Waiting:the True Confessions Of A Waitre - Hardcover

Ginsberg, Debra

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0753196727 ISBN 13: 9780753196724

Publisher: Isis Large Print, 2002

Synopsis

"Ginsberg got her education in restaurants and she doles it out just right in this entertaining account." - PEOPLE MAGAZINE "Funny and ultimately satisfying." - ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY Ginsberg takes readers on an intimate journey of her twenty years as a waitress at the dingiest of diners, a soap-operatic Italian restaurant, an exclusive five-star dining club, and more. This book chronologically takes you through Debra Ginsberg's career as a waitress. Through her wonderful stories, you get to see her develop as a waitress, and more importantly, mature as a person. Over her twenty-year span of waitressing, you get to live through her struggles, financial woes, and life awakenings. For her, waiting tables was a career which she struggled with while seeking a "true job". But the money from waitressing was just too good. Her tips were essential in the raising of her son as a single parent, and waitressing also allowed her to spend quality time with him.

About this title

Review:

In a truly just world, everyone would have to wait tables for at least six months, just to know what it's like. Failing that, we have writer-waiter Debra Ginsberg's tasty memoir to remind us about life on the other side of those swinging doors. Horror stories? After 20 years of serving other people's food, she's got 'em--and being handed a drunk's vomit-soaked napkins certainly fits the bill. But even though she expresses the usual frustrations with bad tippers and control freaks, in the long run Ginsberg is anything but bitter. In fact, she recently left her publishing job to return to waiting tables, hooked on the freedom, spare time, and ready cash the lifestyle provides. Of course, there are other perks too. Sex thrives in the close quarters and steamy atmosphere of a typical restaurant (not to mention with the high-drama personalities who work there). Fans of Kitchen Confidential will be relieved to know there's as much bad behavior among the floor staff as there is in the back of the house. As in that book, Ginsberg also relates some eyebrow-raising tales about what can happen before your food gets to your table. (The moral here: "It really does pay to be nice to your server.") But Waiting is far more than just a sexual soap opera or a cautionary guide for dining out; it's also the story of one woman's coming of age, most of which just happens to take place while she's wearing an apron. During her tenure as a waitress, Ginsberg thrives as a single mother and comes into her own as a writer--and waiting (as she suggestively calls it) helps her do both. Most of us (including waiters) think of the profession as a stopgap, not a career, but what happens on the way to somewhere else, Ginsberg writes, is every bit as important as the final destination: "Perhaps the most valuable lesson I'd learned was that the act of waiting itself is an active one. That period of time between the anticipation and the beginning of life's events is when everything really happens--the time when actual living occurs." --Mary Park

About the Author:

Debra Ginsberg is the author of Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress and Raising Blaze: Bringing Up an Extraordinary Son in an Ordinary World. A graduate of Reed College, she is a contributor to NPR's All Things Considered and the San Diego Union-Tribune "Books" section.

About this edition

• Publisher: Isis Large Print
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0753196727
• ISBN 13: 9780753196724
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 440