Posted on 02/02/2013 6:16:20 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
An Applebee's diner refused to leave a tip for religious reasons. The waitress who exposed it wonders if Jesus will pay her bills.
I was a waitress at Applebee's restaurant in Saint Louis. I was fired Wednesday for posting a picture on Reddit.com of a note a customer left on a bill. I posted it on the web as a light-hearted joke.
This didn't even happen at my table. The note was left for another server, who allowed me to take a picture of it at the end of the night.
Someone had scribbled on the receipt, "I give God 10%. Why do you get 18?"
I assumed the customer's signature was illegible, but I quickly started receiving messages containing Facebook profile links and websites, asking me to confirm the identity of the customer. I refused to confirm any of them, and all were incorrect.
I worked with the Reddit moderators to remove any personal information. I wanted to protect the identity of both my fellow server and the customer. I had no intention of starting a witch-hunt or hurting anyone.
Now I've been fired...
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
I'm having a problem with this line of thinking right from the start of this.
The customer wrote a message on a business transaction document. How is that in any way considered private?
The transaction is taxed, which is a public activity.
If the bill was paid by credit card, then the customer is authorizing a third party to settle the account with the restaurant on the customer's behalf. That loan could be assessed a finance charge if the customer doesn't pay the credit back at the end of the month. That interest becomes income to the credit card company, which is also taxed, a public activity.
After all that activity involving third parties and several layers of public taxation, the customer is still crying about "privacy?"
-PJ
Wow! (No, seriously, an excellent analysis.)
Reading various stories about this, the waitress didn’t know her posting would ID the patron. She did intend to put the comment itself up for ridicule (as IMO it should be ridiculed). And there she thought it would end, but for internet sleuths who decided to track down the note’s author.
I’m not sure the waitress had any more ‘right’ to post than the “Pastor” had to privacy.
I'd say that the customer could have been seated in anyone's section, and that her written comment wasn't directed to her specific server, but to the general attitude of paying a tip to any server. It's not unreasonable for other servers at that restaurant to take offense at the general attitude towards servers depicted by this customer, especially since the servers often help each other out of sight in the kitchen.
And where does she get the right to take another waitresses' check and put it on the Internet?
That's a different question. I'd agree with you on this. Kids don't understand the longevity of what they post on the internet. She should be lucky that it wasn't naked pictures of herself.
While I said that the customer should not consider any of this to be private, the server should realize that a business transaction document is company confidential, meaning that it should only be shared internally for company-approved purposes only, and not externally without prior approval.
-PJ
Alright. So what is your idea of a sucessful professional attitude for a minium wage employee who hopes to improve their lot by moving up?
Almost all Wal-Mart store managers (who make low to mid six figure salaries) started as entry-level associates making minimum wage or not much more.
I worked my way up to where I am - owning my own business.
I did not do it with a leftist attitude and mind. I did the best I could to make every employer successful. That did not include resenting and harming the business and my positions as I traveled to where I am.
I see a kid who made a poor decision and got fired. I don't see what the big deal is. There is no basis to suggest this person would share personal information. That is an extreme stretch.
Honestly, I don't understand what the issue is. In my opinion your expectations are way to high for someone who is both very young and working as a waitress.
As for the pastor, she is a leader and should be ashamed of herself. When this pastor made a decision to memorialize her foolishness in writing she opened herself up for exactly what she is going to receive as this goes viral: public scorn and shame.
We are studying Timothy in Sunday School and the timing could not have been better. It is this woman who should be fearing for her job, assuming she has a "flock" left not to ashamed to call her their pastor.
You and I aren't going to agree on this one. That's ok, I am sure we'll be back in sync in no time. Thanks for the post!!
She’s undoubtedly either a storefront preacher or a “prophetess” married to a male pastor. It’s a Southern thing.
Show up for work, work hard and keep a positive attitude. Quite frankly, if you want to improve your lot in life you'd be better served improving your education, trying to start your own business, etc.
As a career counselor and recruiter for over 20 years, I’ve been surprised that many community college/junior college degrees pay better than many four year and even masters degrees.
Applebees didn’t point that out in their initial statement. They have since issued two additional statements that substantiate your claim. Congratulations to you!
I think the reason the thread got so many hits is that it delves into a subject that has roots in an important struggle that is going on in this country with ramifications that go beyond what this appears to be on the surface. (I apologize if this seems melodramatic, but this is, in my opinion, the root of it)
We can agree (I presume) that both parties are simply dummies, but there are several things that over-arch the intersection of these two unguided missiles that just happened to meed in an Applebees Restaurant.
1.) The nature of work and service in this country as an employee
2.) The validity of contractual arrangements between an employer and employee
3.) The role of the Internet in the workplace
4.) The cultural state of civility and discourse in both professional and personal interactions
We pretty much beat 1, 2, and 3 to death, and only touched on #4. This incident covers both professional and personal. Personally, I don’t look at this clergywoman as bringing anything religious to this discussion, so overall, I don’t factor it in at all. The reason is (from what I have read, and from her actions) that I cannot take her seriously in that role, so I view her as simply a customer, not clergy. Clergy are human, not deities (I know, kind of stating the obvious there) and there are good ones and bad ones. So in this, I just see her actions and it fits in the role of what I expected from her, an abrasive, in-your-face, race/religious charlatan and Obama supporting liberal to whom being a bully to a person serving her is just par for the course.
As a result, you and I see it differently...you expect her to conduct herself like a Christian clergywoman, and I don’t even think she really is one, deep down. For the record, I admit that is on me. I simply don’t think true clergy would be that way, and perhaps that is naive and even contradictory given my prior characterization of clergy as human, not God.
For me, the issue is a larger one. It is our attitude towards work and the personal, inner contract we have with ourselves to do things well. Basically, how important is work to our lives and to our overall outlook on things.
It resonates with me at this time right now, because I am experiencing difficulty in my own work environment, and I am being challenged to remain professional in a situation where a “customer” is treating me disrespectfully, and I face a choice: Do I suck it up, remain professional and do my job, or do I fight back in some way? Fortunately, for me, the urge to fight back has been suppressed, and I feel that I am going to remain professional in my interactions. But it was a struggle for the last month.
I get paid well in my job. But I just spent the last two months working 60-80 hour weeks under great stress, and for a good part of the time was having a titanic (for me) internal struggle on how to do the right thing. It wasn’t a one hour encounter with a jerk as my customer where I got stiffed on a few dollars. It was a real, honest to goodness internal battle on who I wanted to be. I feel this morning that the right side of me won out, and I will be able to go in today and do the professional equivalent of the waitress being able to shrug her shoulders when she gets stiffed on a tip and move forward with “That customer didn’t behave well. But I did the right thing, and next time that customer comes in, I am going to work extra hard, deliver SUPERLATIVE service to her, and make her GLAD to give me a voluntary generous tip.”
That is why, for me, it was so engaging. I was still fighting that internal battle up until last night. Today I think I won...:)
Just giving you a sense of my biases and how my mind works. Its a frightening thing. Hang in there and have a great day!!
I feel the same way. The Constitution and the Bible are similar in the respect you don’t get to pick and choose, except the Bible doesn’t have a mechanism built in to amend it...:)
Thanks EagleInGA for that well stated response...
For several years in a row the kids and I found ourselves traveling on Christmas morning and made is a routine to stop in the same podunk town along the way and eat breakfast at the Waffle House.
I left the waitress a $20 tip the first year and it escalated from there. The last year we did this my older son had a good paying job and we left $70.
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