Applebee's fired Chelsea Welch, a waitress at one of their St. Louis area franchise outlets for posting a receipt on the Internet that then went viral. In the Jan. 31 report on Yahoo! News, the waitress claims she lost her job because the customer, a pastor, complained to the manager that the Internet posting had ruined her life.
Receipts at Applebee’s restaurants sometimes trigger an automatic 18% gratuity suggestion on the receipt which is what happened in this case because Pastor Alois Bell had more than 8 people in her party. Bell not only didn’t pay the suggested amount, she scratched it out and wrote on the receipt "I give God 10 percent, why do you get 18?"
Welch posted a photo of the receipt on Reddit and the photo went viral.
The pastor has expressed regret but from her comments to The Smoking Gun, Bell is more concerned about how she looks to her church than she is about her behavior. She said, "My heart is really broken. I’ve brought embarrassment to my church and ministry.”
Applebee’s apologized to Bell through a spokesman for violating her “right to privacy.” They have also confirmed that Welch has been let go and no longer works for the franchise.
Welch feels the termination was unjustified. She says, “I come home exhausted, sore, burnt, dirty and blistered on a good day. And after all that, I can be fired for ‘embarrassing’ someone who directly insults their server on religious grounds.”
What do think? Did Chelsea Welch overstep her bounds by posting the receipt on the Internet? Did Alois Bell behave appropriately by taking more than eight people out to eat and then stiffing the waitress? Should the waitress have lost her job over this?
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