Word: tellingly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
First it was a chef; now it's a waiter. Restaurant workers just can't help spilling the beans. Anthony Bourdain's tell-all Kitchen Confidential was a breakthrough best seller, and Pete Jordan's Dishwasher book and blog developed a cult following. Now Steve Dublanica has penned Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip - Confessions of a Cynical Waiter to expose the curmudgeonly inner life of restaurant servers. The book, based on Dublanica's witty blog, hit the New York Times best-seller list this week. Dublanica, 40, who recently retired after nine years of waitering in New York, spoke...
...make them stew. Or you put in their steak order as medium instead of medium rare. I controlled the reservation system, so if you were a bad tipper or had mistreated me, I would seat you next to the men's room. My all-time favorite move was to tell people that their credit card was experiencing difficulties. A lot of people in this area are very status-conscious, so when all their friends hear their card has been declined, they kind of freak out. All passive-aggressive stuff. It's a deterrent...
Sometimes you don't. I would tell customers, You're out of line. When people were abysmally out of line, I would sometimes try to use humor and say something like, "Did you forget your meds today?" And sometimes you just have to smile your way through it. Half the time we're savaging the customers. We're verbally abusing the customers in the back, and then we walk out and plaster a smile on our faces. Two seconds earlier we were describing them in very vulgar terms. I was once called the rudest waiter in the neighborhood...
...older men in the group of would-be recruits sit in a row on a bench smoking cigarettes. Some carry plastic red-white-and-blue-striped rice bags. The few recruiters who agree to be interviewed tell similar stories. They accuse the American and Western press of lying about the events in Georgia. No one believes that the Russians have invaded Georgia and that Tbilisi and other cities have been bombed. Because the Russian press has not reported it, they say, it cannot be true. A rumor widely circulated is that black soldiers have been spotted fighting on the Georgian...
...TIME: We've had Taiwan people tell us that they are worried that closer ties with China will dilute the character of Taiwan, which is freer, more spirited and more independent...