And speaking of random stupid undermotivated is-that-really-necessary petty hateful nastiness, there’s that couple that went out to dinner at Gallop Asian Bistro in Bridgewater New Jersey on Wednesday night.
Dayna Morales, a server at Gallop Asian Bistro in Bridgewater, N.J., said a family dining at the restaurant Wednesday night skipped the tip on their $93.55 bill and scribbled an explanation why, reported ABC News.
The note on the receipt, left by a couple with two young children, read: “Sorry, I cannot tip because I do not agree with your lifestyle and the way you live your life.”
Excuse me? Since when is tipping an opportunity to express an opinion on the way someone else lives her life? What business is it of someone who eats at a restaurant to tell a server what that someone thinks of the server’s “lifestyle”?
Morales, who has been waiting tables on and off for 10 years, said she never told the family she was gay when she introduced herself.
She said trouble began as soon as she approached the family and introduced herself before asking what they would like to order.
“The mom proceeds to look at me and say ‘oh I thought you were gonna say your name is Dan. You sure surprised us!’” she said.
Oh is that it. Too butch for mom. Well so tf what? Mom isn’t being asked to share an apartment with Dayna, she’s simply being served dinner by Dayna. Mom’s anguish about the missing frills and ruffles on Dayna are supremely beside the point.
A similar incident played out in Overland Park, Kansas last month when a pair of diners stiffed their 20-year-old server at Carraba’s Italian restaurant on the grounds that his homosexuality is “an affront to God.”
And that’s why theism can so easily be an excuse for acting like a shit to real people.
Looks like another Christian who doesn’t read their own Bible.
“Sorry”??? Bzzzt.
A proper response might have been (except for work ethics, limitations of ésprit-d’éscalier, etc): “I once took an oath to serve for the sake of even bigots and other cowards, but now I no longer am bound by it. You are entitled to an opinion, that was the whole point of my service. So am I. The difference being, I am capable of choosing how to express it.”
But what’s the point. Maybe they needed $6 for the taxi home. If it weren’t for those pesky kids …
Or maybe the “wife” felt very threatened by what she perceived as someone gay. Wonder why … ?
Eamon:
I agree with the Bible link. It is probably important not to muzzle an ox while it is ‘treading out the grain’, and the worker should be paid.
The ‘peculiar institution’ of tipping in N America is pernicious, and should be done away with IMHO, and replaced by contractual payments such as regular wages. That would have another advantage: staff in restaurants etc would not be paid or not on the whim of the customer. Otherwise, we have the three bears situation: this woman was too masculine; this man was too feminine; but this one was just right, and so gets the cash.
A ship of fools.
Oh. Me and my quick thinking, eh? That was on closer inspection obviously a written communication, sort of an anonymous letter. But wasn’t there a similar occurrence where the failed tipster got pretty much exposed as a scrooge when the tab somehow was set loose on the Internet?
You’re good enough to serve me but not to be compensated for it.
Treating your server like shit is a well established part of the christian lifestyle.
If these folks also pay lip service to what I hear are conservative ideas about people being paid for the work that they do, they are essentially admitting that they put their religious values ahead of their economic values. Which is something I have come to find is a more safe assumption in politically active conservatives more and more.
Oh, and that should really read “lifestyle” in my reply above. The concept is stupid, even before being made into a club by the small minded. Or more accurately, I have never heard “your lifestyle” not be followed by a load of ignorant shit.
The only way they got away with it here is that, though tips are often the vast majority of the compensation for servers, people pretend that it’s a little added bonus. The tipping situation leaves servers without recourse if they are not paid and permits bigots to get out of paying wages to people they don’t like. Nobody’s wages should become ‘optional contributions’ by bigoted cheapskates like this.
I’m kind of worried now about this becoming a trend.
@ 4 rnilsson
Yes.
I’d like to see what the management thought of that. I’d be surprised a supervisor would take customers being rude.
Presumably, they knew about about it if the story’s in the local paper.
Mainstream media has picked it up now.
@10 Silentbob: Thanks, I hadn’t seen that sequel.
Hurting gay people = bigotry
Hurting people with short hair because that’s a sign of gayness = ignorance
Hurting people who have helped you while claiming the moral high ground = sanctimony
Waiting until after you’ve received a service to refuse payment = theft
And if these people are acting on their ‘deep moral convictions’ in such a manner, shouldn’t the restaurant management, or Ms Morales, reveal their identity?
If it were my business, an enlargement of that receipt would be posted in the window with the
‘We reserve the right to refuse service….’ note.