"Have You Ever Wondered What It Is Like To Work As A Waitress?"

Have you ever wondered why people sometimes demand so much from waiters and waitresses and at the same time have very little regard for many of these individuals?

Debra Ginsberg waited on tables for twenty years to support her other career as a freelance writer and editor. In Waiting: The True Confessions Of A Waitress, Ginsberg tells it "like it is" and engages her readers with a story format of her experiences and memoirs. Some of these tales may not be too pretty, such as having to clean up used dental floss, emptying used syringes and bloodied linens, however they do give us an idea of the real world of what it is like to work in a restaurant or bar.

Pressure and stress very often take their toll as a result of the enormous variety of mental and physical tasks that must be performed over a short span of time. Patience, stamina, good memory, human relation skills and personal organizational abilities are essential requirements if you want to last. Furthermore, no matter how obnoxious the customer behaves, you are required at all times to keep cool. Remember, you are constantly under surveillance, either by the customer or the management. How well you perform the task often determines your earnings.

Ginsberg also lets us in on some of the dirty secrets of the restaurant business. As an example, in order to save on costs, it is not too rare where management will cut corners and cut down on supplies such as eating utensils. When these items run perilously low, the customer suffers. Many of us are unaware that waiters and waitresses sometimes have to run to the kitchen, frantically rinse these utensils (which were soaking in dirty water), and dry them with soiled linens. These utensils are then sent to the table.

There is, however, some kind of comfort working and even dining in a restaurant. Ginsberg points out "a restaurant is a place where several basic human needs are met all at once. Within these walls there is food, shelter and warmth. Often there is a sense of family. At the very least, there are plenty of people all around. One is never really alone at the table. There is certainly some security in this, even if it is only temporary."

Perhaps the next time you are out dining think about some of Ginsberg's perceptions.

Reviewed by Norman Goldman
Posted November 21, 2002

Summary

A veteran waitress dishes up a spicy and robust account of life as it really exists behind kitchen doors.

Part memoir, part social commentary, part guide to how to behave when dining out, Debra Ginsberg's book takes readers on her twentyyear journey as a waitress at a soap-operatic Italian restaurant, an exclusive five-star dining club, the dingiest of diners, and more. While chronicling her evolution as a writer, Ginsberg takes a behind-the-scenes look at restaurant life-revealing that yes, when pushed, a server will spit in food, and, no, that's not really decaf you're getting-and how most people in this business are in a constant state of waiting to do something else.