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US waitress was fired for posting a picture of a tip receipt on Reddit

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Re: US waitress was fired for posting a picture of a tip receipt on Reddit

#61

Post by sxp »

berlinbrown wrote: post #51
stickfigure wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're forgetting the smoking gun: The customer actually wrote "I give god 10%, why do you get 18" on the receipt. There's no way around the physical evidence. Internet judgement has convicted the customer of class-A asshattery and sentenced her/him to public ridicule. The waitress is going to come across as a hero in this story no matter what bureaucratic rule she broke. Any sane business owned and run by humans wou…

I don't think the waitress is a hero. She violated a person's privacy. The waitress already received the automatic 18% tip. What is her beef? She didn't like one comment on a receipt? How many tables did she wait on that night? 6-10?

She didn't receive the tip. The meal was $34.93 and the tip of $6.29 was scratched out.

Re: US waitress was fired for posting a picture of a tip receipt on Reddit

#62

Post by fleitz »

Applebees PR dept should watch reservoir dogs, the problem is that no matter how right you are, you look like an asshole.

Was it inexecusable? Certainly.

Does she make $3.50 an hour? Yes.

Does anyone find that an acceptable amount to be paid in the richest nation on earth? No.

Do most people regard those that don't tip as assholes? Yes.

Re: US waitress was fired for posting a picture of a tip receipt on Reddit

#63

Post by wdr1 »

zura wrote: post #49
droithomme wrote: post #20

The waitress's own accounting of the incident is exceptionally self serving and false. The signature as originally posted was quite legible. Her original accounting of the incident was completely fabricated because she didn't actually serve the table, though she represented herself as if she did. For example, the customer's name, Alois, is a man's name, but the customer was actually a female with a male's first name.…

I personally don't get whole this tip tradition - just give me the check stating the exact amount I have to pay. And give the appropriate salary to the wait{er|ress}.

Fully disagree.

I've had terrible service & I've had great service. While I've never completely stiffed a waiter, I have left a tip on the low-end (10-15%). And I've left killer tips (>50%) on some really killer service.

By and large, the system seems to work pretty well. And once you know to accodate it, it's not really that hard to do the math & account for it.

Re: US waitress was fired for posting a picture of a tip receipt on Reddit

#64

Post by stickfigure »

berlinbrown wrote: post #51
stickfigure wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're forgetting the smoking gun: The customer actually wrote "I give god 10%, why do you get 18" on the receipt. There's no way around the physical evidence. Internet judgement has convicted the customer of class-A asshattery and sentenced her/him to public ridicule. The waitress is going to come across as a hero in this story no matter what bureaucratic rule she broke. Any sane business owned and run by humans wou…

I don't think the waitress is a hero. She violated a person's privacy. The waitress already received the automatic 18% tip. What is her beef? She didn't like one comment on a receipt? How many tables did she wait on that night? 6-10?

This story is not about the waitress. This story is about a pastor caught red-handed being an self-absorbed asshat, followed by the inept flailing of an incompetent bureaucracy.

Against this kind of backdrop, the waitress would have to kick puppies in order to look unsympathetic.

Re: US waitress was fired for posting a picture of a tip receipt on Reddit

#65

Post by danielbarla »

zura wrote: post #49
droithomme wrote: post #20

The waitress's own accounting of the incident is exceptionally self serving and false. The signature as originally posted was quite legible. Her original accounting of the incident was completely fabricated because she didn't actually serve the table, though she represented herself as if she did. For example, the customer's name, Alois, is a man's name, but the customer was actually a female with a male's first name.…

I personally don't get whole this tip tradition - just give me the check stating the exact amount I have to pay. And give the appropriate salary to the wait{er|ress}.

I guess you could think of it as implicitly outsourcing the performance evaluations and bonus assignment to the customer, who, after all, in the best position to make that decision. That's the theory, I guess. In reality though people aren't particularly objective, and also the social norm is to apply some percentage to the bill; so effectively, the waitrons get paid partly based on how expensive the food is that they served (which just highlights part of the absurdity).

Re: US waitress was fired for posting a picture of a tip receipt on Reddit

#66

Post by berlinbrown »

sxp wrote: post #61
berlinbrown wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the waitress is a hero. She violated a person's privacy. The waitress already received the automatic 18% tip. What is her beef? She didn't like one comment on a receipt? How many tables did she wait on that night? 6-10?

She didn't receive the tip. The meal was $34.93 and the tip of $6.29 was scratched out.

Are you sure? If she paid with a credit card and there is the automatic 18%, what processes deducts the automatic tip? It wouldn't have mattered that she crossed out that printed 6.29.

Re: US waitress was fired for posting a picture of a tip receipt on Reddit

#67

Post by lutusp »

zura wrote: post #49
droithomme wrote: post #20

The waitress's own accounting of the incident is exceptionally self serving and false. The signature as originally posted was quite legible. Her original accounting of the incident was completely fabricated because she didn't actually serve the table, though she represented herself as if she did. For example, the customer's name, Alois, is a man's name, but the customer was actually a female with a male's first name.…

I personally don't get whole this tip tradition - just give me the check stating the exact amount I have to pay. And give the appropriate salary to the wait{er|ress}.

> I personally don't get whole this tip tradition ...

It's a holdover from a class-conscious society in which waiters and waitresses belonged to a different, less privileged class, deserving of gratuities from a more privileged class.

All that has changed is the gratuities aren't gratuitous any more.

> ... just give me the check stating the exact amount I have to pay.

That would require restaurants to pay the staff a living wage, and raise published menu prices to agree with reality (i.e. including tips).

Re: US waitress was fired for posting a picture of a tip receipt on Reddit

#68

Post by codeka »

berlinbrown wrote: post #47
JDShu wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? I thought the bad publicity was caused by Applebee's firing her, not the other way round.

As a general rule, restaurant managers at these chain stores have to respect the brand. According to Applebee's: "Employees must honor the privacy rights of APPLEBEE’s and its employees by seeking permission before writing about or displaying internal APPLEBEE'S happenings that might be " considered to be a breach of privacy and confidentiality..." She was fired for breaching the the customer's privacy. And you don't…

If she hadn't been fired, this whole thing would have been one obscure post on reddit and an outraged customer - this kind of thing happens all the time.

If there's any lesson for would-be entrepreneurs, it's about how to handle public opinion.

At this stage it really doesn't matter who was right and who was wrong (it seems clear to me both parties played a part), but Applebee's handling of this whole mess has been a study of what not to do.

Re: US waitress was fired for posting a picture of a tip receipt on Reddit

#69

Post by ryaniscool »

zura wrote: post #49
droithomme wrote: post #20

The waitress's own accounting of the incident is exceptionally self serving and false. The signature as originally posted was quite legible. Her original accounting of the incident was completely fabricated because she didn't actually serve the table, though she represented herself as if she did. For example, the customer's name, Alois, is a man's name, but the customer was actually a female with a male's first name.…

I personally don't get whole this tip tradition - just give me the check stating the exact amount I have to pay. And give the appropriate salary to the wait{er|ress}.

Maybe you've never been able to compare a society where tipping is normal with one where it isn't?

I grew up in the USA (tipping) but have lived in Australia for the past four years (no tipping). Restaurant service is horrendous in Australia except at the most expensive restaurants. Food is often brought out at different times for different people in your party. It's not uncommon to go out for office lunch and 1 or 2 people will be waiting for their food after everyone else has finished.

You also can't get your server to do much except take your order and bring you your food. He/she forgot something? You tell them, 10 minutes later you still don't have what they forgot. Need a refill of water, same story. There is just so much more friction to the experience of dining out.

Re: US waitress was fired for posting a picture of a tip receipt on Reddit

#70

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

berlinbrown wrote: post #23

I am surprised that everyone saw this from one side. I was making an argument that the "pastor" has received a lot of undue criticism all because she made ONE comment on a receipt after ONE meal. Now, her small 15 person church is receiving a bunch of scrutiny and being mocked...from papers across the globe. If the "waitress" did not POST the picture on the Internet then the pastor would have been left alone. Is it p…

>She knows that if you make less than the non-server minimum wage then the company is supposed to pay you the rest of the wages to meet the minimum wage rate.

Umm....and the federal minimum wage is sub-poverty-level for a family of two or more in the US, or just barely above the poverty line if you're living alone. [1] I know a lot of wait-staff who are single parents that are really stretching every dollar to get by, and that $7.25/hour is a pathetic level of pay to try to support a family on, so I can't really see how "they always make at least minimum wage!" is a valid argument.

[1] http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/12Poverty.shtml

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