Psychology
Mrs. Prprich 2-21-14
Customer Service
On Thursday evening I attended a gathering for my basketball team at Pizzarama restaurant in New London, I used this opportunity observe a waitress at this restaurant from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. This is a small family style pizza place that has about 10 employees working at this time. I wanted to study her behavior as the restaurant become busier during the early evening dinner hours. Upon my arrival the restaurant was filled to about 50% capacity and within the next 30 minutes it filled to about 75%. I had believed that the waitress would be scrambling for the items she needed to prepare for her customers as the tables began to place their orders. I had also believed that the waitress would be making about twice as many rushed visits out to the tables to provide service to the customers. During my observation of her activities, I would pay close attention to how she was communicating with her co-workers, if she would begin to make mistakes as the activities increased, and if there was still a sense of organization of the food coming out to customers from the kitchen. The reason that I chose this setting and subject to test on is because I am a third year culinary arts student, therefore I have some knowledge of the way this waitress should handle herself during the increase of normal dinner time activities. The first thing I did when I was seated was pick out my subject who I would be observing based on which waitress was assigned to tables within my sight. In deciding who would be the best waitress to observe, I tried to find the one who would provide me with the least compounding variables. A couple of compounding variables that I kept in my mind was, is her shift about to end, was she a family member to the owner, did she serve any other role besides waitress, I made sure that she wasn’t going to be serving me at any point, and did she appear to be slacking off or fooling around