An Applebee's Diner Refused To Leave A Tip For Religious Reasons

[CatholicCid]

It should be noted that the fired waiter is not the one who received the receipt. 

 

Welch, who snapped a photo of the bill from a fellow server and uploaded to Reddit, defended her right to post the receipt. "I thought the note was insulting, but also comical," she told Consumerist.com. "And I thought other users would find it entertaining.”

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/applebees-waitress-fired-pastor-receipt-193820748.html

Edited February 3, 2013 by CatholicCid

[Aloysius]

I've argued before that refusing to tip constitutes depriving workers of their just wages, one of the four sins that cries to heaven for vengeance.  this waitress's explanation is spot on.  God does not look favorably on people who exploit low level workers, and that's exactly what you're doing if you refuse to tip when you're being served by someone whose wages are based upon tips.  Anyone who's worked as a waiter or waitress knows what I mean, this is their livelihood and they have every right to be compensated; so long as the system bases their compensation on tips, it is your responsibility as a consumer to tip them.

 

What makes this pastor's sin even worse is not only did he withhold payment that was due to the worker, but he also called in and ensured that this person's entire livelihood was cut off.  She might have kids to raise and a family to feed, he doesn't know, and just because he's embarrassed (rightly so) by his asinine behavior being exposed, he calls in and gets this person fired?  That is unchristian behavior, and he will have to answer to Our Lord for that, one way or another.  makes me sick.

[Lil Red]

I've argued before that refusing to tip constitutes depriving workers of their just wages, one of the four sins that cries to heaven for vengeance.  this waitress's explanation is spot on.  God does not look favorably on people who exploit low level workers, and that's exactly what you're doing if you refuse to tip when you're being served by someone whose wages are based upon tips.  Anyone who's worked as a waiter or waitress knows what I mean, this is their livelihood and they have every right to be compensated; so long as the system bases their compensation on tips, it is your responsibility as a consumer to tip them.

 

What makes this pastor's sin even worse is not only did he withhold payment that was due to the worker, but he also called in and ensured that this person's entire livelihood was cut off.  She might have kids to raise and a family to feed, he doesn't know, and just because he's embarrassed (rightly so) by his asinine behavior being exposed, he calls in and gets this person fired?  That is unchristian behavior, and he will have to answer to Our Lord for that, one way or another.  makes me sick.

 

:) great post.
 

[DiscerningCatholic]

to counter that, I give you this:

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=157784631037954&set=pb.100237920125959.-2207520000.1359917641&type=3&src=https%3A%2F%2Fsphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net%2Fhphotos-prn1%2F150652_157784631037954_2122572312_n.jpg&size=845%2C720

 

I wanna know why a kid's meal is 50 bucks and an adult meal is 150 bucks.

[CountrySteve21]

Thats so dumb -.-

[4588686]

I've argued before that refusing to tip constitutes depriving workers of their just wages, one of the four sins that cries to heaven for vengeance. this waitress's explanation is spot on. God does not look favorably on people who exploit low level workers, and that's exactly what you're doing if you refuse to tip when you're being served by someone whose wages are based upon tips. Anyone who's worked as a waiter or waitress knows what I mean, this is their livelihood and they have every right to be compensated; so long as the system bases their compensation on tips, it is your responsibility as a consumer to tip them.

What makes this pastor's sin even worse is not only did he withhold payment that was due to the worker, but he also called in and ensured that this person's entire livelihood was cut off. She might have kids to raise and a family to feed, he doesn't know, and just because he's embarrassed (rightly so) by his asinine behavior being exposed, he calls in and gets this person fired? That is unchristian behavior, and he will have to answer to Our Lord for that, one way or another. makes me sick.

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.

It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm

[Basilisa Marie]

I don't pay the automatic gratuity when I'm out with a group. it gets crossed out and we calculate our own (which is usually higher than the automatic gratuity anyway, unless they were a crappy service).

 

As long as it's higher, I don't have a problem with that method. :)  

I've worked at a restaurant where if someone didn't pay the automatic gratuity, it came out of the server's other tips, because the tips were pooled with the busboys and the hostess (me). I always got 10% or $5 (whichever was lower) of whatever tips the server made while I was there.   I have absolutely no idea if that's common practice.  

 

I was talking with my coworkers about this today.  In some states, the minimum wage for servers is something like $3.50 an hour. My boss was saying that one time, when she was a server, her boss had too many labor hours on the clock and wanted to send her home early. She worked for tips instead, and made almost a hundred bucks that night.  

[eagle_eye222001]

I wanna know why a kid's meal is 50 bucks and an adult meal is 150 bucks.

 

I noticed the number 4 to the left, so I presume it was a quantity of 4 adult meal things purchased.  It still doesn't make too much sense, but it makes more sense than before.

[God the Father]

Haha tipping is respectful and the right thing to do but it is not mandatory you goofballs. If it was it wouldn't be tipping it would just be incorporated into the product price like the cost of wages is in retail, wholesale, real estate, agriculture, manufacturing, literature, visual entertainment media, and the majority of other pursuits that waiters/waitresses/servers, barbers, doormen/doorwomen/doorpeople, bellhops, and tattooists are allowed and encouraged to seek employment in if they feel undercompensated in their present personal service fields.

Edited February 4, 2013 by God the Father

[eagle_eye222001]

Haha tipping is respectful and the right thing to do but it is not mandatory you goofballs....

 

Correct.  It just makes you a jerkwad if you don't.

 

 

The purpose of tipping is to create an incentive for good service.  If you just put tipping into the final product price, servers would not have an incentive to give as good of service as they could get by with doing less.

 

The point is normal service should be tipped 15%-20% with less amounts if something was seriously wrong.  This gives the customer the judgement opportunity to reward a server who works hard and tries, versus the lazy one who piddles on their phone, leaves the dirty dishes in front of you, and then still expects 20% for some reason???

 

But obviously you just want to pay everyone the exact same no matter what kind of job they do, right?

[iheartjp2]

Haha tipping is respectful and the right thing to do but it is not mandatory you goofballs. If it was it wouldn't be tipping it would just be incorporated into the product price like the cost of wages is in retail, wholesale, real estate, agriculture, manufacturing, literature, visual entertainment media, and the majority of other pursuits that waiters/waitresses/servers, barbers, doormen/doorwomen/doorpeople, bellhops, and tattooists are allowed and encouraged to seek employment in if they feel undercompensated in their present personal service fields.

 

I'm posting my edit since there was an error when I tried to resubmit it before.

 

 

The downside to industry is that it's taken the human face away from the product and caused us to believe a lie: namely that the price on the price tag is always the cost of the product. If you read the previous posts, you would see that waiters and waitresses get a minimum wage of $3.50 or something like that, and that the bulk of their earnings are expected to be made through tips, ie. their job is mostly providing real service to customers. I've never been in this line of work, but I have tremendous respect for those who do and have been in it. From what I gather, it's absolutely grueling work and just about all of it is done for the customer. Taking orders. Making sure the establishment is clean and orderly. Bringing food out. Busing tables. Dealing with unruly customers and/or their children. Cleaning up spills and messes. "Getting an order wrong" even though you're only the one who delivered the food and maybe the mix-up had absolutely nothing to do with you. Always keeping a smile on and being courteous, engaging, and delightful, no matter how rude or hard-to-please your customers are. Doing all that for multiple patrons and parties of patrons at a time for hours on end. They're basically working for you, not even so much the establishment. I know myself and I can honestly say that I wouldn't last a DAY as a server anywhere. 

 

Because of the way the dining service system is set up, it would be cheating a server out of money they earned for doing a good job for you, the customer, not to leave a tip. Face it, it's more than just the right thing to do, whether you like it or not.

I'm really glad this topic has been brought to my attention. It made me realize how incredible many people who have served me really are, and I can't say that I have had anyone who was less than agreeable if not a pleasure by whom to be served. When I eat out, I'm going to be a MUCH more conscientious tipper, as I haven't always been in the past. 

[Aloysius]

the incentive for good service is giving a good tip or a bad tip, refusing to tip at all is denial of wages to the person who serves you (assuming they actually serve you, if there is an extreme case where you have not received service, complaining to the manager and not tipping is certainly morally permissible  but good service/bad service deserves good tip/bad tip, service/no service is the criteria for tip/no tip).

 

also as an incentive to good service is the fact that if you complain to a manager about bad service, the server can get in trouble, and with enough complaints would likely get fired.

 

none of that makes tipping optional when people are paid tip wages of 3.50/hour.  that wage is paid on the assumption that tips make up the rest of their wage, in that case tips are not optional extras, they are an essential component of the wage.  would it make more sense to include something automatic in the price of the food to pay for the service?  maybe, but that's not the way it's set up, as the waitress explained.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

tips are optional in australia and not all places even have it, and usually it's a tip jar next to the register for an end of year party. I think it should be optional to pay the waiter or waitress whatever you deem the service to be worth but not compulsary.

i hope one day all se3rvices in australia will be tip optional, up to the customers disgretion without being compulsary.

[Groo the Wanderer]

Right.  Because in this current labor market that will definitely lead to an increase in wages.  

 

idiotic.

 

increasing wages is the panacea to everything?  and that money just magically appears from nowehere?  heck - increase the minimum wage to $50k/yr then.

 

basic economics - increase minimum wage > raise prices or lay off staff > raised prices passed on to consumers > consumers now have less disposable income > eat out less, reducing revenue for biz > biz again lays off staff or raises prices

[Papist]

Apparently, this pastor is not familiar with Matthew chapter 25.  

A tiny tip is one thing, but a total stiff is unjust.  The person is a jerk-face poo poo head.