I am hesitant to read a book that seems to be an outlet for complaining about restaurant customers. I spend my fair share of time in restaurants and I don’t want to hear about the things I’ve been doing wrong all these years. Those who don’t like negativity with their dinner be warned that the anonymous author known as The Waiter (who claims to be the voice of servers everywhere) may set out to entertain us with his witty tales of waiting tables in Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip – Confessions of a Cynical Waiter, but he does so without holding back any punches. The warning signs start with the use of the word “Rant” in the title and I fear a judgmental dividing line between those who eat at fine dining restaurants and those who work at them. I expect endless haranguing by a bitter waiter, always being short-changed his tips. But the book is far more than a tirade and turns into a well-constructed narrative taking a good, hard look at the restaurant industry. Waiter Rant has an accompanying website, also written anonymously to emphasize that his restaurant war stories could be any waiter at any dining establishment on any given night.
From what we know, The Waiter lives in New York and has worked a string of marketing jobs in corporate America. When he finds himself unemployed, becoming a waiter is at first a laughable suggestion. He sees himself as over-qualified (college-educated) and over-aged (31) with the typical reaction that waiting tables is a career for struggling actors and unemployable teenagers. Desperate for money, however, he takes a waiting job, thinking all the while it will be a temporary solution until he figures out what to do with his life.
In the North American, restaurant-festooned landscape, it is a shame that such a career is not taken seriously. Other cultures view it with a level of professionalism, like in “Europe where waiting is considered an honourable vocation (complete with formal schooling and internships).” After many years, amid stories of demanding customers and immoral restaurant owners, the author realizes he has grown into quite a good waiter, not to mention it has lasted longer than any other job he’s had. He knows he won’t get rich, but the money is good enough to make a living, which factors into his theories about why waiters get addicted to their jobs and stay longer than expected.
After seven years in the business, his complaints about annoying customers don’t let up and he comes up with the opinion that “20 percent of the American dining public are socially maladjusted psychopaths.” The other 80 percent are just nice people out to get good food, but even they can be annoying with grandiose culinary expectations from watching too much Bobby Flay and Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network.
Most of his rants are, predictably enough, about bad tippers. He is sceptical of diners who overly compliment his service because “customers who heap verbal tribute upon their servers often do so at the expense of financial tribute” and he is infuriated at after-church crowds who give religious tracts in lieu of a tip. He even gives one account of performing the Heimlich manoeuvre on a customer, literally saving his life and still being left a bad tip. His ultimate goal is to entertain, and he does so with cynical panache, but The Waiter also sets out to educate about the food-service industry and hopefully urge people to become better customers. Or at least, for his sake, better tippers.
