Disgruntled Waitstaff

The New York Times published this article today about waiters and restaurant servers who blog:

February 2, 2005
The Waiter You Stiffed Has Not Forgotten
By JULIA MOSKIN

WHAT evil lurks in the hearts of waiters? Now you can find out. But can you stomach the results?

An anonymous New York waiter wrote online recently: "In my fantasy, I become Darth Vader the next time a customer asks about the wines by the glass, then says, 'Merlot! Waiter, haven't you seen the movie "Sideways"?' Then I will slice off his head with my light saber."

Grievances, including friction between kitchen and dining room staff, rapacious management and near-universal bitterness over tipping, are being revealed with gusto on the Internet by restaurant staff members. As a customer, to read Web sites like www.bitterwaitress.com, waiterrant.blogspot.com and www.webfoodpros.com is to wonder nervously, "Could they be talking about me?"

Each month, www.stainedapron publishes a new extreme example of customer obnoxiousness. (One forum is titled "Keep Your Brats at Home!") On bitterwaitress.com, the most popular page is an annotated database of people who give bad tips (defined on the site as "any gratuity under 17 percent for service which one's peers would judge as adequate or better"). Anyone can add a name to the database, along with the location, restaurant, amount of the check, amount of the tip and any details, most of which cannot be printed in a family newspaper. (A disclaimer reads: "We are not responsible for submissions. Uh-uh, no way, not in the least.") There are almost 700 entries.

To read the rest of the article, click on the article link above, and try the following login and password from bugmenot:

login: rorahpg
password: 191919

(Or you can create your own nytimes.com account.)

My favorite is Waiter Rant, which is not unlike Disgruntled Bookseller in style except that he's a better writer.