One family was headed to a local restaurant to enjoy a much-deserve night out. Unfortunately, despite their best intentions, the evening would not go according to plan…
Home away from home
Enjoying a meal out with family and friends is always a lovely way to treat yourself. Great food, good atmosphere and the occasional cocktail always make for a wonderful night. Yet there are some evenings that don’t always turn out how you expect them to…
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Smile for the camera
When we do go to a restaurant, we expect that the staff will be friendly, attentive and efficient. The problem is that smiles can sometimes be misleading. Even waitstaff who appear to be offering their best service can sometimes be withholding secrets that you may have never anticipated.
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Free from worry
Whitney Anderson was hoping to enjoy a night out with her loving husband and her three children. The mid-week treat was well deserved but despite her best intentions, the evening had an unexpected outcome.
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Abuelo’s Mexican Restaurant
One of the best parts about going out to eat is picking the restaurant! The Anderson family were looking for something a little different on this particular night. After much discussion, the family decided upon Abuelo’s Mexican Restaurant. The Mexican-themed resataurant was known for their mouth-watering burritos and cheesy quesadillas – no one would’ve expected that the establishment had a thief on the menu too.
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Fun night out
The Andersons walked through the restaurant doors and made their way to a comfy central table. They enjoyed themselves a hearty and delicious meal, but there was one special aspect of their night that Whitney in particular seemed to appreciate most.
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Stellar waitress
The Anderson’s waitress that night seemingly did a great job. She served then with a smile on her face and anticipated their every need. Whatever she did, this waitress must have done something to warrant a particularly positive response from Whitney. In a show of generosity, Whitney left the waitress a large tip that would have unforeseen consequences.
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Tipping point
Anybody who knows anything about restaurant etiquette knows that tipping is an integral part of the experience. In most modern cities, the person who waits on tables builds a relationship with their patrons, ultimately earning them a tip that is reflective of their service. It is common practice for customers to tip the waiter or waitress around 10%, and sometimes more – depending on the standard of their service.
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Generous tip
Now, this is where the story gets interesting. Whitney Anderson must have thought her waitress did an exceptional job, because she gave her a tip of $10, off of a $45 bill – that’s a tip of almost 25%! Whitney may have hoped that the waitress would react with happiness and gratitude, but alas, these stories sometimes have their ways of getting ugly.
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Strange sightings
The next day, Whitney got out of bed, went through her usual routine, and decided to check her bank history. She expected to see $55.50 taken away from her account for the previous evening’s meal. For some unknown reason, she saw something entirely different. She saw $65.50 deducted from her account, ten dollars more than the total amount she intended to spend.
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A hunch
Whitney tried to account for the extra expense – it simply didn’t make sense. The more she thought about it, an idea was planted in her head. Was it possible that it was the waitress’s fault? The waitress who appeared to be so trustworthy? Whitney had a hunch it was her – but she had to do more to know for certain.
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Don’t be hasty
Whitney headed straight to the restaurant that very day to investigate further. She figured that there must be a reasonable explanation for the unknown charge – perhaps it was just an innocent mistake. Whitney would never want to falsely accuse someone before she knew all of the facts. Soon enough, the situation would become clear.
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Wrong receipt
Whitney went straight to the front desk and asked to see the receipt for her family’s meal from the previous night. Management gave Whitney what looked like a receipt, but upon looking at it further, she realized there was something amiss. She asked them if what they gave her was the merchant copy or the customer copy, and then they looked at it again and realized that it was the customer copy.
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No merchant copy
There is a reason that it’s called “merchant copy” – the merchant, as in the restaurant or service provider, is supposed to hold on to it, and it’s supposed to be an accurate documentation of the bill. This much-needed merchant copy was nowhere to be found – no one at the restaurant could find it. At this point, Whitney started suspecting heavily that their waitress from the previous night was the culprit. It seemed she had gone to great lengths to do away with the evidence.
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Justified accusation
The receipt that the restaurant staff gave her was a customer copy, and there was an extra 20 dollar tip added to the original bill. The bizarre thing was, Whitney’s signature was there right next to all of it. So Whitney outright said to the restaurant staff what she was thinking. She said that her waitress from the previous night must have thrown away the merchant copy, and filled out the customer copy herself, forging Whitney’s signature and adding an extra ten dollars to the tip.
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Basic refund
This is where things started to get more intriguing. The owner of the restaurant was soon called and briefed on the unfortunate situation. He immediately agreed with Whitney that she should be refunded. But that seemed to be the extent of it – the owner didn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that his own employee had blatantly stolen money from one of his trusting customers.
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Owner doesn’t care
He told Whitney that she would definitely get her money back, but that she would have to wait ten business days for the transaction to reflect. This was simply not what Whitney had in mind. That waitress had committed a crime and management seemed to not take the charge seriously. If he truly was unsettled by what had happened, he would reprimand the waitress, and pay back Whitney right there on the spot in cash.
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Past misdeeds
Truly outraged by the manager’s handling of the incident, she exclaimed that she was “so angry” that a waitress could do something like this, and then pointed out that it’s possible that the same server may have done this countless times before to other customers without being caught. Whitney was out for justice.
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Irresponsible
At the end of the day, all we can do to prevent future crimes from happening is to do something about the people that we know are at fault. This is the reason that Whitney was so determined to right the situation – how could it be that the owner of the restaurant was so unwilling to fire this waitress, or at least do something about what she had done. Perhaps the owner didn’t want to shed light on the fact that something unsavory had happened in his own establishment.
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A true thief
But the story doesn’t end there for Whitney. She simply couldn’t sleep soundly knowing that this waitress was still potentially taking advantage of unknowing people. Fraudulently signing someone’s name is an extremeful deceitful and calculated act. Thievery is thievery, and it should not be tolerated in any shape or form – so Whitney soon did something about it.
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Social media time
In today’s age of social media, if a story is important enough, it has the potential to go viral, reaching millions upon millions of people. Knowing this, Whitney decided to publicly tell her story on her Facebook page. What happened next, Whitney had hoped for, but did not expect.
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News station coverage
Immediately after posting her story onto Facebook, people began commenting and sharing their own experiences. It became wildly popular. Like Whitney, citizens demanded that the right thing be done. The story became so big that a local news station soon broadcast the story, outlining the incident. That’s when the tide shifted slightly – the second something becomes newsworthy, all parties that are connected to the situation reevaluate their options – such as the restaurant owner.
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Concerned management
The owner of Abuelo’s Mexican Restaurant originally planned on calling Whitney ten days after she’d come to see him. He said he would refund her money in ten business days time – but after the story went viral, he changed his tune. Whitney got a call from the restaurant within days.
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Tide shifting
Now it was Whitney who had the upper hand. When the owner called her on the phone, not only did he say that they’d pay her back in cash the very next day, but they said that they’d be willing to pay her back for the entire bill – not just the stolen ten dollars. But there was more…
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Bad experience
The restaurant profusely apologized for her “bad experience”. But Whitney was still not satisfied. There is the old saying that actions speak louder than words, and she felt that the restaurant needed to do more about the criminal actions of their employee.
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Full refund
The next day, Whitney returned to the restaurant to retrieve her cash refund. But she didn’t leave before talking about how she felt. She wanted them to fire the waitress involved, but they were unwilling to do so.
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The right thing to do
In life, we are constantly faced with moral dilemmas we must try to overcome. Some solutions are simple but others are far more complex. Whitney had always prided herself on having a rigid and unwavering sense of what is right and wrong. She knew that the situation had to be rectified further.
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Path of least resistance
When the owner realized that his restaurant’s reputation was on the line, there were two choices he could have made. He could have chosen to swallow his pride and admit that he had hired an unethical staff member but instead, he chose the path of least resistance – it was a lot easier for him to sweep it under the rug and pretend like nothing was wrong.
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Waitress track record
But it turns out there was even more to the story. Whitney investigated the track record of her server. Apparently, the very waitress that had stolen money from her had indeed done the way same thing before – but in a string of other restaurants. The reason she no longer worked at those establishments was due to the fact that her actions had been discovered.
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Leadership goals
Upon learning this new information, Whitney was furious. Her suspicions had been confirmed: this woman had taken advantage of many people before her. One incident could have been overlooked and forgiven but to behave so dishonestly repeatedly was truly unforgivable.
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Unacceptable behavior
Though the sum was small, Whitney chose not be indifferent. She knew that her actions could protect those after who and teach someone a valuable lesson about morality and ethical behavior. Still, Whitney persisted.
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No Thought
The waitress at Abuelo’s Mexican Restaurant didn’t realize when she decided to add an extra ten dollars to her tip, in her head, she thought she wasn’t doing something that bad. She probably figured, “It’s only ten dollars”. Maybe she thought that ten dollars wasn’t so groundbreaking a sum of money that it wouldn’t really do that much damage to Whitney and her family’s life. But even if this deduction was correct, there’s a lot more to it than that.
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Trusting relationship
Whether or not losing ten dollars would have actually made life harder for the Anderson family, the waitress should have understood good and well that that is far from the point. She had led Whitney to believe that they had a trusting relationship – she smiled at her like a good waitress does. Even though it was for only one night, the waitress allowed the Anderson family to feel comfortable and safe. The second she stole money from them it was like she was saying that it wasn’t real.
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True connection
The truth is that it’s important not to judge someone unless you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. And perhaps this waitress has had to deal with her share of unfortunate trials, and stealing from others is her way of justifying her actions. But she’ll soon come to realize that although it may seem right for her, it will continues to isolate her from true connection. Maybe one day she’ll understand the value of honesty and loyalty, and being a modest contributor to society.