We haven't had a conversation about tipping in awhile

[Maestro]

The waitress shouldn't have posted that receipt. Applebee's shouldn't have fired her either. The pastor, on the other hand, can probably expect to burn in hell.

[Locutus of Bored]

doubleohfive wrote:

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The clusterfuck continues...

Uggh. That just makes me want to invent a way to slap 20,000 Facebook commenters through the internet and then have the Winklevoss twins sue me claiming Faceslap was their idea. What a ridiculous overreaction and sense of entitlement both for themselves and the fired employee on the part of the people responding.

trekkiedane wrote:

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^But her employers posted similar personal information before she did -what was she supposed to think? -anyone would think it was OK to do so!

Her employer posted a complementary note voluntarily given to management by a customer, whereas Ms. Welch posted a nasty note left by a customer who clearly would never want it to see it posted to social media. Granted, if Applebees never got permission from the complementary customer to post the note on Facebook (and they probably so, since that was SOP when I worked retail when dinosaurs ruled the Earth), they should have blurred out that customer's name as well. But no one is going to exact internet vengeance on some guy complementing his local Applebees for good service, while plenty will go after someone for mistreating a waitress (understandably so). There's the difference between the two and why the employee should have known she would get in trouble for posting the note online. Especially since she signed an agreement saying she would never do anything like that when she was hired.

doubleohfive wrote:

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What "personal information" did she post?

The merchant ID number of the restaurant and the customer's easily read signature with her name and title on it, which is all you need to find both the pastor and what city she lives in (not to mention the Facebook profile of the employee would include her home town).

I sympathize with the waitress being upset about the way her coworker was treated and find the pastor's behavior reprehensible. But it was pretty poor judgment to post that receipt online without obscuring the identifying information about the customer and the restaurant, and a violation of company policy. And even if it hadn't been spelled out explicitly in company policy, you should know from common sense that doing that would come back to bite you in the ass.

I probably would have just suspended the girl and left a reprimand in her work file rather than fired her, but Applebees stated when she was hired that sharing private customer information with the public was a fireable offense, so I don't see how their handling of the situation was wrong.

There's no real bad guy in this situation, despite everyone's attempts to make it so. The worst offender is the pastor, and even she said her actions were wrong. Applebee's didn't cruelly dismiss an employee for some wrongheaded reason. If they didn't take action with this employee sharing private customer information it encourages more employees to do the same and undermines their position if they decide to take disciplinary action against others in the future. The waitress was justifiably upset about the treatment of a coworker and wanted to let people know that that is not okay, but unfortunately handled it the wrong way.

The worst offenses here are minor lapses in judgment and courtesy; nothing that demands the crusade that is being mounted. It's as if the amount of outrage is inversely proportional to the significance of the "crime."

And finally, some unfortunate business to attend to of my own:

More importantly, what kind of sad prick do you have to be to take pleasure in someone else being fired?

This is crossing the line. Infraction for FLAMING. Comments to PM.

[Jan]

trekkiedane wrote:

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Sorry 'bout that -you just happen to sign your post with the same name that I have -I just momentarily forgot that other cultures have other gender-specific names...

Worldwide, it's probably about 50/50. Here in the states, most people will default to assuming female. Outside, most go with male. One place I worked had one of each and I was always getting is phone calls because he pronounced it completely different.

I don't get it: of those several places I can only think of FacePlace and the likes...

There used to be a couple of places I'd read in a horrified sort of way. The ones I see lately are about celebrities who are lousy tippers.

Jan

[Scout101]

The Applebee's PR guy is hilarious. Just complete fail.

Only part of the outrage over this that doesn't work for me: I expected a bigger check. Party of 8 or so people, and we're outraged over her getting stiffed on the tip, I was expecting $150-200 bill, so we're talking about the server having to spend an hour plus at this, work hard, and then be expecting $35-40 and get nothing.

The bill was for $35.

What's that? Coffee and maybe a shared appetizer? And the expected tip was $6.32.

Bored over the outrage now, we're not talking about big injustice here, just a cheap prick customer that wanted to save a couple bucks. For $35 worth of food at an overprices food chain, how much work did the server have to put in anyway? It sucks, but they probably get worse tips than that routinely.

Mostly just LOLs watching Applebees deal with this now...

[Maestro]

I believe that the party had requested the bill be separated. What we're seeing on the receipt is the Pastor's portion of the bill. Multiply that by eight and you're close to $250.

[tighr]

According to this article:

Bell, seen above, said her notation on the receipt was a “lapse in judgment that has been blown out of proportion.” Despite scratching out the tip added to the bill, Bell claimed that she left a $6 tip in cash, adding that she subsequently discovered the 18 percent gratuity had been charged to her credit card.

Well, yeah. That's because her bill wasn't for $34.93, it was for $41.22. Crossing it out on the receipt shouldn't allow you to pay less for what you agreed to pay. 18% gratuity was a stated requirement of parties of a certain size on the menu, if she didn't agree to that she shouldn't have ordered food. You would expect someone who goes to Applebees on a weekly basis (the articles states it was a frequent post-services meal for members of her church) to know that.

Like I said earlier, it'd be like trying to pay less for a tank of gas. Really, it'd be like trying to pay less than the stated price for ANYTHING.

[Peach Wookiee]

Good grief... Applebee's really needs a better PR person in charge of their FB...

[Jan]

tighr wrote:

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According to this article:

In addition, I'd be willing to bet that what the pastor saw on her credit card was the authorization which would have been for the full amount. Many people don't understand when they see a 'pending' charge that it's not the final billing, it's just what was pre-authorized (which we saw was done from the pictured receipt).

As for the public outrage, there's a saying, "Hell hath no fury like the uninvolved." that applies here nicely.

Jan

[trekkiedane]

Jan wrote:

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Worldwide, it's probably about 50/50. Here in the states, most people will default to assuming female. Outside, most go with male. One place I worked had one of each and I was always getting is phone calls because he pronounced it completely different.

But I did forget to check whether your little identifier-thingy was pink or blue -and am sorry that it offended you.
Please don't think I was being sexist about it, this is probably the first time in my years on this board I didn't use the word "them" instead of the gender-specific term I happened to use in my hurry to submit that post! - I really just didn't notice.

[sidious618]

What's weird is that the pastor apparently wanted a large amount of the staff fired and for newly hired servers to attend her from now on. What an odd person.

[Misfit Toy]

Jan wrote:

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I'm glad they fired the stupid server.

Jan wrote:

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And I don't take pleasure in the server getting fired.

Sure sounds like you took some pleasure there.

[Jan]

trekkiedane wrote:

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But I did forget to check whether your little identifier-thingy was pink or blue -and am sorry that it offended you.

No problem. If anything miffed me, it was the 'god' comment. I found that part totally uncalled for.

Misfit Toy wrote:

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Sure sounds like you took some pleasure there.

When in doubt, ask.

As expanded on in my second post, what I'm glad about is that somebody that dumb won't be anybody I'll ever hand my credit card to. Completely self-centered gladness, I assure you. Why? Because when my card info was stolen a couple of years ago, it was due to a server who was stupid enough to believe somebody she thought was her boyfriend that he needed some data in order to work on a school project.

Any questions?

Jan

[Use of Time]

I really don't do that much thinking about tipping. I swear I've eaten with people that act like they're judging a boxing match with round by round score cards to come up their amounts. As long as the server doesn't straight up disrespect me then they will generally get a good 15-20%

[Pingfah]

What disturbs me most is that this Pastor believes the creation of the entire universe, world and human race is only worth 10% of her salary.

I mean that is some pretty major shit, if you believe in that sort of thing.

[Hoser]

It's actually a pretty standard Christian practice, comes from holding to Old Testament ideas of giving a tithe (10%). Of course, this person seems to have ignored the parts of the OT where it talks about generosity, especially to those who are working for or serving you.