US waitress was fired for posting a picture of a tip receipt on Reddit
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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. The waitress asserted that the customer was a man. When she later found out she was wrong she backpeddled and claimed she knew that but that she was protecting the customer's identity. However she publicly posted the customer's name and location, enabling people to track down the customer and begin threatening her.
Another detail she got wrong was claiming the customer left no tip. The customer left the tip as cash on the table, as most people in the US do, and something that most servers prefer, rather than pay it as part of the bill. The restaurant also though double charged the customer for the tip, meaning the customer ended up paying 36% rather than 18% on the bill as tip. Because the waitress had not served the table she assumed that the strike out of the tip line meant the customer left no tip at all.
In short, the waitress violated a customer's privacy, lied about the customer publicly defaming her, publicly ridiculed her religious beliefs, and instigated an internet mob riot against the customer which continues to this day in the form of threats and harassment and has caused the customer severe mental anguish. If I was an attorney in the area I would be preparing a large lawsuit against the restaurant at this time, and I would certainly prevail in court.
Her firing was completely justified and her complaining about being fired in the media and claiming herself as victim when she was the bully is absolutely outrageous.
Look at it from the other side, Applebee's has to protect their brand. They can't have waitresses posting information about customers online. That is why she was fired.
I was immediately shocked by the waitresses' behavior. That one comment set you off that you had to violate your customer's privacy?
Also, I wonder if some media outlets are rightly masking the customer's personal information but I saw some posts with the fullname in the image.
It's also ridiculously easy to find the original receipt by uploading it to images.google.com
This story has truly gone viral.
In one single night, that PR person, probably drove away tends of thousands (if not more) of customers. It doesn't matter who is right or wrong at that point, them not catching which side the public was on, and just arguing back and forth, is what turned this into a train wreck.
Regardless of what side you are on, you can't deny that the restaurant lost a considerable amount of business in just a couple of days. That should be a fire-able offense.
How did you get to that conclusion?
Based on anecdotal evidence from the past, I tend to think very few people (outside of the HN/Reddit crowd) follow this type of news, and of those who do, almost no one cares enough to actually change their behavior.
http://rlstollar.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/applebees-overnigh...
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 would have had a good laugh and ignored the whiny customer. Instead we have an example of what happens when you try to formalize every decision from how the steaks are cooked to how to respond to customer complaints. Protip: If your company responds to crises like this, it's long past time to get the hell out.
I ate at an Applebees recently. It was exactly the kind of soulless microwaved food I would expect from a nationwide, lowest-common-denominator corporate chain. This story does not surprise me one bit.
Against this kind of backdrop, the waitress would have to kick puppies in order to look unsympathetic.
I find the power imbalance in these situations to be very uncomfortable -- half the time in the back of my mind I'm thinking to myself this waitress has a big smile on her face because ultimately all she wants is a nice tip; the smiley front is unauthentic. Just please give the servers and waiters a proper salary and let me go on with my day.
The very idea of tipping to me is absurd and silly. What constitutes that a service be tipped anyway? Doesn't the guy who spends 30 minutes explaining to me how I should install my bathroom tiles at Home Depot deserve a tip? Or the cooks in the backhouse -- who, arguably, have much difficult work to do than servers/waiters? The immigrant dishwashers who never even get a chance to have their common dignity affirmed at any step of the way -- because they're not palatable enough in their looks and appearances to be seen by a customer? Or the Sears cashier clerk who does me the favour of looking in the back warehouse to see if the shoes I'm looking for are really not in stock -- and then calls other stores to see if they have them, when he didn't have to do any of that?
Just give them a nice salary. Don't try to guilt-trip me by bringing up how they're paid "below minimum wage".
And, to put a startup spin on my post: there should be a site that rates the ethical practices of stores/restaurants. Does the restaurant pay its dishwashers a respectable salary? If yes, I will be okay and willing to pay a little extra. If they don't: I'll happily never do business there again.
I also find it ridiculous that the sales tax is not included in the price written on the sticker in the stores in the US. But again, I guess quoting a lower price and charging more when the customer has already made up their mind is better for the business.
It's silly naive thinking like this...
Tips exist because they are a way for the customer to give a good server some money directly.
Unless there was a cast-iron legal guarantee that the money from the "automatic" tip goes direct to all low-paid staff (servers and chefs), then I want to be able to give my money to the server direct.
That is silly. Why is waiter work so unique that it's one of the very few that requires this kind of payment? If you want to pay money directly, you can do that for cashier clerks at gas stations, clothing stores, auto service men, middlemen of all sorts in business offices, etc. etc. Why not pay them directly too then?
What I'm arguing is that the tradition of tipping is something that should not be. I would be okay with tipping in the most extraordinary of circumstances, where the worker clearly goes out of his way to provide unexpectedly superb service, but it should not be seen as necessary in other normal situations; I don't see a really good reason why it has to be any different from other jobs.
As another commenter in this thread from Sweden pointed out: it works for them. The norm is that waiters are not tipped. It seems to be working okay for them, let it work in America too.
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.
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).
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.
While service can be impersonal, it is usually without the kind of faults you point out. You can generally count on correct service.
If you have an issue with your server you complain to the restaurant so the bad waiters get fired.
I don't understand why as a culture Australia would tolerate such behavior in servers who's job is serving. (Would you tolerate translators who couldn't translate? programmers who couldn't program?)
It has been a while since I waited tables but we were always happy and respectable to all guests, we didn't worry about a person NOT giving tips. We were just glad for the visit. Did it ever matter? It is all about the averages, you may get a good tip at one table and a bad tip at another. You never disrespect the customer by trying to insult them online.
On religion and her being a pastor (of a 15 member church). Why should we expect rational, conscientious behavior from some random pastor? The world is shocked that she didn't want to give a tip and then made a reference a God while doing so. It is religion, I don't expect thought-out, kind behavior from religious people. Why should we? They are just people and are going to make these kind of snide comments just like anyone else.
"In light of the situation, I would like to make a statement on behalf of wait staff everywhere: We make $3.50 an hour. Most of my paychecks are less than pocket change because I have to pay taxes on the tips I make."
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. So, they don't entirely make less than the federal minimum wage rate. And I was a waiter, a lot of people didn't report ALL the tips that they earned to avoid the taxes. Should we make sure she is being accurate in her tax reporting?
Er. Historically, clergy are expected to be the voices of reason, neutral third parties for arbitration and trust purposes, and also minor authorities at minimum. It's a stereotype. That doesn't mean it disappeared because you aren't religious.
Because the attitude is (like it or not) Christians are better, they are saved, and they go the extra mile to show that charity, giving, and compassion are their main attributes. When a pastor writes that stuff on the check, it comes out as very hypocritical to most people in this country.
This includes both Christians who are outraged because "she is doesn't represent us" and also atheists who see this as an example of hypocrisy.
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.
In this case the customer's signature is partially visible, which is not only considered personal but can potentially also be forged to sign for credit card receipts and legal documents.
Sure the life of a waitress is not easy but from the perspective of the restaurant owner, I think the firing was justified. If she disagrees, she can always sue for wrongful termination and let the court decide (which will cost her money that potentially cannot be recovered should she lose).
You're kidding, right? How could anyone possibly get any identifying information from a few squiggles at the edge of a photo--much less enough to perpetrate identity theft?
Imagine an employee in a company accidentally leaks some user data, which does not really contain personally identifying information. I don't think it's completely unjustifiable to fire this person even though no damage was done.
Of course the owners of the restaurant could've dealt with the situation a lot nicer (warning her about the potential danger instead of firing her). But I don't blame them for taking the more drastic measure that they did (not saying that I would've done the same).
A PC train wreck indeed. It doesn't even matter what the original thing was about, this will be entered into the text books as a classic 'social media: what not to do' lesson.
If anyone should be fired it is the persons making the decisions and handling this response. You can see them digging their own grave deeper deeper with every new statement.
"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 normally do that (putting information online) because this kind of shitstorm can happen. They are probably sending a message to other employees, don't pull this kind of stuff or you lose your job. Now look at the shitstorm we have to deal with.
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.
I'm not going to flag it though, as it isn't spam.
Incredible. How much money does this customer want to stiff this waitress out of? Isn't paying nothing on a mandatory tip bad enough?
"Another detail she got wrong was claiming the customer left no tip. The customer left the tip as cash on the table, as most people in the US do, and something that most servers prefer, rather than pay it as part of the bill. "
Our job was to essentially walk from one side of the restaurant to the other side of the restaurant and meet drunk hot chicks. And they give you typically 10-30 dollars cash for doing so.
Hard work is standing behind a hot grill for $5-8 a hour, 10 hours a day without the tips.
That being said, making it a mandatory charge usually means that it's separate from being considered a tip for tax purposes.
It was some case about people getting arrested for theft for refusing to pay.
Actually, that is probably why she was fired. Saying something publicly about a customer, especially in a way that could look bad for the customer, does not reflect well on the restaurant.
If you interact with customers, it's your job at risk. The customer is sometimes, but often not, risking much by being rude in one way or another. Is it fair? Maybe not. But that's unlikely to be a productive discussion.
In a TSG interview, Alois Bell said that the online
firestorm created by the receipt has left her stunned.
“My heart is really broken,” said the 37-year-old Bell.
“I’ve brought embarrassment to my church and ministry.”The picture on Reddit (linked to from this link) is cropped. I seem to remember seeing the entire receipt.
Usually tips are only added automatically for large parties (>= 8) but this bill was only $34. Makes no sense. Was this just 8 people getting iced teas?
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.