I will be appearing at the Closter Public Library in Closter, NJ this Monday, January 19th, at 7:30PM. Come visit me!
by waiter | Jan 17, 2009 | Uncategorized | 24 comments
I will be appearing at the Closter Public Library in Closter, NJ this Monday, January 19th, at 7:30PM. Come visit me!
post is three hours old and this is the first reply? hope this doesn’t mean your importance in our lives is slipping, steve.
You are doing a heckuva job getting out there. My dream is to just write an e-book let alone something in hard cover.
When the heck are you coming to Albuquerque?
The Bergen County Library System honored me with “Author of the Month” a few months ago so I’m doing some talks near my hometown. Hey if the Albuquerque Library flies me out and puts me up – no problem! The Kansas City Library did!
Well I hope you’re not Closterphobic! 😉
-Eva
Oh, bummer. It’s an hour and a half away from me… and I gotta be at work early the next day. 🙁
Come to Central Jersey, Waiter! The local B&N has authors stop by all the time… we’d love to have you! :o)
I sell books for a living. I’m going to staff rec your book. I love it! I face people who call me an idiot all the time. The money is bad, I stand on my feet all day and they just told us they are cutting our hours because of the economy. I already go without heat cause I can’t afford it. My first thought was, “What will I have to give up next? Water?” And my second thought was, “I have to get a better job.”
Amazing what we sell our souls for. Mine goes for $8.75 an hour. Now I won’t even get 40 hours a week. How did my soul get so cheap?
Hello!!! Your book have reached Brazilian land. well… I have bought it in Washington-DC, but if it depends on the advertisement I use to do for you, it will be spread all over Latin America! Congrats! really cool book!
Hello!
I brought your book to Brazil and if its sucess over here depended only in my excitement about it, it will certainly be an international sucess! Congrats!
Is there a portugues version of it?
Nice book!
hey man
Busy reading your book. I am waiter from South Africa. Been doing it all around the world. Thanks for getting our story told. they NEED TO KNOW!! 🙂
anyhow
Peace
TheBrr
Hi,
I was reading ur blog posts and found some of them to be very good.. u write well.. Why don’t you popularize it more.. ur posts on ur blog ‘waiter rant’ took my particular attention as some of them are interesting topics of mine too;
BTW I help out some ex-IIMA guys who with another batch mate run http://www.rambhai.com where you can post links to your most loved blog-posts. Rambhai was the chaiwala at IIMA and it is a site where users can themselves share links to blog posts etc and other can find and vote on them. The best make it to the homepage!
This way you can reach out to rambhai readers some of whom could become your ardent fans.. who knows.. 🙂
Cheers,
Ray
I ALWAYS WONDERED, IS THERE A HEAVEN OR HELL? IF THERE IS A HELL, IM THINKIN IM PROLLY GONNA GO TO HELL, IT MAKES ME SAD, WHY DOES SHIET HAVE TO BE SO HARD, I WANNA CRY, THEN SLAP A BI. IF U BAD AND SELFISH U GO TO HELL, IF UR GOOD AND GIVING U GO TO HEAVEN, HOW ABOUT IF UR YOUNG AND U DIE OF CANCER, DO U AUTOMATICALLY GO TO HEAVEN, BUT WAT IF U WERE BAD AND SELFISH ALSO, THEN WHERE THE FUK WOULD U GO, WAT IF U WERE BAD, THEN TURNED GOOD, WHERE WOULD U GO AFTER U DIE? IT COULD GO EITHER WAY IN SO MANY WAYS, IF U WERE BAD, DO U GET REINCARNATED AS A COCKROACH? THAT WOULD SUK, ALOT OF TIMES I WISH I WASNT EVEN BORN, CUZ LIFE IS SO FUKKKKED UP SOMETIMES, I DONT EVEN LIKE GETTTING UP MOST OF THE TIME NIGGGGGA, EVERYTHING SEEMS TO BE SUCH A CHORE, EVEN EATING HAS BECOME MUNDANE, AND WHEN U WATCH THE NEWS, ALL U HEAR ABOUT IS BAD NEWS AND ABOUT ALL THE FUKKKKED UP SHIET IN THE WORLD, ALL THE GREED AND HATRED, SURE THIS IS GOOD ALSO, BUT EVIL SEEMS TO BE SO MUCH MORE OUT THERE, LOOK AT THE US, HOW RICH IT IS, AND THEN U LOOK AT AFRICA AND JUST HOT POOR AND STARVING ALL THE PEOPLE ARE, THEN U HEAR ABOUT BERNIE MADOFF AND HOW HE LOST 50 BILLION DOLLARS OF RICH PEOPLES MONEY, THEN U SEE BUMS ON THE STREET EATING OUT OF THE TRASH CAN, THEN U EAT AT BUFFETS WHERE THERE IS ENDLESS FOOD, AND THEN U SEE IMAGES OF PEOPLE DYING IN AFRICA OF STARVATION, LIFE I SO FUKKKED UP IN HOW RANDOM AND UNFAIR IT IS, ALOT OF TIMES THERE SEEMS LIKE THERES NO RHYME OR REASON, BUT THEN AT THE SAME TIME U THINK THERE MUST BE A GOD, I MEAN WHO COULD HAVE CREATED NATURE, THE WONDERS OPF THE UNIVERSE, THE COMPLEXT HUMAN BODY, THE CREATION OF ART AND MUSIC, SO MANY THINGS IN THE WORLD APPREAR TO BE A MIRACLE TO ME, SOMETHING THAT COULD NOT BE MAN MADE, SO IN THE END , I THINK THERE WAS A GOD THAT CREATED EVERYTHING, BUT I FEEL LIKE HE DIED, RIGHT AFTER HE CREATED THE UNIVERESE, HE CREATED US, THEN JUST DESERTED US, WHERE DO WE GO TO AFTER WE DIE? I HAVE NO IDEA, A BIG PART OF ME WISHES THAT IT WOULD JUST BE ALL OVER, NO MORE THOUGHTS , NO MORE WORRIES, NO MORE FEELINGS, I DONT CARE ABOUT HEAVEN, THAT WOULD BE HEAVEN TO ME, BUT THEN A BIG PART OF ME THINKS THERE MUST BE SOME KIND OF JUDGEMENT ON HUMAN SOULS, IT WOULD BE UNFAIR IF ALL PEOPLE HAD THE SAME FATE, PEOPLE ARE SO DIFFERENT, ESEPCIALLY GOOD PEOPLE AND BAD PEOPLE, IF EVERYONE HAD THE SAME FATE, IT WOULD DEFINITELY BE UNFAIR, BUT AS EVERYONE ALREADY KNOS LIFE IS UNFAIR
I for the very first time just heard of you and your blogg.. I too am a server and find it quite entertaining to read some of your stuff….
The service industry has taken a real amazing hit w/ the economy the way it is and honey $3.15 is nothing to shake a stick at…lol @ wages but above and beyond, I do love my job, I enjoy the people and new enviornment every day…yes much like middle school, there is drama with every turn but trying to leave this buisness is hard too.. We get cash every day.. meet new people… and play alot in bar alley….lmao…
We make friends or aquaint. not exactly some one you would bring home for dinner but they make your night go by a little better..a little faster… and there is alot to say about servers…I have never done SOME OF THE THINGS YOU REFEER TOO LIKE SPITTING IN SOMEONES FOOD… BUT YES i HAVE WANTED TOO…
You keep up the good work
writing is a gift and if you can get me to read it…lol well thats saying alot. I DONT READ!!!
have a great adventure with your up comming book!!!
dnrbear1@aol.com
Carrie in MD
ur website is getting to be boring, now that ur “out”
Maybe you should change the name of your blog to “tipping expert extraordinaire”
because if we’re being honest.. you’re not a waiter anymore and your posts aren’t about being a waiter.
just a thought
You are a very talented writer, but I’ll have to agree with the last post – you’re not a waiter anymore and your posts aren’t about being a waiter.
I’ve scanned through many of your posts, and I’ll have to say I think some of your suggestions for tipping are quite ridiculous. Tipping is never mandatory, and there are occasions when it is completely appropriate to “stiff” the servig staff. A tip is discretionary, and it originated as a reward for exceptional service. For a server to feel entitled to an automatic tip, even when they’ve provided poor service, is ludicrous.
But congratulations on the success of your new career.
@ AIM=KALIKRNGUYX
Damn Dude…
Wait is he a bot? hasn’t he posted wierd stuff before? Steve I think you need a Captcha.
The urban legend. Everybody’s heard of them, but no one really knows of anyone who’s ever been in one. Urban legends cover a large variety of topics… from murders to practical jokes to those flesh-eating monsters that hide underneath your bed at night, it seems society loves to create them and pass the stories on from generation to generation. Well, one summer I decided to chase a certain urban legend which has always fascinated me, and I thought I’d share my story with all of you.
The time: Summer 1994
The place: Ensenada, Mexico
The crew: Garrett, John, Paul, and me
Our mission: The illustrious donkey show
For those of you who don’t know, I’d say Ensenada is about 80 miles south of the U.S./Mexico border, give or take a couple. It’s got the reputation of being a touristy sort of area, but to me it just looked like Tijuana on a bad day… if you can imagine that. Now I’ve been in some pretty shady joints in my lifetime, but I have to admit that Ensenada could possibly be the most funked up place I’ve ever been in. As soon as we rolled up into our “hotel,” we knew this was going to be one crazy ass trip. The walls to the gated parking lot were about eight feet high, and there were shards of broken beer bottles cemented into the top of the walls to keep trespassers out. That’s some wild shit.
So we go on in and check into our hotel room, if that’s what you could call it. Place looked like it was decorated by a couple homeless guys off the street, and was probably cleaned by them too. The sick part was that there were 4 of us, and only 1 queen sized bed. So that meant two fools had to kick it on that nasty ass floor. Luckily paper rock scissors is my game, and when you up in my house you never win. Needless to say, I didn’t go out like a sucka.
There was also something else funky with the room. For some reason there was this hidden door in the back of the closet which led to the bathroom. Now I don’t know what the hell peeps down in Mexico use hidden doors for, but thank goodness there was four of us up in that room. You know what I’m sayin? Let’s just say four Asian guys kickin it deep in Mexican territory don’t exactly blend in with the locals.
One other thing about Mexico… don’t ever ever ever drink the water. Hell, you don’t even have to drink it to get sick. All you need to do is get that crap in your mouth and you’ll have the green apple splatters for like a week. When you’re down in Mexico, you drink bottled water, you brush your teeth with bottled water, you even wash your face with bottled water. And watch out for ice and soup and all that kind of stuff… it’s all diarrhea in disguise.
So after a carefully consumed dinner consisting of orange eggs and hot dogs (I kid you not!), we decided it was time to get our shit on. We headed out to a couple of clubs, checkin out the local establishments, and also droppin questions on where we might be able to find El Donkey Show. For those of you who don’t know what a donkey show is… hmm… how do I explain it? I guess the best way to phrase it, would be to say that a donkey show is when you go and pay money to watch a woman have sex with a donkey. Whoo hoo!
Now this is something that I’ve always wondered about since the first time I heard about it in high school. Questions a plenty zoom through my head when I try to picture this unholy act taking place. What position is she in? Does she have any outside support? How the hell does it fit in there? How long does it take a donkey to cum? You know… all kinds of deep philosophical inquiries that boggle one’s mind. But this was gonna be it… right here and now on this trip… I was gonna settle all these questions and have one kick ass story to talk about when I get back home. So with this as our ultimate goal, we continued on with our quest to become more cultural people.
After knocking back a couple of beers, tequilas, and other various alcohols, it became apparent to us that finding a donkey show would be harder than we expected. We thought we could just roll up in here and find a donkey going at it on every street corner, but alas it was not meant to be. We must’ve scoured every single inch of that city looking for some action, but everyone we talked to and asked didn’t know where we could find such a thing. Lying or just ignorant? We’ll probably never know.
A few frustrating hours passed and we was still doin our best Inspector Gadget imitation. Was this how we were gonna out? Travel all this way, battling jacked up roads, polluted water, and nasty ass orange scrambled eggs to be foiled once we got here? Nay I say! All this did was make us even more determined to find our Holy Grail. If no one down here was gonna give us what we wanted to see voluntarily, we’d just have to do things the American way… bribe em!
The only problem now was to find a shady looking cat that would dish out the 411. It took all of five minutes before some scummy looking dude that looked like he visited donkey shows on a regular basis passed by us. We stepped up to El Chico and initiated a conversation…
Us: Hey man. You know where there’s a donkey show going on?
Scummy Looking Dude: Que? Donkey?
Us: Yeah man. Donkey! You know…
SLD: Ahh… El Donkey Show! Si! Si! Cuantos?
I guess this fool knows how things is run or whatever, cause he knew we was down to pay him for intelligence before we even whipped our wallets out. We slipped our new homeboy a grand total of two bucks to show us where it was goin down, and we soon knew that we were about to watch bestiality in its finest.
Little did we know though, was how deep into enemy territory we had to travel to get there. Sure, everything is all good and relatively safe when we were kickin it in the “touristy” areas, but once we stepped foot outta the downtown area, things started getting a little bit too shady for my blood.
Our newfound guide led the way as we marched a good distance from the clubs, the glitz, and most importantly, the streetlights. The blackness creeped in on us as we continued on our way, all the time being eyed by the locals who no doubt wouldn’t mind stickin a shiv in us and robbin us for all of our American money. I think the only thing that protected us was that there were four of us. Anything less and we’d probably still be in Mexico laying on our stomachs and rotting in some cornfield or whatever. Scary shit down there.
Anyways… after walkin about a mile from where we first started off, Mr. Guide stopped and pointed us towards this rat hole of a building. The outside walls were supposed to be white in color, but who knows what shade of dirt they really were, and the numerous cracks and chips decorating it reminded us that this ain’t no Trump Tower. Eager to go inside but cautious all the while, we bid farewell to our trailblazer and ventured inside.
Once we stepped inside our “Donkey Taj Majal,” the smell of cigars and stank beer overwhelmed our senses. The inner walls were all painted a dark red, and the dim lighting inside kept the place dark. Dark enough for anyone to do basically whatever they wanted to do without prying eyes getting in the way. Naked senoritas, obviously prostitutes, were all over the joint sittin on the patron’s laps and givin them a little somethin somethin for their money. It reminded me of a scene out a movie. You know… when some fool that doesn’t belong walks into a room and all of a sudden the music stops playing and everyone has got both eyes locked down on you. Well, that was us.
“Fuck this,” I heard John say, and I was down with that too. I didn’t come to Ensenada to get the shit beat out of me, and I think everyone was pretty much in agreement until Garrett spotted something on the walls. With a swift movement of his finger, he pointed out to us a drawing on the wall, many drawings in fact. Curious with what he saw, we glared through the smoke until the sight of all sights filled our vision, a crude illustration of a woman holding a donkey by the leash.
“Alright!” I thought to myself, “This is it! Finally I’m gonna see this shit!” At that moment, all worries of living and being safe left my body, and it must’ve been like that with my other three compadres also, cuz right then and there, we knew we were gonna kick it here for awhile. Slowly and quite politely I might add, we made our way to the back of the bar and sat down at a small table in sheer obscurity. Aw yeah… it was only a matter of time now.
A waitress came by our table and took our order for drinks. I don’t know what she was thinking, but I really doubt that she waits on a table filled up with Asians on a frequent basis. Thank goodness beer comes in bottles and not on tap… who knows what they would’ve slipped in our drinks if they weren’t.
So we’re loungin and drinkin and waitin… and waitin… and waitin… and about thirty minutes pass and nothin is goin down. Frustrated, we order more drinks and hang out hoping for some quality entertainment to pass our way, but it just doesn’t seem like any action is gonna happen. After about an hour and a half of being pissed off and drunk, I spot an amiable looking chico sittin down at the table next to us. It doesn’t look like he’s carryin a knife or anything, so I decide to tempt fate and fire up a short conversation with him…
“Ay umm… you know if there’s a donkey show goin on tonite?” I ask him VERY politely.
“Eh? No donkey show here. No donkeys,” he replied back like I was nuts.
Arrrghhh! That was the only thing that could go through my head at that moment. That fool could’ve been lying to us, but why the hell would he lie? No… I think he was right. There was no donkey show goin on, at least up in this joint. So with a feeling of disappointment growing in our bellies, we paid our bill, got up from the table, and started our slow walk back to Ensenada. Not only did we waste half the night lookin for our urban legend, but that scummy little dude ripped us off two bucks! Most of the conversation on the way back involved coming up with different ways to take two dollars off that dude’s hide, but luckily we didn’t see him again. Who knows what people will do when they’re drunk?
So basically our trip was a bust. I’m not sayin that I didn’t have a good time in Ensenada, but everything we did down there, we could’ve done in Tijuana for cheaper. And no donkey show to boot! Bah… it was still a good trip. How can I complain about getting drunk every night and kickin it with some good friends? I’m so sentimental…
Now I’m not sayin that donkey shows don’t exist, but to this day I’ve never found one. Will that stop me from looking? No. And believe you me, I will find one before my lifetime is over. And if I don’t, I’ll figure out how to stage one somehow. This is something that I must see, in order to fulfill my destiny of becoming a true TSO. There’s gotta be one out there in a small little corner of the world hidden from prying eyes. If there isn’t, how do these donkey show rumors start anyways? It’s gotta be out there somewhere… doesn’t it?
Wow, waiter, get your techies who run this site to ban ppl who spam this much, or put in a max character limit on posts and max post limit per day for the server.
DON’T FEED THE TROLLS. Just mentioning annoying people really just makes them more annoying. Waiter, have you seen this yet? http://www.cracked.com/article_16994_8-customers-everyone-hates.html
Maybe you should close the blog. Not much happening. It doesn’t seem to be a priority for you anymore which is a shame since your fans made you who you are today.
Don’t forget the little people…they’ll be loyal for just so long.
I don’t know if this the place to thank Steve for his really entertaining book, but it was a hoot to read. I think a lot of us saw ourselves in some form in that book. Thanks again!
I used to really enjoy reading your posts. I still do actually.
Even if you still aren’t a waiter anymore, you’ve paid your dues.
Have the best live ever.
Dear Steve
I read your book and enjoyed it. I have friends who are servers and their experience are almost identical to yours. My closest friend is 72 years old. She never saved for retirement. She made good money being a server but it is not consistent. One day feast and the next day famine. I am annoyed that it is the customer that she has to depend on to pay her salary. Paying a server minimun wage or less is a cry to heaven. It is damn hard and demanding work. A raise in minimum wage this past week means that everyones hours have been cut where my friend works. The establishment
takes in the same income using fewer servers.
The servers work fews shifts because of the increase in minimum wage. There is no increase in income for them. I am all for a just wage for the server even if this means an increase in prices for the patrons. This way there will be guaranteed income for servers….they are not dependent on the whims of people leaving tips. RT