Pastor Complains; Waitress Fired

James D. Macdonald

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ladyleeona

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I saw this earlier today and it just wows me on so many (bad) levels. I think she's just sorry she got outed, too.

ETA--My ultimate favorite part is where she called for all the restaurant employees to be fired. Sounds like an awesomely great person and I want to be her bff. :sarcasm.
 

F.L.N

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It is an interesting position to take for a person that lives on gratuities! Does this mean that church members can leave insulting notes in the collection plate?
 

Gretad08

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I was just coming to post this story. Great minds think alike!

The comment on the bill doesn't even make sense. Tithes are 10% of annual income. The tip was 18% of a small meal bill. Not even in the same financial ballpark.

I'd love to hear her preach. She's a real peach. The teachings of Jesus would never allow her to treat someone this way after they worked to serve her a meal.
 

Celia Cyanide

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About the only thing I can understand Applebee's taking issue with is that she accidently posted the signature. It probably was illegible, and the woman went out of her way to make sure no one knew whose it was. She even gave a fake physical description so no one could guess. I find it hard to consider it "personal information" when there was no name, address, phone number, or credit card number.

That note was a dick move on the pastor's part.
 

sulong

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The waitress is not very bright. Ought not have shown the name of any person who chooses not to tip.

As posted originally on Reddit’s Atheist page, the image contained the customer’s full signature. Chelsea says she didn’t think to edit that out because she had assumed the name was illegible.
 

ladyleeona

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About the only thing I can understand Applebee's taking issue with is that she accidently posted the signature. It probably was illegible, and the woman went out of her way to make sure no one knew whose it was. She even gave a fake physical description so no one could guess. I find it hard to consider it "personal information" when there was no name, address, phone number, or credit card number.

That note was a dick move on the pastor's part.

That's what I originally thought too, but I know some other chain restaurants have very strict policies about waitstaff and their cellphones--couple of quick cellphone pictures of a customer's credit card and bingo! easy fraud. Just the fact the picture was taken with a cell phone while on the job would probably have been enough to be fired at the chain I'm thinking of.

ETA--As guilty as I find the pastor, I agree with sulong's sentiments on the waitress.
 

Wilde_at_heart

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There have been so many recent instances of 'jerk leaves note on bill that gets posted all over the internet' that frankly whoever still does it probably deserves all the flack they get for it.

I'm torn on the signature thing - it was stupid of the waitress - but it's just as stupid to stiff someone, leave a nasty note for all to see and think there won't be any consequences that arise from it.
 

shadowwalker

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Where I work we can get fired for using a cell phone for anything other than checking the time, so on that, coupled with the fact she showed the customer's signature, I don't fault anyone for the firing except the waitress.
 

Silver King

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I think it likely the waitress and the pastor of guilty of crossing swords.
And they're both idiots who chose to express their opinions within the wrong mediums to make a point. They're paying for it now, as if that's any surprise.
 

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Given that wait staff need tips to even make minimum wage I have no sympathy for non-tippers, pastor or not.

I worked retail for a few short years and my only achievement was not actually murdering any of the customers.
 

Celia Cyanide

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Where I work we can get fired for using a cell phone for anything other than checking the time.

It doesn't say that this is the rule at Applebee's. This isn't why she was fired.

It's just hard for me to have any sympathy for the pastor, who demanded that EVERYONE be fired. I'm sure the waitress probably did break at least one rule. But as for the pastor, if you leave a note like that, you must, on some level, expect attention, and even crave it.
 

sulong

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If you can't afford the tip you can't afford to eat out.

I wonder how many restaurant owners are willing to say "no service" to a paying customer over the price of a tip? A few I'm sure, but certainly not many.
 

Silver King

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One other thing I'd like to mention is that it's usually not a good idea to air your work-related beefs on social media. So your co-worker got stiffed by the local pastor? So what? Besides you and some of that restaurant's staff, no one else really cares. Truly. Get over it and move on without trying to make it a scandal that will cost you your job, such as it did in this instance.
 

kaitie

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One other thing I'd like to mention is that it's usually not a good idea to air your work-related beefs on social media. So your co-worker got stiffed by the local pastor? So what? Besides you and some of that restaurant's staff, no one else really cares. Truly. Get over it and move on without trying to make it a scandal that will cost you your job, such as it did in this instance.

I think you're spot on with this. I'm upset with the Pastor and how she handled it, which makes me more sympathetic to the girl, but my first thought when I saw it was that it was really inappropriate to show something like that. It's even less appropriate to include the signature.

Apparently the waitress did it because she thought it was "funny." That's even less of a good reason. I can kind of get behind showcasing jackassery in the hope that people will see it and decide not to be jackasses themselves (kind of), but doing it because you thought it was entertaining is not a valid reason to invade someone's privacy, which is essentially what she was doing.
 

milkweed

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About the only thing I can understand Applebee's taking issue with is that she accidently posted the signature. It probably was illegible, and the woman went out of her way to make sure no one knew whose it was. She even gave a fake physical description so no one could guess. I find it hard to consider it "personal information" when there was no name, address, phone number, or credit card number.

That note was a dick move on the pastor's part.


The pastor is a female, but still a nasty move.
 

milkweed

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I think you're spot on with this. I'm upset with the Pastor and how she handled it, which makes me more sympathetic to the girl, but my first thought when I saw it was that it was really inappropriate to show something like that. It's even less appropriate to include the signature.

Apparently the waitress did it because she thought it was "funny." That's even less of a good reason. I can kind of get behind showcasing jackassery in the hope that people will see it and decide not to be jackasses themselves (kind of), but doing it because you thought it was entertaining is not a valid reason to invade someone's privacy, which is essentially what she was doing.

On the otherhand when one is a yackass in public all bets are off, or so I was taught to believe.

Btw how does one get the little emoticons?
 

milkweed

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I wonder how many restaurant owners are willing to say "no service" to a paying customer over the price of a tip? A few I'm sure, but certainly not many.


IIRC from an article I read yesterday she was the person paying for a rather large group of people, most establishments have stuff about tips and large groups when you walk in the door, don't know if this is true about Applebee's or not.
 

kaitie

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I always thought it was automatically added to the total, too. Am I wrong about that?
 

milkweed

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I always thought it was automatically added to the total, too. Am I wrong about that?

No that's plainly stated in the OP article concerning Applebee's large group policies, all groups over eight people are automatically billed 18% gratuity, the computer does it and according to the article they are unable to override the computer. So it wouldn't have mattered that the pasture left $6 on the table or not.