Kirsten Kelly, 22, has come to find herself fired after unwittingly taking to Facebook to complain about what she deemed a ‘lousy’ tip, only to later find out that one of her Facebook friends was the customer who then promptly reported her to her employer, Texas Roadhouse in Findlay, Ohio.
Told the mother of one’s Facebook message: ‘If you come into a restaurant and spend $50 or more, you should be able to tip appropriately for that,’
Kristen Kelly would tell WTOL11 despite her letting of steam, she hadn’t identified the person or the place of work.
Still, her managers weren’t happy about it.
Reiterating: ‘They told me that I knew what I was doing when I posted that, and they would have to let me go,’
‘They were really upset.’
She explained that she had made the angry post after she left with only $60 following a busy Friday night at the restaurant.
‘I was mad,’ she told. ‘I had several people that night who weren’t tipping appropriately. More than one time, people spent $50 or more and they tipped five or six (dollars). That’s not OK.’
After posting the message, one of her customers – a former schoolmate and Facebook friend – saw it and went to the restaurant.
Kelly said she was shocked when they fired her.
‘I knew that they could have yelled at me for that, but I didn’t think they could fire me for posting that,’ she said.
As she worries about how she will provide for her young son, she says she hopes she will get a job in customer service soon – and vows to be more careful with what she posts online.
The Facebook post has since been deleted.
The Texas Roadhouse has in turn told that Kelly was fired for using a derogatory name to refer to the customer. Their policy states that workers can not mention the restaurant on social media.
Which raises the awkward question, was Kirsten Kelly really fired cause she may have referenced her employer or was she really fired cause she brought attention to the way many waiters and waitresses come to be abused and negated at the hands of not just customers but restaurant owners themselves who refuse to make tip shortfalls up in minimum wage benchmarks?
There are cheapskates, but most people tip based on the actual service. A 5 dollar tip on a 50$ bill is 10% not 0%. While it is not considered a a good tip it should be considered a message to the server. Maybe she should have done better at providing better service. Plus what is “tip appropriately” even mean, since servers aren’t entitled to a minimum percentage. I don’t care if someone went in there alone and racks up a $200 bill, if you provide lousy service you are getting a lousy tip or if it is exceptionally bad maybe no tip at all. If I get excellent service, for example if the server checks on things without having to be flagged down and if it is busy and the server is constantly seen being busy I understand the wait, I will tip 20%+. Plus she tries to play the pity card, how about instead of that owning up to your actions and not go against your companies policies if they are legal, even if you think they will just yell at you for it. I have to also add in regards to the questions posed by the article, if it is so bad why aren’t people choosing to work in other fields? You want to cause change in what you view as a broken system remove the workforce since they can’t operate without it. It isn’t their only choice of a job and to suggest otherwise is wrong. Not to mention it would be illegal for employers to do that so all it would take is to register complaints into the board of labor. Yet the service industry remains one of the largest fields of employment so something is off with the logic used.
Plus isn’t odd how she references that several people weren’t tipping appropriately but only mentions a low of “5 or 6 dollars” per tip but “she left with only $60 following a busy Friday night at the restaurant.” Assuming everyone tipped only 5 or 6 dollars, which is dispelled by what she said, that only works out to be 10-12 tables. Hardly busy for any server by any restaurant standards unless it is a small business.
Entitled cow. I’m siding with Mr Pink on this one. Fuck tipping.