Review: Waiter Rant by Steve Dublanica

I hate memoirs. BUT, I have a weakness for workplace stories and rants. It lets off steam when those library patrons have been acting up again, or when the person in front of me in the Wal-Mart line is being a jerk. Waiter Rant is a sort-of memoir by the guy who writes the Waiter Rant blog, but don't worry... there's a lot more in it than what's on the blog, and it's only sort of a memoir.

It seems like this is a book about why he wrote this book, more than anything. And that's fine. He tells the story of how he became a waiter and what it's really like, from dealing with customers to dealing with other staff, and he does it with both humor and insight. He tells the stories of other people he's seen pass through the dining room. He tells about his fear of failure and how long it took him to decide to write this book. There are happy moments, sad moments, gross moments... just about everything, and even if you've never been a waiter I'm sure you'll sympathize. I'm also sure you'll decide to start tipping a lot more than you have been!

Equal parts personal history, work anecdotes, and insider information, Waiter Rant is a quick, smooth read. I was impressed with how orderly it was, structured almost like a novel with flashbacks and asides but everything being revealed in the right order. It ends shortly after he's gotten his book deal, and I was encouraged to go bang out the rest of the Great American Novel right then and there.

I hear he's writing a new book and I can't wait to read it, but until then there's Not Always Right, a blog about funny and stupid customer quotes, and Quiet, Please, the same sort of kind-of-memoir only about a librarian.

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