the serving people. The serving people basically sit there and they serve stuff. And once a while they might have to wipe out the spill oir something. But pretty much sit there and serve. Back alley people pretty much have to be able to see what needs to be done and do it. We try to allocate tasks like tell one person she’s responsible to make sure beverages are all full. Another person must stock dessert. Help out keeping the salad bar stocked, and stuff like that. But overall, everybody knows how to do everything. Which we try to have it that way, and so.. whatever needs to be done, that gets done.
Y: Do you have the same person doing the same role, for the whole shift?
S: Yeah.. unless there’s special circumstances, like someone has to “leave” early. Those bastards. Or.. like there’s confusion with the shifts and the guy who’s supposed to be working in the dishroom with the temps, was serving, and then I might have to take over the shift. But usually it’s like the same person all the time. [to girl who showed up] Do you need me for a sec? (Yes) What’s up? You don’t mind we talking. (Sure, no prob)
[Recording stopped. We helped Tedbear assembling her glasses back]
T: No… damn it. Ouch. Umm.. (blah blah..)
Y: Anyway, for background. Tedbear Carrot is looking for her screws for a second half. We assembled but she dropped it. While she is looking for it, we’ll go on with the interview.
S: OK. Where were we?
Y: Umm.. we were talking about.. Oh my God, I don’t know. But we can touch on other things. Like… you said the dishwashers were temps.
S: Ok. A lot of other. Basically the people who aren’t student workers, that aren’t like…
Y: Hey!
S: you found it! Those people who aren’t student workers who work at café mac, who aren’t like high level, head manager, head cook, kind of people, they are usually temp workers, from an agency that we go through, and a lot of them are immigrants, and some of them have mental disabilities, and stuff like that, and they work for us, it’s not really my job as a student manager to look after them. They kind of do their own thing.
Y: Oh really.
S: Yeah. A lot of them work in the dishroom. We have more temps working in lunch and breakfast shifts. In dinner it’s pretty much like.. it’s all student workers except for the dishroom. And even in the dishroom we might have one student worker.
Y: Is there a reason for that? For which there’s dinner and lunch/breakfast.
S: I think it’s because it’s inconvenient for students to work lunch most of the times, so maybe we have at most, maybe three student workers doing back alley stuff at lunch time and then the temps do the actual serving and some back alley stuff too.
Y: So what are the temp workers?
S: So alright. You heard of the temp agencies, right?
Y: No.
S: It’s a.. it’s a..
Y: Well I kind of do. But..
S: It’s a company we go through to get employees who may not necessarily working for us for more than a few months. But there are often times people who don’t speak english as their first language, or have mental disabilities, and they’re looking for whatever work they can get. Even if it’s some shitty job working in the dishroom at a cafeteria. But as far as we know, as far as I know, we pay them well and treat them well. Sometimes the upper management people are not as nice to the…
Y: If you have anything that you feel uncomfortable..
S: No, no.. this is good. This is gold. This is good stuff for interviewing.
Y: Actually I picked bon appetite people because of this.. (nervous laugh)
S: Sometimes the upper manager people are little less nice to the temps than we are, the students. Like a temp.. it’s kind of rude to keep calling them… a dishroom worker might complain that they’re understaffed in the dishroom, and we have one of the student workers scheduled there but he was working at the grill. This actually happened a couple days ago. And I was just like, “Really? Well, yeah, I guess we should send the guy back there” because we were overstaffed. Meanwhile, I don’t know, it seems like every time they have a complaint to the upper people, get like, defensive about it. Like.. maybe they’re afraid that if you give them cookies, they’ll keep asking for more. But they seem like reasonable people, man.. they treat the students well anyway.
Y: Are the upper people those with the purple thing?
S: Ah.. I forget how it exactly works. There’s the purple aprons and white shirts. Some of them don’t wear that. I think Erasmus Richardson, the head guy, dresses however he wants. And Amelie dresses however she wants; she is usually stylish, you know. But! It’s never anything big as far as I know. Although, there was an argument iwht the heaf chef, or something last year. The head chef left this year, although I don’t know anything about that.
Y: Do the same people who work at the dishrooms also work serving food?
S: Sometimes. Once in a while. Like, they’ll have one of the peoples from the dishroom, scan the cards at the front, or serve in the grill, or..
Y: Do they get to scan cards too?
S: Well.. you swipe the card, and press “Clear”. It’s very simple.
Y: Well I thought all those people in the entrance were management people.
S: Usually they’ll have an upper management person or student manager to have the cards scanning, b ut during J-term, or sometimes, like brunch in less busy days.. they might have them serve or scan cards.
Y: Do they also do backup stuff? [up to this point in the interview I thought the term was “backup”, and that I had initially misheard it as “back out”]
S: A little.. not usually. There are temps who are our age, who are usually mentally handicapped, and then there’s temps who are adults who are usually immigrants. And that’s generalizations.. most people fit in these categories and stuff. And a lot of people in our age get to do the backup stuff or serving.. lunch, usually, they usually don’t work dinner, and if they do they go to the dishroom, but.. and usually the adults end up working the dishroom and once in a great while, serving, but very rarely.
Y: So they mostly do dishroom.
S: Yeah, the Adult immigrant type do basically the dishrooms.
Y: Are there also students for the dishrooms?
S: Very rarely, there’s one student in one of my shifts, who’s scheduled to work in the dishroom. How about that. And usually the back alley people will, I’ll tell them to help out with dishroom if there’s nothing else to do, and the dishroom is really behind. Although, you don’t hear the head, the upper management saying that very often.
Y: Yeah, I have a lot of questions, but feel free to go to tangents as you go.
S: Yeah, well.. help me with another question.
Y: Do you know all the other student managers? Do you have meetings?
S: No, we don’t have meetings. All the student workers meet together – this is my innovation, that I did when I became a manager – I pull up enough tables so that we can all sit together, in the past, last year, when I Was one of the student workers we just scattered about. But now we have one table, so that all student workers can, you know, confer.. and it builds comradery and team work.. stuff like that. But other than talking to your fellow managers while you’re working, you’re pretty much.. I don’t know who else is a manager other than seeing just people walking around. At dinner when I’m eating there. I have an idea.. who was herre last year, and stuff like that.
Y: Do the administration OK it when you pull the tables together?
S: Yeah they don’t care.
Y: you don’t have any training sessions, like food hygiene,
S: Oh, wow.. at the beginning of the year, when you’re first coming to Café mac, they do a tour, and explain everything. And then we pretty much train them in after the first day of work. And it’s just serving simple, wash your hands, don’t do anything unsanitary, serve the amount of food that the chefs tell you to serve. And anyone who’s eaten at Café mac can figure out how to serve at Café mac. In the back alley we just sort of explain it as it goes. It’s really simple. Some of.. it’s got depth! If you’re willing to dig, you know, there’s nuances. There’s nuances.
Y: oh you mean… ahahaha ok
S: hahaa.. but 99% they learn it all the first day. But the nuances! Nuances… because there’re finite tasks and infinite tasks. And at the end of the night, you wanna concentrate on the finite tasks, like putting the coffe mugs up, because once you do that, then you won’t have to do it again! Those mugs are out there! You know, but then there’s infinite tasks, you know, like you got half a cart full of clean plates. You’re not run out of clean plates, so why not wait until the cart is completely full? Those are infinite tasks! The plates keep coming.
Y: Actually there’s a lot of truth in it..
S: Yeah! I know, I tried to explain this to some workers, , like they “know better”, and some of them listen. They’re nice guys.
Y: Oh, they don’t really get the..
S: They get it but I think they find it condescending. “But that’s because they’re not smart enough”.
Y: There was something else I wanted to ask, but I forgot… oh yeah! What are some fun things that happen, like emergencies.
S: There are some things that aren’t fun, when people break shit, when people leave all their dishes and food sitting there for me to clean up, when the blazer catches fire, so I don’t know, hey Tedbear, what’s up. She’s back.
T: Would like to donate this to the anthro department for me?
Y: Oh really?
T: Yeah! You know what this is?
Y: I think so.. haha it’s used to accompany the transcriber. IS it?
T: Yes. The telephone. You plug it into the phone and record conversations. Which is kind of illegal! Just to let you know.
Y: Oh, so you just didn’t “take it” from them.
T: no, no. I bought that for the anthro department
Y: What if you tell them?
T: Well that should be fine.
Y: Was this for Shandy?
T: Yeah, for recording.
Y: Hey, thanks.
S: Right.. where were we?
Y: Well, what time is it?
S: 4:30
Y: That sounds good enough.
S: any more burning questions for the café mac guru?
Y: Umm, like, you said at the registration (?) when lots of people come with snow on their feet and it’s really.. what’s that.. slippery?
S: Yeah we have wet floor signs, usually don’t use them. Just mop things up. It’s not that bad in the cafeteria. Just for people’s shoes.. it’s more the food that makes the floor slippery. There’s some sort of bottlenecks in the way the traffic moves…
Y: Oh yeah! Those people who stand there talking!
S: Yeah, that, the chefs will complain how poorly designed the café mac is compared to other food service institutions, although a lot of them are coming from a hotel background, and that’s a different kind of business.
Y: Yeah every year, there’s different kinds of chefs.
S: Well.. what year are you?
Y: I’m a junior.
S: Ok I’m a sophomore and so it’s just different people from last year and cannot make generalizations. But.. yeah, I gues. If you go to food services, probably it’s no the most prestigious job to be a cafeteria chef. But they do good work. I kind of liked the food better last year. In a few ways. But they still do good work. I missed the pie. The vegan, banana pie, shit. It was terrible.
Y: Eh.. I think that’s good enough for today. Well, that’s it!
S: Well..
Y: And you mentioned some peoples’ names, and I’ll just make pseudonyms for the, because I haven’t had the chance to ask them.
S: Even for like people working in Café Mac?
Y: Yeah like Rachel or something.. there was a Leah or Rachel or something. That’s the only name I remember. But, hey thanks for your time!
S: No problem, no problem.
Y: And.. I can email you the transcript if you’d like.
S: Uh.. yeah. Do you want me to write my email address for you?
Y: No, I have your last name.
(Tape had ended. Just on time.) He ran outside after we were done.
Afterthoughts: I saw some chances in which the interview could have expanded more intensively on subjects of interest to my informant but missed them due to lack of attention and part to my own agenda (which is why I would avoid doing this for the final ethnography) Also there were instances when he was changing tones and I was not certain if the intended effect was sarcasm or just excitement. (Like when he talked about the nuances). As the interview progressed the topic seems to drift more and more from the particular life experiences of my informant. Should have avoided so many generalities and focused more on his personal experience.
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