My trip to Wendy's

      Last class we were assigned to observe a particular location and take notice of how people withing this location interacted. I choose to visit the Wendy's on Chestnut St. Fast food establishments are (obviously) built to function as a rapid distributor of food. People come in and expect to eat in no less than five minutes (and during my observations, people were generally served and seated within that amount of time). Time is money, and the fast food industry has this concept down to a science, even in regards to communications.

     Another aspect of our assignment was to also try and construct some kind of definition of culture for ourselves, based upon either our observations or just personal opinion. I had always considered culture to be a coexistence between a particular group of people sharing something in common. This could either be in relation to sex, race, religion or simply geography. I suppose in a way, my definition of culture is a kind of discrimination. This discrimination was very clear in my observations at Wendy's.

It did not take me long to notice certain differences in interaction between people of opposing backgrounds. At first, I noticed that the general communication between customer and cashier was fairly straight forward, with very little excess conversation. Which makes sense for a fast food restaurant, the aim of such an establishment is to make as many sales as possible in a short duration of time. However, as time passed, it was apparent that different cultures communicated by different means, even at such an informal establishment as Wendy's. Most of these differences lay between the white and black communities. I noticed that all the cashiers were black, and so were almost all the customers. Nonetheless, Wendy's appeals to many people of different backgrounds. When a white male ordered from black woman, I noticed that the order from the while male was kept as brief as possible and that little to no eye contact was made. When his food was delivered, he muttered a thanks and the black female mumbled an acknowledgment. This was generally consistent with most black male or female to white male or female communications. On the other end of the spectrum, black to black interactions tended to have more detail in the meal orders and more eye contact. When meals were delivered by a black employee to a black customer, eyes generally met and appreciations were exchanged.

I also took note to the people eating around me. I would say over 90% of those eating within the restaurant were alone. Those that sat together generally did so silently. I studied two couples, one was a table seating two black men while the other sat a white woman and a black man. The table seating the two men were much more talkative compared to the table seating the man and the woman. The table seating the two men was even visited by a black female customer, but by this time the other coupled table had departed.

      I found that the fast food "joint" is not the most sociable of environments. Between customer and employee, conversations are strictly business. Between customer and customer, food seemed more important than conversation and contact. I also suspected a little bit of culture to be playing a part in the reason for the observations I made. Seeing how more sociable same sex to same race were in the restaurant, despite the fast pace the establishments must operate by, made me rethink my definition of culture. Can it be so shallow to describe a culture as a coexistence between a particular group of people sharing obvious similarities? I am just going off an hour of observations at a Wendy's, but most of what I saw was little to no real human interaction. What human interaction I did see was by those with these obvious similarities.

 

-Arlen