BW Boutique Hotel

look straight ahead to where you’re going to take your food. You can’t just look completely to the side, carrying all those plates— you could lose your sense of balance. As you’re going out of the kitchen, you more or less take little glances to the side.
This vigilance—from a stationary point or while in motion—is not only a matter of perceptual acuity but also involves working memory and knowledge of the restaurant, knowledge of food preparation and of typical routines. My mother reveals this mix of memory, knowledge, and attention in her monitoring of the status of her customers’ orders: “You’re keeping an eye on who is not served yet. If it’s been too long, you go check on the kitchen yourself.” She recalls who ordered what and when and knows roughly how long a specific item should take to prepare, given the time of day. As she quickly checks her tables, she’s attuned to a possible error in preparation.
Cognitive scientist David LaBerge uses mindfi4lnesS as a synonym for crttetion, and though the dictionary defines mindfulness somewhat sparely as being aware or heedful, the word connotes something more, something that, I think, suits this discussion of waitres sing and attention. Mindfulness, first of all, implies intelligence, a mind knowledgeable and alert. The word also connotes a heightened state and a comprehensivenesS an apprehension of the “big picture,” mentioned earlier, and, as well, a cueing toward particulars and a vigilance for aberration—aS when my mother monitors those delayed orders.
I want to return to that harried moment my mother describes where the regular is tapping his coffee cup, the cook is ringing the bell, and so on. A waitress could attend to all this clatter, and know what it means, and yet not know what to do next. How does she decide what her next move should be?
The answer is a multilayered one and involves some of what
we’ve already seen. First, the waitress’s response will be driven by several interrelated high-level goals: to satisf3i customers (and thus boost income), to maximize efficiency and minimize effort, and to manage conflict. All the waitresses I interviewed referred in some way to this cluster of goals. My mother speaks of “making every move count” and how “you think quick what you have to do first… in order to please people.” Another waitress asks, “How can I maximize my effort in that moment?” Yet another emphasizes the value. of controlling fatigue by “working smart.” These goals will serve to organize the waitress’s activity.

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