As I sit here today staring into the inevitability of the start of another work week I feel it necessary to tell you what I did this week end by giving you my review of the new book by recently outed "Waiter" Steve Dublanica from his blog Waiter Rant. As reading it basically felt like being at work all week end, except that I could cry openly on my on my couch and not have to go into the back of the restaurant to hide it, I blame him for my batteries not being recharged and being in a shitty mood even after having the past 4 days off...
So, as a waiter with a blog let me just say this:
I'm a better writer than he is. I'm a better waiter than he is. I've been a waiter for a lot longer than he has. I work in a better restaurant with more/better stories than he does, and I'm WAAAAY more bitter than he is.
In other words: Congratulations!
He's just made every waiter with half a gumption to "spill the beans" about the restaurant industry green with envy! He figured out that "doing anything" is almost the entire equation for "Doing Something", a lesson most of us waiters all like to say we've learned when we're out for after-shift drinks, but very few of us actually have...
As far as the book: It's okay. It's good in some places, not so good in other places. I never read the blog, so maybe the stories on it are better then the ones in the book, but it seems to me that he worked in a restaurant in a whole different league then ones in Manhattan. Not to say the truths are not the same, but much as the fundamentals of baseball are the same in AAA as it is in the Big Leagues, quaint little restaurants on Long Island (my best guess) are not the same game as high end restaurants in Manhattan.
Not that the vast majority of the readers will know, or care, about the difference, it's just how I felt reading the book...
As far as the human element, it's great. You see the human side of suffering and trying to figure out how to break the "unbreakable" cycle that waiting tables is and actually doing it. No matter what I personally think of the book, or the writer, I can't take that away from him... Especially as a waiter hoping to soon follow him into the next phase of my life, I give him my full amount of respect...
And respect is the one thing that every good waiter deserves more than anything else...
Oh, and in case anyone ever reads this:
My favorite passive aggressive "pay back" to douche customers is to rub their credit cards all over my balls and hand the card back to them personally...
I don't know why, but that always makes me feel better...
Here's to better days!
n*
