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)

Needs an editor

Either wait for the abridged version or skim the blog. The stories of annoying customers and other hassles of the restaurant business are amusing, but you have to wade through too much painfully bad dreck to reach them. Rather than focusing on what he's good at - recounting everyday incidents in the life of a waiter - the author spends most of the book trying to convince us/himself that he is now a Writer. So besides the fascinating details of his childhood library visits and the pain of a critical writing review in college, we get the flowery descriptions of sunsets, painfully artificial expository dialogues, and essays on his views on illegal immigration, the homeless, and what it feels like to be discovering his 'gift' for writing. Skip it.

This is a rant not a book

The author offers little new info. He seems to lack an ability to realize his own faults. He tries to be like Kitchen Confidential but is a let down. His own ego gets in the way of any real insight. He insists that a patron is lying about getting ill from a meal to get out of a bill she has already paid. His medicine is incorrect. She could have had food poisoning that resolved in the time frame as a result of Staph food poisoning. He spends a page spouting incorrect medical info to bolster his point. Another point is that patron are upset to see a hair in their food. However, I doubt that people see this a a lottery ticket not to pay a bill. Yes bugs and hair happen but show a little respect for your customer.

Overall it is a rant. A rant is an emotional attack often with no prove to its arguments. Clearly this is an egotistical persons comments. It offers as much insight as the author has to his own life, none.

This is my first negative review.

Keep the Change

Read Steve Dublanica's other book instead. "Keep the Change" is more informational than "Waiter Rant." This book is a blog post from a disgruntled waiter that likes to complain. This is my second time at listening to "Waiter Rant" and its still interesting to hear what servers goes through, but it was very redundant. If I didn't liked my job, I could had written a book on being on a hamster wheel, just spinning and spinning.

He thinks way too highly of himself

By the 3rd or 4th chapter I was already sick of hearing how great the author is. I didn't bother finishing it so I can't give an honest review of the entire book, but I wasn't at all impressed with what I did get through.

Not for everyone.

This is OK if you are or have ever been a waiter. If not, don't bother. You'll find it hard to identify with anything he says.

Waste of Credit

For some reason I was hoping for a book similar to Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential i.e. some insight into the restaurant world. This book is nothing like it and like many of the other reviews state the author needs to get a life or at least stick to his Blog. Just because you can write a witty blog doesn't mean you a re good author! STAY AWAY!!!