Server Fired for Facebook Complaint About Lack of Tip From Church Group

[Albion]

If they did nothing, how many people would have been up in arms about a restaurant criticizing the customer? Yes, the "employee" is the one who criticized but if the restaurant does nothing then they are at the very least complicit in that criticism....
Truth be told, ANY service oriented business is going to side with the customer. Hence that phrase "The Customer is Always Right"

But the customer, in this case, did NOT want the waitress to be fired. That action, therefore, went counter to your reasoning. And because the restaurant refunded the entire bill to the customer, it cannot be said that the restaurant trivialized the matter or "did nothing."

 

[dgiharris]

But the customer, in this case, did NOT want the waitress to be fired. That action, therefore, went counter to your reasoning. And because the restaurant refunded the entire bill to the customer, it cannot be said that the restaurant trivialized the matter or "did nothing."

What you are saying is reasonable, unfortunately human beings are not reasonable.

Once something like this becomes "public" the company has no choice but to fire the employee for the reasons I described.

A lot of times when dealing with human beings and "marketing" you will often find yourself in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation and this is one of them.

Similarly, you never know how public back lash can go with these sorts of things.
As a business owner, it is very reasonable to believe that some Christian would find offense with what was posted and then said Christian would/could make it their mission to ask all other Christians to ban together against this restaurant. This could very easily morph into a "War on X'mas" type marketing campaign because some Christian felt disrespected.

The above has happened before and it is not unreasonable for a business to fear that and based on that fear the best course of action is to bend over backwards to show "everyone" that you care about your customers. And unfortunately, the way you do that is by firing the employee who does "not" care about the customers based on their social media posting.

 

[Albion]

What you are saying is reasonable, unfortunately human beings are not reasonable.

Once something like this becomes "public" the company has no choice but to fire the employee for the reasons I described.

As is usually the case, reasonable people can disagree. I disagree in this case.

A lot of times when dealing with human beings and "marketing" you will often find yourself in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation and this is one of them.

That point was made in the OP, but I'm not hearing much about the damned if you don't side of the issue.

Similarly, you never know how public back lash can go with these sorts of things.
As a business owner, it is very reasonable to believe that some Christian would find offense with what was posted and then said Christian would/could make it their mission to ask all other Christians to ban together against this restaurant. This could very easily morph into a "War on X'mas" type marketing campaign because some Christian felt disrespected.

That I can agree with. There probably are such people out there, although there isn't much to protest here since the church got $700 in food for free from the restaurant and, in addition, the church that actually was in the center of this case did not want the waitress fired. So exactly what is it that we suppose the boycott would be about?

But in the end, the argument you are making is one of practicality--saving the management's overall reputation--while I was and am looking at it in terms of fairness. That's a large part of why we find ourselves leaning in different directions on this matter.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Typically (at least in the area where I live), there is some gratuity added for carry out, as the server who's putting together and boxing up the order is still making less than minimum wage and still doing the work to get your food together, however, it usually less than than the amount if you were dining in.

It's usually something like 5-10%.

On an order of that size, there's no doubt that there was quite a bit of work that went into boxing up that order and getting it ready.

...none the less, the server handled that the wrong way. Trashing the customers on social media is likely going to get you in trouble no matter what the circumstances were.

Their beef should be with the tipping system in general. It's a terrible system for the food service industry and it needs to be swapped out for a standard system of compensation.

It's just a cheap way for restaurateurs to pass labor costs onto the consumers. Data would suggest that quality of service has a extremely small impact on tipping amounts and superficial traits, such as the servers looks, have a greater impact on the amount left. A "hot" female server is likely to get a bigger tip (even if she did a lousy job) from 18-35 male customers than a "not-hot" server who did the job very well.

Many restaurants around the country have began switching to just paying their staff a living wage and getting rid of the tipping, and they have happier workers, which means better service, and the customers haven't noticed any drop off in terms of quality.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Cheese in almost everything (and orange cheese at that).

Does it come in any other color?

 

[Ana the Ist]

What you are saying is reasonable, unfortunately human beings are not reasonable.

Once something like this becomes "public" the company has no choice but to fire the employee for the reasons I described.

A lot of times when dealing with human beings and "marketing" you will often find yourself in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation and this is one of them.

Similarly, you never know how public back lash can go with these sorts of things.
As a business owner, it is very reasonable to believe that some Christian would find offense with what was posted and then said Christian would/could make it their mission to ask all other Christians to ban together against this restaurant. This could very easily morph into a "War on X'mas" type marketing campaign because some Christian felt disrespected.

The above has happened before and it is not unreasonable for a business to fear that and based on that fear the best course of action is to bend over backwards to show "everyone" that you care about your customers. And unfortunately, the way you do that is by firing the employee who does "not" care about the customers based on their social media posting.

Does the article show her actual post?

I think I would've apologized to the customers...explained to the waitress that if she does that again, she's canned, and then given her some Friday night shifts. There's undoubtedly going to be sympathetic customers who read the article and showed up to eat just to tip her.