Applebee’s fires waitress who posted receipt from pastor complaining about auto-tip

[gitana1]

BBM

First, about the receipt. I had only seen edited versions of it in the articles I read, so I assumed that was how it was originally posted. The picture you showed does make it a little different.

As far as the bolded part I think what NZ and Australia do is the right way to do it. When you factor in the correct tip the meal is more costly than the menu suggests. At least those servers know what they will be taking home every week and can budget around it. It's not a good week vx. bad week kind of thing.

Essentially, IMO, the employers and non tippers are stealing from the servers. I always over tip because I know that I have to make up for some :censored: who thinks that gratuities are a scam. (no offense intended toward any of those who've posted here.) JMO

Yeah, you are right. We should simply pay servers more. But people who complain about tipping being "out of control" may prefer the flexibility of tipping different percentages, instead of being forced to pay more for a meal.

 

[Steely Dan]

Yeah, you are right. We should simply pay servers more. But people who complain about tipping being "out of control" may prefer the flexibility of tipping different percentages, instead of being forced to pay more for a meal.

That's true, but it should be up to the managers to hire and fire the best and worst people. JMO

 

[txsvicki]

If servers nowadays at a busy restaurant make less than 9$ per hour then why would they even want to do such hard work.

 

[Montjoy]

Perhaps to pay the bills?

 

[fruity]

I'm sure God is so proud.to have such an act committed in His name.

 

[LJKaust]

The food may be more expensive here, but wages are generally higher too.

 

[sreshowtime]

but applebee's itself can post a receipt with the name of the customer clearly showing?

that is not a 'receipt'

 

[redheadedgal]

um, it's the back side of a receipt with a customer's private information (full name) and comments, and is an example of exactly what applebee's says chelsea did "against policy".

 

[LJKaust]

that is not a 'receipt'

I assumed that was posted as a reply of sorts, from a happy customer?

 

[txsvicki]

I just don't believe they average less than 9$ per hour. My daughter averaged that at Sonic as a car hop 15 years ago when she was 15.

 

[Steely Dan]

If servers nowadays at a busy restaurant make less than 9$ per hour then why would they even want to do such hard work.

Because there aren't many better jobs around. The good jobs are few and far between and you usually have to have a relative or a friend already working there. It helps if you're a member of the good ole' boy network too.

When I applied to the hospital, and eventually got hired, my boss told me that they normally only hire from within the hospital. The only reason I was hired is because (I don't want to toot my own horn, but I would if I could.) he'd never gotten such good references from people.

When you hear about the economy adding more jobs they never mention how much the salaries of said jobs are. A lot of jobs are filled by people with another job too. (This isn't aimed at you txsvicki) When I was working and would complain about my job to some people I'd get the; "If it's so bad why don't you quit?" response from people with good jobs.

Well the answer is, IMO, most jobs don't pay what the job is worth. The #1 controllable expense by a business is salaries. So if a business wants to cut costs they'll fire people or initiate a wage freeze. When I was at the hospital they initiated a wage freeze that made the fairly new workers mad. New people were being hired at a higher wage. If someone had been for a year the new hires were making more money than they were, due to the wage freeze. Fortunately I had been there long enough that it wasn't true for me. I wish I had never had to leave that job. (I left for a good reason at the time)

Minimum wage is $7.25 an hour so making $9 an hour is better than a minimum wage job. I've never worked an hourly paid job that gave equal increases to all employees when the minimum wage was raised. If minimum wage was raised they'd hire new people at that level, but not raise the already employed workers by the same increase. Low level employees are a dime a dozen in most places. If you don't like it go somewhere else equally bad. There is an awful lot of dysfunction in the job market.

 

[sreshowtime]

um, it's the back side of a receipt with a customer's private information (full name) and comments, and is an example of exactly what applebee's says chelsea did "against policy".

"Applebee's President Mike Archer said in a phone interview Friday that the company stands behind its workers. But he said there was no choice but to fire the waitress for violating the customer's privacy rights and the company's social media policy.

"We have to protect our guests' privacy," Archer said. "There's a lot of private information on those receipts." "

Snipped from- <Associated Press>
http://news.yahoo.com/waitress-fired-posting-customer-online-180953300.html

Respectfully I disagree- BBM- receipt- I don't see what was ordered nor an amount, or how it was paid for, how many people in the party, alcohol or not, nothing relating to what that person who wrote the note may have had ...if that was indeed the backside of that person's receipt.
Personally I don't equate a pic of note scribbled on the back of something the same as a pic of an actual receipt....which I believe the Prez was referring to. It could have been a pic of 'nice' note on a receipt, and it still would have been wrong.

 

[Steely Dan]

I don't want to turn this into a political thread, but I want to point something out to some people. (Nobody in this thread so far.) Most corporations don't like unions because they demand a fair wage and safe working conditions for their workers. There are extreme examples of unions being stupid and hurting the employees they work for.

This is just my opinion, but I think the UAW is a good example of union stupidity. They demanded so much that it became cheaper for the American car companies to send jobs to Mexico. I don't buy the notion that they ruined American car companies though. Ford never needed any help when Chrysler and GM had to be bailed out, IIRC. If you are working in a job where the work you do can be shipped overseas then a greedy union is very bad for you. If the work you do can only be done here, then some unions are good for you.

Overall unions, IMO are a very good thing. The 40 hour work week, overtime pay, safe working conditions, and groundless firings are all part of union action. A lot of companies will raise pay and benefits so that unions won't try to get in. They try to make an environment where it would not be in the employees best interest to vote a union in. That is a very good thing. The mere threat of unions helps those who aren't unionized.

When I was at the hospital the nurses voted on whether or not to unionize, and the vote was to keep the union out. However, some concessions were made to nurses in order to make them happy enough to keep the union out.

One of the biggest arguments that people against unions use is how hard it is to fire someone who should rightly be fired. I agree and disagree on that. Let me explain.

If teacher A is molesting a student they should be fired. I don't think anyone disagrees with that. However, if teacher B is accused of molesting a child just because that kid doesn't like the teacher, then firing them would be wrong. So the teacher's union makes the school district pay both teacher A and teacher B until an investigation is completed. This leads to people seeing teachers sitting around in student free buildings pretty much doing nothing. A lot of taxpayers see this and are enraged. If a teacher is unpaid while the investigation goes on then teacher B is put through extreme hardship for no other reason than a students vendetta. IMO, it's the only way it should be done even though it benefits the evil people sometimes.

I remember a teacher telling me (a long time ago so take it for what it's worth in my memory) that the teacher's union started because school administrators were firing teachers just so they could hire a relative or friend to take the job. The union makes them prove that a teacher deserves to be fired before they can actually fire them. This is a double edged sword, but a necessary one.

The long and short of it is that unions never would have formed had the robber barons of the late 1800's and early 1900's been a lot fairer to their employees.

All of the above is JMO

 

[Steely Dan]

"Applebee's President Mike Archer said in a phone interview Friday that the company stands behind its workers. But he said there was no choice but to fire the waitress for violating the customer's privacy rights and the company's social media policy.

"We have to protect our guests' privacy," Archer said. "There's a lot of private information on those receipts." "

Snipped from- <Associated Press>
http://news.yahoo.com/waitress-fired-posting-customer-online-180953300.html

Respectfully I disagree- BBM- receipt- I don't see what was ordered nor an amount, or how it was paid for, how many people in the party, alcohol or not, nothing relating to what that person who wrote the note may have had ...if that was indeed the backside of that person's receipt.
Personally I don't equate a pic of note scribbled on the back of something the same as a pic of an actual receipt....which I believe the Prez was referring to. It could have been a pic of 'nice' note on a receipt, and it still would have been wrong.

I think the mistake that Chelsea made was showing the signature. If she hadn't done that then I would see the firing as groundless.

 

[redheadedgal]

exactly. thanks steely!

from applebee's fb page:

Regrettably, and without the restaurant's knowledge, she took it upon herself to take ...a Guest's receipt, with the name clearly visible, and posted it online with her own commentary.

https://www.facebook.com/#!/applebees?fref=ts


again-- they are condemning chelsea for EXACTLY what they themself did when they posted that complimentary message with the name of the customer who wrote it.

 

[sreshowtime]

again,
the other message posted on that Appleby's FB was NOT a receipt
whereas what the employee posted WAS

have a nice evening, ciao

 

[Tugela]

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

Applebee’s fires waitress who posted receipt from pastor complaining about auto-tip
By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News | The Sideshow

...Chelsea Welch, the waitress, wrote in an email to Yahoo News that the pastor (who has since been identified as Alois Bell) told Welch's manager at the St. Louis-area Applebee's that the ensuing firestorm had "ruined" her reputation.

"I give God 10%," Bell wrote on the receipt, scratching out the automatic tip and scribbling in an emphatic "0" where the additional tip would be. "Why do you get 18?" (There were more than eight people in Bell's party, triggering the auto-tip.)...

This person should not be a minister. JMO. First, what about forgiveness. Second, giving a tip should be automatic for someone who preaches brotherly love. Third, what kind of :censored: writes a note like that. If you don't want to pay the tip tell the manager. Fourth, the waitress didn't bring you embarrassment and ruin your reputation. YOU brought embarrassment upon yourself and ruined your reputation.

So this minister writes that note and only cares because more than the people at Applebees saw it. I can't believe that the minister didn't ask Applebees to not fire the waitress. JMO

She wasn't fired for complaining about the tip (actually, it was another waitress who got the table, not her), she was fired for revealing private information about a client of the company. You would get fired from pretty much everywhere for doing what she did.

 

[Tugela]

"Applebee's President Mike Archer said in a phone interview Friday that the company stands behind its workers. But he said there was no choice but to fire the waitress for violating the customer's privacy rights and the company's social media policy.

"We have to protect our guests' privacy," Archer said. "There's a lot of private information on those receipts." "

Snipped from- <Associated Press>
http://news.yahoo.com/waitress-fired-posting-customer-online-180953300.html

Respectfully I disagree- BBM- receipt- I don't see what was ordered nor an amount, or how it was paid for, how many people in the party, alcohol or not, nothing relating to what that person who wrote the note may have had ...if that was indeed the backside of that person's receipt.
Personally I don't equate a pic of note scribbled on the back of something the same as a pic of an actual receipt....which I believe the Prez was referring to. It could have been a pic of 'nice' note on a receipt, and it still would have been wrong.

That is irrelevant. She posted the name of the client, not to mention that she posted the reciept itself, which is property of the company and hence protected. Only they have the right to release that information.

What she did was a clear violation of privacy and misuse of company property.

 

[Steely Dan]

My final rant of the night about jobs in America, I promise.

CEO to worker ratios has exploded over the years and for no good reason, IMO.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...y-gap-changed/2011/07/22/gIQANgoaYI_blog.html

Research Desk: How has the CEO/employee pay gap changed?
Posted by Dylan Matthews at 10:32 AM ET, 07/25/2011

...The Economic Policy Institute’s State of Working America project has the numbers you want. Here’s how the ratio of average CEO compensation to average production worker compensation has changed from 1965 to 2009:

Read more at the link above.

What cheeses me off is that CEO's are getting these grand salaries even if they run companies into the ground. IIRC, Kodak hired a guy with the last name Fisher from Motorola to be their new CEO several years ago. The guy had no experience in the photography business, but he had been good at Motorola. Kodak threw millions of dollars at him and he left the company in horrible shape while clinging to a golden parachute.

 

[Tugela]

My final rant of the night about jobs in America, I promise.

CEO to worker ratios has exploded over the years and for no good reason, IMO.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...y-gap-changed/2011/07/22/gIQANgoaYI_blog.html

Research Desk: How has the CEO/employee pay gap changed?
Posted by Dylan Matthews at 10:32 AM ET, 07/25/2011

...The Economic Policy Institute’s State of Working America project has the numbers you want. Here’s how the ratio of average CEO compensation to average production worker compensation has changed from 1965 to 2009:

Read more at the link above.

What cheeses me off is that CEO's are getting these grand salaries even if they run companies into the ground. IIRC, Kodak hired a guy with the last name Fisher from Motorola to be their new CEO several years ago. The guy had no experience in the photography business, but he had been good at Motorola. Kodak threw millions of dollars at him and he left the company in horrible shape while clinging to a golden parachute.

Shareholders can pay their CEOs whatever they want, it is none of your concern. Their salary doesn't come from the public, nor the employees, it comes from the shareholders.

In the old days professional sports stars got paid relatively little compared to what stars get paid today. Same thing with everything else.

The worker bees on the other hand are not talented, are easily replaced and are dime a dozen. So, it a competitive environment, where the talent determines the salary, the top will get greater and greater rewards.

With competition for talented people, salaries went up. Compare the salaries of skilled workers in a growing business with burger flippers at Macdonalds. You will see the same sort of graph. It doesn't happen when industries are shrinking, which is what is happening with most manufacturing in the US today. That is why salaries are lagging there. Those companies still need talent to run them though.