Sociology Waitress
Functionalism
Serving customers food and drinks is a fundamental function in restaurant operations. However, serving customers food and drinks constitutes the manifest function of a waitress. The manifest functions of the restaurant itself include feeding people and making a profit for its owner. The restaurant's latent functions include promoting the brand identity of its celebrity chef, and contributing to the quality of life in the community. Latent functions of a waitress depend on the restaurant and its organizational culture and mission. In this case, the latent function of the waitress is to preserve the restaurant's brand identity by maintaining a professional appearance and demeanor at all times. The waitress is like an advertisement for the restaurant, ensuring that the customers will return and spread the word to friends.
The functionalist views the job of server in a high quality restaurant as being integral to the working of the whole system. From the functionalist perspective, the waitress herself is not as important as her role, her function. She functions as an interface between the business and the customer. The owner of the restaurant rarely has contact with customers. When the owner does have contact with customers, it is usually in a public relations capacity. One of the roles of the waitress is also to perform public relations by maintaining poise during times of stress, ensure that all customers are happy when they leave the restaurant, and maintaining order within the restaurant by ensuring efficient communications between client and kitchen.
Without a waitress, a restaurant would function differently. It would likely function poorly, as there would be pressure on the cooking staff to continually deliver the food to the tables. The waitress's function helps to stabilize the entire organization and ensure that it operates with maximum efficiency. This is true from a profitability perspective, too, as the more efficient the restaurant is, the more likely (a) customers are to return because their experience was pleasant; and (b) the more table turnover takes place, therefore maximizing the number of diners that can eat in any given evening.
Conflict theory
The waitress is in a subordinate position...
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