Post 12: Mirabelli's "Learning to Serve"

Mirabelli is looking at the idea that some people see waitresses and/or waiters as stupid and the contradicting idea that the literacy of being able to serve food is rather complex. As Mirabelli denotes "Assumptions that waitresses (and waiters) are ignorant and stupid and that waiting on tables contributes little to society are not new. The rebuttals to commonplace, pejorative, understandings of the food service industry suggest, however, that there is a complexity and skill that may go unrecognized by the general public or institutions such as universities" (540). He begins his ethnography talking about a website that is a forum for people who have worked in the food service industry. Once person posts on the horror story page, that if you don't like serving then go get and education and find a REAL job. I feel Mirabelli is trying to disprove this original notion about food industry workers and through out the ethnography he brings up evidence to support this claim. A lot of this evidence was due to the fact that Mirabelli was in the food service industry and he used his personal experience to show that serving is not just an easy job that any one can do; it takes and incredible amount of skill and knowledge.

Mirabelli gathered his data from personal participation, observation, interviews, and the menu of a small town diner called Lou's Restaurant. He also acquired some data using tape recordings and from historic and bibliographic literature. Mirabelli himself had been a waiter for a ten-year period and this was how he was able to easily gather all of this data. Using this data Mirabelli is able to conclude that serving in general is not a stupid and ignorant job it is way more complex than that.