Tips From Those Who Wait
Reviewed by Paige Bierma
CONSUMER HEALTH INTERACTIVEWaiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress
By Debra Ginsberg
HarperCollins
286 pp $22 
A few years back, a survey question posed to husbands on the popular TV game show Family Feud asked them to name the occupation in which they'd least like to see their wives. The No. 1 answer? Waitress. "Not stripper, mind you, or prostitute," quips Debra Ginsberg in Waiting, her witty new book on her long career as a waitress. In fact, Ginsberg draws a few parallels between waiting tables and practicing the "world's oldest profession" in this droll, incisive account of her own 20 years of serving up smiles, good humor, and sometimes a dose of self-defense to strangers. While there are career waitpeople (Ginsberg calls them "lifers"), most of those waiting tables are usually "waiting" for something else to happen, in their jobs or otherwise. Ginsberg is no exception: She polished the art of serving while waiting for her freelance writing career to take off. It is no small life lesson that her first successful book centers around her 20 years of waiting. But Ginsberg, who waited at both dingy diners and five-star restaurants, has not penned a 286-page gripe session about the perils of waitressing. Her book is also an account of falling in love with the profession. A server's financial success (read "tips"), Ginsberg tells us, depends on the ability to "gauge a customer's mood, pick up cues as to his background, and based on all of this, anticipate his needs and wants. The server is, effectively, the customer's private dancer for the two hours he sits at her table." It is the psychological exercise of pinning down the customers' personalities, the fast-paced social interaction with the kitchen and the tables, and the relatively high pay for a shorter, more flexible workweek that make waiting tables rewarding, she writes. After all, most customers are after more than just efficient service from their waitperson. Often harried after a long day at work, they want someone to indulge their needs and to be "emotionally available enough to pamper them into a feeling of well-being," Ginsberg says. Other guests, however, seem to be after the opposite experience -- having the worst dining experience possible. Ginsberg chalks this up to a cut-rate kind of therapy in which the customer gets his or her frustrations out on the waiter or waitress. "I know who these guests are as soon as I approach the table. They scowl, bark, and let it be known that no matter what I do for them, they are not going to enjoy themselves," she writes. The key to dealing with difficult customers, she advises, is to learn not to take the criticisms personally. What other job could possibly serve up such a rich smorgasbord of human drama each night? Whether you're one of the more than 2 million Americans waiting tables today, or one of the millions more who have depended on tips at one point in life, you'll find Ginsberg's behind-the-scenes look at the restaurant business exuberant, validating, and full of good tips for surviving the pitfalls of the job. Ginsberg spins tales that span her jobs coast to coast, from seedy diners to upscale Italian bistros. Unforgettable characters in Ginsberg's account are the arrogant "Mr. Gold Chains," or the woman who masturbates her boyfriend under the table as she orders pasta for two and "extra napkins." As if this kind of titillating detail weren't enough, she keeps the stories interesting by weaving her own personal trials into the narrative. We learn, for example, that befriending cooks is the best way to get your dishes prepared on time. Getting too friendly, however, can backfire if a romance sours. A certain amount of sexual harassment from management and co-workers, Ginsberg admits, is an occupational hazard many waitresses unfortunately simply accept. If you file a complaint, she explains, many managers will simply resort to the age-old trick of doling you the worst shifts in the worst stations, painfully diminishing your income. Benefits are usually nonexistent, advancement opportunities are nil to none, and the physical demands are high. The stress of juggling many tables and tasks simultaneously, and the feeling that customers and management are constantly watching and judging you, brings many waitresses to the breaking point. Burnout, Ginsberg writes, is the most common waiting malady. It hit her in 1995 when, frustrated with her stalled freelance writing career and feeling stuck in her waitress job, she could no longer smile at her customers. She knew she was in trouble one evening when one asked, "How's the duck tonight?" and she answered, "Dead." In the end, despite what television audiences might think about the job, Ginsberg makes a convincing case for waiting tables. Just after college, Ginsberg thought she'd take a waiting job while she was waiting for her real life to begin. Nearly two decades later, she realized she had been living richly the whole time she was waiting tables. The experiences chronicled in Waiting are certainly testimony to that. -- Paige Bierma is a freelance health journalist who has written for Hippocrates, Safety + Health, and other journals.
Reviewed by C.E. McLaughlin, MD, a professor of sports medicine at the University of California at Berkeley.
Our reviewers are members of Consumer Health Interactive's medical advisory board.
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First published October 19, 2000
Last updated March 6, 2008
Copyright © 2000 Consumer Health Interactive
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