Morgan Johnson
1/11/16
Block 4 Green
Classification Essay
The Category Game As a miserable employee of the Panera Bread Restaurant/Café/Bakery, I confess that I have spent the most of my shifts during the past 2 years categorizing any and all customers I come in contact with. This childish game I play in my own head, and sometimes with my co-workers, can last anywhere from 4 to 10 hours. Every person that walks through Panera’s streaky glass doors on a mission to feed themselves the most overpriced and overhyped food, fall victim to this game. Nine times out of ten I am the first employee an incoming customer sees. Nine times out of ten I am the first employee to observe a customer’s behavior, prepare myself to act as fake as the ingredients in processed foods, and provide the customer service that I am required to do as specified in my job description. There are several factors that play into where a customer lies on the “enjoyable” to “ready to march my-underpaid-self straight out the front doors” scale, and I within a 60 second interaction with a person, I can put them exactly where they belong. Like most food based businesses, we have our regular customers that come in anywhere from 1 to 15 times per week to get their favorite drink, snack, meal, or bakery item. I can proudly say I adore approximately 80% of them. I have multiple “family members” that aren’t necessarily blood related to me. This 80% of the regular customer population fall under the enjoyable, crazy (but lovable) family members, tolerable idiots, and Chatty Cathies. Some occasional and even first time customers can also fit into these categories.
Joyce and Rich come in once or twice per day, if weather permits, to get their hot and iced decaf/hazelnut coffee with a little bit of cream in each, sit at a booth big enough to play cards but small enough to easily get in and out of, and to