‘God’ Receipt Waitress Fired: Applebees Made The Right Decision

After the ‘God’ receipt waitress was fired from Applebees for sharing the receipt of a pastor who left a snark comment instead of a tip, anger spread throughout the internet.

There were protests against Applebees and calls on Twitter to boycott the restaurant. The only problem — they had it backward. Applebees made the right call and the ‘God’ receipt waitress should have been fired.

Here are the facts of the case (via UPI): Chelsea Welch was working as a waitress at Applebees in St. Louis when she got a receipt from a pastor. In the place of a tip, the patron (later identified as Alois Bell) wrote “I give God 10% why do you get 18?” and then gave no tip.

Angry over the snub, someone posted picture on the Atheism page on Reddit under the name gateflan,. It was later revealed that it wasn’t Welch who sent it, but a colleague.

“I took a picture of the note because I thought it was comically immature,” Welch said. “I thought it was humorously silly, the fact that someone would not only refuse to tip, not only make themselves out to kind of be a jerk but also play the religion card as an excuse.”

The customer was a jerk, and that isn’t disputed by many. But what Welch did was wrong, and in fact worse than a grumpy patron who stiffed her on a tip.

As Applebees noted it its public statement (via Yahoo!):

“The guests who visit Applebee’s — people like you — expect and deserve to be treated with professionalism and care in everything we do. That is a universal standard in the hospitality business. That includes respecting and protecting the privacy of every guest, which is why our franchisees who own and operate Applebee’s have strict policies to protect personal information—even guest’s names.”

What the ‘God’ receipt waitress did was not at all professional, and for that she deserved to be fired. In an age where identity theft is rampant, keeping customers’ private information secure is paramount for businesses. Applebees has a reputation to maintain, and cannot tolerate its employees photographing and sharing personal information of customers, no matter how offensive it may have been.

The ‘God’ receipt waitress deserved to be fired, and once the controversy dies down Applebees will be secure in the knowledge that it made the right decision.