Author Debra Ginsberg

When I started this blog in 2003 as an outlet for my observations about waiting tables, a friend, Penny Banks Currie mentioned a book found onthe staff-recommended table at Borders bookstore in Austin, and was further approved by the "fun and unconventional" cafe workers there: Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress, by Debra Ginsberg.

Ginsberg's nontraditional family moved from New York, where her father had worked as a waiter, to California, where the family established a pizza parlor. Her father determined that the entire family would become vegetarian. Ginsberg herself took a series of jobs waiting tables—in a upscale country club, in an Indian restaurant, in a beachside diner, in a fine dining establishment—and described each with a delicious combination of a technical writer's precision and dispassionate observation.

Debra Ginsberg has written several other memoirs and some juicy fiction—

• About My Sisters: a recounting of the journeys and triumphs of her unique family and the closeness of the four sisters. One sister is a professional violinist.
• Raising Blaze: The tribulations and insights about raising an autistic son.
• Blind Submission: The protagonist works for a book agent, and gives a stark insight into the not-so-straightforward world of book publishing.
• The Grift: A peek into the world of fortune-telling and its theatre, and, ironically, how real psychic ability ruins the career of a California fortune-teller.
• The Neighbors are Watching: A pregnant teen-ager shows up on the doorstep of her father, disrupting the shaky order of their neat California neighborhood.

Ginsberg's writing glints with a sardonic edge and an marvelous precision of execution: entertaining and crisp and accurate. Not quite edgy, but not cozy either.

Everyone has had the experience of first hearing someone's voice, forming an mind's-eye image that turned out to be true to life upon meeting that person. Although Ginsberg and I have never met, her Tarty Queen gallery videos reveal her demeanor to be as I imagined in my mind's eye from her author's "voice." She is also an accomplished and creative baker.

Ginsberg's life and mine have some common elements. We spent the early parts of our lives in New York, where we enjoyed time at resorts in the Catskill Mountains; we are writers (although she is a published book author, and I've just published just a few magazine articles and spent most of my working life as a technical writer); and we both worked at National Park concessions (she, at Yellowstone NP, hated it; I, at Grand Canyon and Olympic NP, loved it). And, of course, we had both had waited tables.

Through her website, several years ago, I ventured a short communication to this accomplished writer. Debra Ginsberg responded immediately. Ginsberg was kind and more candid than I expected a published author to be. At that time, with just two (just two!) books published, she was seeking to expand her writing base. And she has!

Any book by Debra Ginsberg: highly recommended.

Debra Ginsberg, author and former waitress

During my waitress days, a friend brought to my attention Debra Ginsberg's book Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress. It was on the staff-recommended table at Borders and was further recommended by the "fun and unconventional" cafe workers there. Although Debra Ginsberg had much more extensive experience--and therefore memoir-able anecdotes--waiting tables than did I, her tales resonated just enough that I felt the typical "oh, yeah" connection that any two people in the same line of work implicitly feel. But there are other commonalities: we share the same religion and birth city and are about the same age, and we had both worked at National Park concessions during youthful summers. The only difference: I loved it being in the National Parks; Debra Ginsberg, did not, for reasons described in the book.

Books by Debra Ginsberg
Debra Ginsberg has published four books since then, and at least one article in a national women's magazine. I've fallen behind on reading, just recently purchasing, then relishing the giddy anticipation of the dish of Blind Submission, the story of an aide to a high-powered, ethics-challenging literary agent. I'm really looking forward to the memoirs Raising Blaze, about raising her autistic child as a single mother and About My Sisters , of the bonds between the sisters within an unconventional family. The most recent book is The Grift about a pseudo-psychic whose life is complicated by the attainment of genuine psychic powers and the chance of romance from a past client in a past life.

Debra Ginsberg and a fan
After marveling at convergences in our histories, in 2005, I took a deep breath and wrote an e-mail. Ms. Ginsberg replied with a long and eloquent response, not as published author to fan, but, more as peer to peer. She spoke a bit of the life of a writer and author, but also about the similarities between all women of our generation.

Ms. Ginsberg said my e-mail made her day, as did hers mine, several-fold.

Debra Ginsberg, best wishes for your continued success.

Multitasking and working cooperatively with others

From the job postings at the local university, it became apparent to me that the school valued staff members with the "ability to multi-task and work cooperatively with others."

If that boilerplate is true, the human resources department should consider passing out applications at all the coffee shops in town. Never have I multitasked nor worked as cooperatively with others—under such pressure—as while waiting tables during a busy lunch.

Waiting tables is a heck of a lot more skilled than unskilled labor, contrary to popular belief. Of my former office-working brethren, I'd reckon that a mere 10% could successfully wait tables through a rush.

Every table is in a different phase of the meal: drinks, salad, entree, check back, refills, dessert, check, change. To the clientele I present a facade that is variously friendly, wise-cracking, flirtatious, unflappable, indulgent, efficient, witty, respectful...but always attentive. The ability to continually juggle the various stages of the meal for several tables, while greeting people, dealing with cooks, punching in orders on the touchscreen, carrying heavy plates, appearing cheerful and chipper...it's not for the timid. On top of that, we are expected to remember the nuances of every regular customer's order: no cucumbers on the salad, French dressing, dry hamburger, no ice in the drink.

To make things even more complicated, entrees are placed in the window with no documentation as to which waitress, or even table, they go to. We just sort it out.

And we make it look easy.

It's not.

And then there is the interface with the cooks, who turn out a prodigious quantity of good food quickly, working—as former waitress and memoirist Debra Ginsberg wrote in her fine book, Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress — "literally in the fire," but who can't help but vent at the nearest thing: animate or inanimate.

But I like it: the fast pace, the friendly customers, the jokes of the other waitresses, the satisfaction afterward.

Things have changed in 25 years since I last hoisted a tray. Touchscreen is way now. And no keyboard. Through this one touchscreen orders are logged, clock-ins and -outs entered, employee meals ordered, checks printed, cash transactions accounted for, credit cards swiped. It's the brains of the operation.

If the touchscreen goes out of calibration, the operation grinds to a halt.

Once more or less getting the hang of things and understanding the rhythm of waiting tables, the waitress can view her job as a sociological study.