A waitress posted a receipt from a pastor who wrote “I give god 10% why do you get 18?” The waitress posted the receipt online and her employer, Applebee’s, fired her from her job.
Chelsea Welch was fired from her job at Applebee’s on Wednesday of this week for “violating Pastor Bell’s right to privacy.” Her termination came on the heels of the post gaining momentum on line.
Chelsea stated, “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.”
Welch stated that the receipt wasn’t from one of her tables. It was shown to her from another server and she snapped a picture of it.
When the image of the receipt was first posted, it contained the entire signature of the pastor. Pastor Alois Bell’s signature was something Welch says she didn’t think to edit out of the picture.
Chelsea Welch stated that, “All throughout the comment thread on the Reddit post, I withheld any identifying information.” Welch says she deleted the image and replaced it with one that did not contain the pastor’s signature.
Welch went on to say, “I had already started receiving messages containing Facebook profile links and blogs and websites, asking me to confirm the identity of the customer.”
“I refused to confirm any of them, and all of them were incorrect. I worked with the website moderators to remove any personal information.”
“I wanted to protect the identity of both my fellow server and the customer. I had no intention of starting a witch hunt or hurting anyone.”
“I just wanted to share a picture I found interesting.”
The pastor contacted the Applebee’s location on Wednesday and demanded that the server’s involved as well as the managers be fired. Welch says up until this incident with the pastor, she’d never had any trouble at work.
“I had been well-liked and respected. My sales were high, my managers had no problems with me and I was even hoping to move up to management sometimes this year.”
“When I posted this, I didn’t represent Applebee’s in a bad light. In fact, I didn’t represent them at all. I did my best to protect the identity of all parties involved.”
“I didn’t break any specific guidelines in the company handbook. I checked. But because this person got embarrassed that their selfishness was made public, Applebee’s has made it clear that they would rather lose a dedicated employee than an angry customer. That’s a policy I can’t understand.”
Chelsea Welch said she doesn’t think she should have been fired. “I posted a picture to make people laugh. But now I want to make a serious point.”
“Things like this happen to servers all the time. I’ve had worse tips just in the last month.”
“People seem to think that the easiest way to save money on a night out is to skip the tip. But when you don’t tip a good server that means that servicer might move on to a better job.”
And a worse server might take their place. When you tip a good server, well, you are ensuring good service.”
Pastor Bell allegedly told Chelsea’s manager that their reputation had been ruined by having the receipt posted on Reddit. “If this person wrote the not,” Welch says, “obviously they wanted it seen by someone.”
“It’s strange to me that now that the audience is wider than just the server, the person is now ashamed.”
Pastor Bell commented on the situation surrounding the receipt. She said that it was a “lapse in character and judgment.”
Pastor Bell went on to say that the incident “highly embarrassed her.”
Be sure to check out Kelly’s other columns:
Austin Marriage Examiner
Austin Beauty Examiner
National Family and Parenting Examiner
Disease & Illness Examiner
National Sports Celebrity Examiner
Sex and Relationships Examiner
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