Waitress fired over pastor's Applebee's receipt
The company is critical of both sides after an employee posts a photo of a customer's message regarding a tip: 'I give God 10%. Why do you get 18?'
A server at an Applebee's near St. Louis has been fired, according to Consumerist, after posting a receipt on Reddit from another waitress's customer who crossed out an 18% gratuity and wrote in "I give God 10%. Why do you get 18?" while identifying herself as a pastor. The amount of the disputed tip was $6.29.
DineEquity (DINE)-owned Applebees, meanwhile, issued a statement on Facebook that both justified the firing while condemning the customer's message. As Applebee's spokesman Dan Smith explained to Huffington Post after the company fired the employee -- identified as Chelsea Welch in news reports -- exposing guests' personal information all over the Internet is a big no-no and grounds for immediate dismissal.Fair, especially given that a little photo editing would have kept that info private. But the note left by the customer, identified by The Smoking Gun as St. Louis pastor Alois Bell, represents a fundamental misunderstanding of both tipping policy and the Christian act of tithing.
According to company policy stated right at the bottom of the menu, a gratuity of 18% is automatically added for parties of eight or more. Bell's check was part of a party of nearly 20, according to the employee.
Bell, a pastor at the Truth in the Word Deliverance Ministries church in St. Louis, says her interpretation of the gratuity was a "lapse in judgment that has been blown out of proportion" and claims she left a $6 cash tip on top of what was originally charged. However, her spur-of-the-moment logic completely left out that the tithe that members of a church take out of their income goes not "to God" but to charitable organizations, the church organization itself and, often enough, the pastor to cover the living expenses of a meager existence required by their faith.
This isn't Chelsea's get-out-of-jail-free card for putting Bell's information and signature in Reddit's Atheist subcategory because "I thought other users would find it entertaining," but it doesn't make Bell's ministry look too great as a result either. She seems to know that all too well.
"My heart is really broken," she told The Smoking Gun. "I've brought embarrassment to my church and ministry."
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An interesting philosophical question: if God created the universe out of nothing, is there anything he couldn't create and thus have to buy?
Seconddary question: given the amount of war, desiese, porverty, acts of violence, and natural disasters in recent memory, do we think God deserves the tip?
Yeah, yeah, we all get the usual "do unto the least of others you do unto me" bit to make us think Jeasus would more likely double the tip as complain about it. Still, I work in finance, and bad sarcasm on the receipt is just a bad way to lodge a compalint about your bill. It'll most likely be ignored and makes you look to afraid to make a personal complaint because you might get out argued on the point if you actually speak to a manager. Coming froma holy person, I think somone's going be a joke on Bill Maher tonight.
If you don't want to tip, go somewhere with a drive through. If you go to a table service restaurant with a policy of adding a mandatory 18% tip for parties over a certain size, then follow their rules.
Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto Chelsea what is Chelsea's.
I don't believe for one second that this heffa left a $6 cash tip. I hope others speak out against her and I hope her crappy little church closes soon.
What a turkey. What has one thing to do with the other.We don't tip GOD, and the tithe is the amount that one gives the church to pay the pastor and keep up the church. On the other hand, when one goies out to eat and someone waits on them, it is customary to tip the server. That's nothing new. we have been tipping servers for many years In fact we also tip the preachers by putting money in the offering plate at the end of the sermon, usually in addition to the monthly tithes we usually give..
What that pastor needs is a good butt kicking from the LORD and a good dose of salvation.
What are 20 of them doing at Appleby's, probably the most expensive lunch place around, besides Chili's?
That's about $800 for lunch!!
Why not mcDonald's for a buck a hamburg if they're trying to be humble, conservative, and supposedly doing God's work?
That would have been about $100!!
That's called: "Holier than Thou"!
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