Yes, I’m writing a book. Go figure. Everyone and their sister wants to write a book at some point. Apparently, these days you even need a blog in order to write a book, so here we go. I’ve been in the restaurant biz for over a decade now and I’ve often thought that there needed to be a nuts and bolts guide to being a server – one that wasn’t just a recitation of dry facts or a pro forma overview of waiting tables. I’ve seen some of the books out there and I think that I can add to the rather slender shelf real estate that covers the profession of waiting tables, and do it in a style that can entertain and inform.
What you won’t get in this blog is a day by day account of my adventures in the restaurant world. For that, I highly recommend www.waiterrant.net/. I might occasionally share the frustrations or breakthroughs in the act of writing this book, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. I might actually post some proposed verbiage from the book, but again, this might or might not happen.
The book is tentatively titled, “So You Want To Be a Waiter – The Snarky Guide To Success”. As to whether I achieve the goals of the title is yet to be seen. I’m sure that my snark level will be a pale reflection of someone like an Anthony Bourdain, and I’m still working on the general tone that I want to portray. Since I’m a fairly sarcastic person overall, I’m working to strike a balance between being Oscar Wilde-esque and downright mean. I suspect that I’m going to oscillate between the two extremes.
A housekeeping note, if you will. I reserve the right to delete responses that I deem inappropriate. I’m not worried so much about language or “bad words”, and I’m all in favor of a free-spirited exchange of ideas (if the blog ever gets to achieve that sort of momentum, which I doubt). However, I will be the sole judge of what is appropriate and the posting of comments will assume this right. Generally, if privacy is compromised or slanderous or libelous comments are made, or I just plain decide that a comment has gone over the line of common decency, the comment is liable to disappear.
And now that we’ve gotten this out of the way, may I note that I have 17,000 words in play toward the structure of my book, many of them likely to find the cutting room floor due to the editor’s virtual scissors. Wish me luck.
