A waitress was fired at an Applebee’s
location after posting an image of a note written on a receipt on social
media. The note said something to the
extent that they only pay 10% to God, so why does the waitress think she deserves
18%. The note was written by an alleged preacher,
after an 18% tip was automatically added to the bill for the party of 10 or so
people. It is a company policy that the
tip is accrued automatically with parties 8 and larger, so it was not in the
waitress’ control. What was in the
waitress control, was posting the not on social media. The reactions of people to this note on
social media were brutal to the preacher.
Was it ethical firing the waitress for posting to her own social media?
I believe that firing the waitress
was the right thing for the company to do.
A good company will stay true to their customer confidentiality policy. Recipes do not only have the price of the
food, but if run with a card can have the customer’s name and signature. If the company has established rules about
keeping the customers information private then sharing it on social media is
completely in appropriate.
In my opinion the policy should not
be changed and the punishment was justified.
I have worked at places where you are not allowed to post about your job
on social media. When you agree to a
work contract you may be signing away your right to talk about what you are
doing at that job. This makes it not a
matter of freedom of speech anymore. It
is very important that you are aware of the social media and disclosure about
the happenings of a work place before you get yourself in a rough place or even
get fired.
So maybe it is completely in appropriate
what she did, but why did she do it? In
this situation the waitress was not meaning to get the woman in trouble, or
shame her. The waitress said “I
originally posted the note as a lighthearted joke,” “I thought the note was insulting, but it was
also comical. I posted it to Reddit because I thought other users would find it
entertaining.”(webpronews)
How many times a day do you take
pictures of things in your daily life that are funny and, interesting or
strange that you would like to share with your friends or others on a social
media platform or website. I can
honestly say I post a picture at least once a day. This is something I should be more concerned
about now that I have looked at this case.
You could easily get in a lot of trouble, so be cautious about your
rights about posting.
Something that makes me wonder
about this case, is how clearly the policy was stated to the employee. Was she told that she was not allowed to do
that, or was it hidden in the fine print of the employment paperwork? It is wrong to expose the customer like that,
but it is also wrong to not educate the employees about their rights concerning
communicating about their job. Would there
have been a different outcome for the waitress if her leak to social media had
been a description of the situation and note, instead of a picture?
One shocking thing about the actual
note, is that this was not the first note of this kind written to an Applebee’s
employee. They have reported receiving a
note refusing to tip because the person is a single mom, saying “single mom
sorry”. There was another tip refusing
saying “stop eating bitch” written to the waitress. It quite saddens me to hear stories of people
being so inappropriate to these servers who are just trying to make ends meet
themselves.(huffingtonpost)
Hopefully all of you take the time
to review what your rights are at whatever job you do, so you can abide by
company policy. I also hope that you are
kind and curious to the next person who helps you in a customer service
setting, because it is not ethically right to treat people you are entitled to
their service. I still stand with my opinion
that Applebee’s did the right thing, even if they did not want to let the
waitress go.
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