Alycia Holwerda
Serving at Buffalo Wild Wings
Beginning in August of 2018 until December of 2019, I was a server at Buffalo Wild Wings in Mankato, MN. Each day I would serve many guests by getting their drinks, communicating their food order, and making sure their experience was exciting, positive, and fulfilling. Each shift I would try to make sure my customers had everything they needed to have pleasant meals at our restaurant. A huge component of this was ensuring that they get their food exactly the way they desired. I had to communicate with guests to ensure that I know exactly what they would like to eat and then tell the kitchen through a POS system how to prepare their food.
Communication was essential in every shift with every member at every table. As a server at Buffalo Wild wings, I would communicate with many people from diverse backgrounds. One of these groups was families whose first language is Spanish. At first, I began by trying to communicate via pictures on the menu, but soon realized this was a fleeting attempt to get their order. Then, I utilized my knowledge of the Spanish language outside of the classroom at Buffalo Wild Wings (Global Citizenship Communication: Level 3). I would say short phrases as to different menu items to communicate with my Spanish speaking customers. In doing so, I realized my abilities to speak Spanish are very limited to a few short phrases and I could not fully speak or understand everything in Spanish. My attempts were appreciated by my customers but yet they felt awkward. They seemed to appreciate I was trying to make them feel more comfortable in the situation by using a language they were familiar with. However, since I was not familiar with the language as much as they were, I felt the uncomfortableness shift to me. Even though these situations made me uncomfortable, they forced me to demonstrate my knowledge and grow in my abilities in familiar and unfamiliar situations (Global Citizenship Communication: Level 4). Before working at Buffalo Wild Wings, I did not realize the difficulties English language learners encounter on a daily basis. Ordering from a restaurant is such a common and fundamental task that many children can complete. I cannot fathom the difficulties English-second language learners encounter when it comes to buying a house, filing taxes, or renewing a license. These activities require more communication than just ordering a food. Language learners must also struggle with finding employment since their communication skills are limited. For example, if I were to move to Mexico, I would struggle finding employment since I cannot communicate in the familiar language. My customers must face a similar difficulty; they face many difficulties that I never would have thought of before trying to utilize my language in the non-classroom setting of working at Buffalo Wild Wings.
While working at Buffalo Wild Wings I was able to grow my knowledge of other cultures related to dining. I noticed various different aspects such as Hispanic and Latino families will typically order enough food for everyone to share and more to take home. Also, they usually have Sunday dinners together in the afternoon for a couple hours to catch up with each other. I also learned that some people from the Middle East and African will typically eat later in the night. Most would start eating their meals after 10:00pm. Other cultures tend to have family time around food where they can sit and enjoy each other’s company when there is nothing else going on at night. These aspects are different from my own culture who typically will only share an appetizer than each have our own meal at around 12:00pm or 6:00pm. In the United States we are cagier with our property, such as our food. We tend to think of what is ours, is ours. We think more about ourselves and will take care of ourselves first. The United States tends to have a more intrinsic culture than other countries. I was able to obtain and analyze information about other cultures (Global Citizenship Knowledge: Level 3).
I believe serving at Buffalo Wild Wings had significantly helped me improve my global citizenship skills through language and culture. It has gave me the opportunity to not only communicate with but also observe various different cultural practices pertaining to food. I could continue growing my understanding of other cultures at my future employer as well. I am certain that I will work with people from various different backgrounds as well at IBM especially since they are an international company. I look forward to the opportunity to continue to gain more knowledge of other cultures by learning more about my coworkers at IBM.