Waiter Rant

Thanks for the Tip - Confessions of a Cynical Waiter

By: Steve Dublanica

Narrated by: Dan John Miller

Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

According to The Waiter, 80 percent of customers are nice people just looking for something to eat. The remaining 20 percent, however, are socially maladjusted psychopaths.

Waiter Rant offers the server's unique point of view, replete with tales of customer stupidity, arrogant misbehavior, and unseen bits of human grace transpiring in the most unlikely places.

Through outrageous stories, The Waiter reveals the secrets to getting good service, proper tipping etiquette, and how to keep him from spitting in your food. The Waiter also shares his ongoing struggle, at age 38, to figure out if he can finally leave the first job at which he's really thrived.

Public Domain (P)2008 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"The other shoe finally drops. The front-of-the-house version of Kitchen Confidential; a painfully funny, excruciatingly true-life account of the waiter's life. As useful as it is entertaining." (Anthony Bourdain)
"I really enjoyed Waiter Rant. The book is engaging and funny, a story told from my polar opposite perspective." (John DeLucie, chef of The Waverly Inn)

Blatantly made up

I was hoping this would be an accurate portrayal of the life of a waiter, and in some ways it is, but it doesn't even try to hide that it's embellished except for not mentioning it anywhere in the description. The conversations are straight out of a bad TV show. It contains every trope you can think of. I don't know if this was written by a waiter or someone who just hangs around them or has read an Anthony Bourdain book.

Disappionting Service

I was hoping for 'Kitchen Confidential' from a waiter's perspective. I got a narcissistic diatribe on the restaurant business and customers.
The book contained no real insights, suggestions or revelations.

Don't bother

This author literally needs to get a life. I was hoping for a more balanced view of life from the other side of the menu, but this author used the entire book to whine and complain, in an almost childlike manner, about his job. If he is so unhappy with it, maybe he should find a different vocation? Some of his rants are very legitimate, but some of them are simply what any person working with the general public must endure. The cross he is bearing is no larger than any other that so many thankless jobs entail, yet, for some reason, he believes he should be especially entitled to be exempt from the tribulations that come from working with the outside world. I found it tiresome, and a waste of money.

Awful

I like food and restaurant writing but this is just silly and amaturish - I cannot believe he had a successful blog. Read anything by Michael Ruhlman instead!

It's ok, but there are so many much better

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Kinda of a mindless read.

Would you ever listen to anything by The Waiter again?

No

Have you listened to any of Dan John Miller’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Miller was ok

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Not really

Any additional comments?

It could have bee more interesting and less predictable,,

Disappointing

Somehow, somewhere The Waiter lost the magic of the original blog by concentrating too much on personal emotions. Middle age angst is not what his blog was known for not what I expected from the book.

Very Disappointed

Too much psychobabble

I was looking for funny accounts of crazy customers. And while it had a few, there was way too much autobiography of pre-waiter life and psycho babble. The author studied psychology and it's like that makes him an expert as to why his customers and coworkers act the way they do. He should have just stuck to one story after the next without overanalyzing it to death. When we did get actual customer stories, they were cute but not laugh out loud funny. I'd "read" this book if a friend loaned it to me, but I wouldn't recommend paying money for it.

Dull, repetitive, and deluded...

I have never felt so irritated at an audiobook as I did while attempting to stomach this whiny, self-serving and terribly written book. The author constantly talks about how he is too good to be a waiter, because he is "a writer." I have news for him. He's no writer!

I adored "Heads in Beds" and Anthony Bourdain's books and I had high hopes for "Waiter Rant." The only reason I finished it was so that I could give this book one star, knowing in good conscience that I gave it a real chance to win me over.

Stay away!

Truly Ranting

I did not find any useful or entertaining story here. The title is quite correct: this is a rant. It is somewhat the story of a portion of the life of a waiter, but I am unable to connect the dots to determine what the flow of this could be other than rant.
I would give it no stars, but can't seem to get the system to accept that.

putrid

Somewhere between the audacious and enchanting writing of Anthony Bourdain and the awkward, self centered school report of a 5th grade who is desperately in need of both self confidence and turoring, Dan Miller has found his niche. He reads like a bad menu. Over the top in meaningless cliches. Please... someone fire his editor.