Mushfake

My father owns a small kosher (Jewish diet), fast-food style restaurant.
In fact, it is the only kosher restaurant in all of San Diego. This means that any time a Jew, whether local or tourist, wants to eat kosher food out at a restaurant, they only have one option. This also means that during peak tourist times (Summers, Spring break, and Winter break), the restaurant, which is more like a cafe in terms of its size, gets incredibly, overwhelmingly, crazy busy.

One year, my Junior year of high school, my father took a catering job in Mammoth during winter break for one week and needed someone to over-see the restaurant. This week especially was when all the Jewish schools were on break (which tends to be different than the winter breaks non-Jewish schools have). The person he turned to was me. One afternoon I was learning how to work the register, a few hours later I was drowning in a pool of hungry people, and my dad was on his way to Mammoth.

The first time I had ever worked at the cafe - or any cafe for that matter - and customer service, was that day. I very quickly had to learn the struggles of working in customer service and had to pretend like I knew what I was doing and that I wasn't on the verge of a break-down.

I knew that I was completely in over my head but I couldn't let anyone see that; I especially couldn't let my dad down by not being able to prove to him that I could do it.

There were two cooks in the kitchen, only one of me, and about 100 people waiting (extremely impatiently) for their food. I was the only one there taking orders, running the register, and making sure the food get to the right people.

There were two instant points about customer service that I observed very early on that night. 1) No matter how rude a customer is, you have to remain as patient and calm as you possibly can; 2) Customers can see the two cooks in the kitchen from the window. They can see that there are only 2 cooks in there and about 30 (and counting) orders, but they don't care and will get frustrated if their food takes more than 5 minutes to come out. You must, still remain calm.

At this this exact moment, as customer were breathing directly over my head and talking over me as I was trying to help another customer, I acquired two skills that I don't believe I used before. The first, persuasive speaking skills, where I would direct the customer the have a seat and "as soon" as their order is ready I will call their name. The second, empathy. What could be so wrong with empathy? It's that up until that point, I thought I lacked it. Empathy is not a quality that has ever come easy for me but during this hectic night I was able to understand the frustrations of the customers, but at the same time use positive language to assure them I am doing everything I can to make sure everyone is happy. Out of the the long list of qualities you need in order to work in customer service, these two (empathy and persuasive speaking skills) are the ones I was faking the entire night.

Non of my customers knew that I had never done this before; non of them knew that I never had to persuade anyone like this, but I did it, and they believed me. 

In James Paul Gee's "Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics: Introduction," Gee mentions that language "is not just how you say it, but what you are and do when you say it." Furthermore, Gee goes on to explain that a 'mushfake' is "when one uses skills or linguistics that are close replications to the actual discourse" and it accomplishes "what a discourse does without actually doing it." In my case, the discourse I was pretending to identify with, otherwise said the time I needed to mushfake a discourse I wasn't familiar with, was the time I was thrown into customer service for the first time. The discourse of someone who works in customer service, effectively, is a complete bundle of patience, positive language, reassurement, adaptivity, along with a long list of other traits. Even more so, the ability to put up and maturely handle rude customers, be able to deliver bad news properly, but also appreciate your good customers.

Due to some miracle and the luck that came from some magic fairy (because there is no way I could have done this by myself) I pulled it off. I fed all my customers. Everyone went home happy... ok maybe not EVERYONE, but considering what happened that night, I'd say it was a successful night overall. 

There were 3 things I learned that night once I left at 11pm (when our normal closing time is 8pm in the summer):

1.  I weirdly work very well under pressure, and have the ability to to keep going during stressful times. 
2.  I had the ability to empathize with my customers and be able to persuade them that everything will work out. 
3. You can't make everyone happy, and that's ok. 

Therefore, what turned out to be a time where I needed to mushfake a discourse I wasn't familiar with, eventually turned into a discourse that I identify with daily. I still work at this cafe, 6 years later, and  have acquired (and embellished) all of these characteristics that I didn't know existed in my life. Now, during those crazy night that happen every so often, there is at least one customer that realizes my work and says something along the lines of "you are handling this very well." I say that proudly because I obtained parts of me that I did not think were possible.