Leaving cash on the table to pay a bill (with any change going towards the tip) is a conventional way to pay a restaurant tab if you don’t need change. Once Bob leaves the money on the table, he has fulfilled his obligation and the money belongs to the restaurant. The thief stole the money from the restaurant and so it is the restaurant’s loss. Bob’s only problem is proving he left the money.
If you go to Home Depot and pick up a wrench and don’t want to wait in line, so you leave exact change on the Customer Service desk, which is currently unstaffed, and somebody grabs it, that is *not *a conventional way to pay and you have *not *fulfilled your obligation and you still owe the money.
It is not a public place, like a park bench. It is a privately owned place of business that is open to the public. The way he paid is common (although becoming less common now that people use cash less).
I would argue that Bob did leave the money in the restaurant, and the thief stole from the restaurant, not from Bob. If the thief cannot be found, it’s the restaurant’s loss, not Bob’s.
For anyone who thinks Bob did something wrong (he didn’t), let me change it up slightly – Bob slips a 20 in one of those bill folios that restaurants use and slides it towards the end of the table as the waitress walks by. She says “Do you need change?” Bob says “No,” she says “OK, have a good night,” and leaves the folio on the table while she does some other things, but at no point does she verify that there was money in it. Bob leaves. The thief then comes by and slips the 20 out of the folio.
Exact same scenario but now Bob and the waitress have a verbal agreement that the check was paid. Change anything?
There wasn’t a Season 2 - the space yaks were asking for too much money plus artistic control, and the actor who played Bob was caught in bed with an underage Roomba. The waitress’ career petered out with a couple of low budget softcore features that lost money, so now she makes her living doing voice-overs as Shirley the Singing Sawz-All for a local hardware chain.
In this case payment has been acknowledged and the restaurant is on the hook. I wouldn’t say OP Bob did anything “wrong” as such, but with no evidence, witnessing or acknowledgement of an attempt to pay, from the restaurant’s perspective, (and a disinterested observer) it never happened.
Of course it’s Bob’s responsibility (whether or not the restaurant wants to press the issue is up to them). There is no way for the restaurant to tell the difference between Bob and a customer who walks out without paying.
To look at it from another perspective:
You own a restaurant. You leave the bill for the customer, and then find that they left without paying. You catch up with them and they say “I left some cash but someone must have taken it. You have a problem, but not with me.” Are you obligated to believe it? Are you inclined to feel that you are “responsible” for not being paid? What choice could you have possibly made to ensure you got your money?
Bottom line; leaving cash to pay for something without confirmation may be commonplace, but the person who is leaving the cash is the one making the choices and assuming the ethical risk.
It can be Bob’s responsibility even if Bob didn’t do anything wrong.
I agree with the first part and disagree with the second.
Obviously the thief is the responsible party here. But if he makes his getaway, Bob should still pay the money. Bob’s the one who failed to exercise due diligence by leaving his money out in a public place and walking away from it. It’s not the restaurant’s money until they pick it up.
It’s a different situation in steronz’ scenario; the waitress has verbally accepted ownership of the money on behalf of the restaurant so now it’s the restaurant’s money the thief stole.
OK, now instead of leaving it in the folio, Bob leaves it on the table but gets up to walk out. As he reaches the door, he catches the waitress’ eye and says, “I left a 20 on the table,” and she says, “OK thanks, have a good night!”
Now a similar (verbal) acknowledgement of payment has been made without any money actually having been seen by the waitress. Bob still off the hook again?
And just to save myself making a 3rd post, how is that different from him telling her the exact same information in the parking lot?
There’s no thief in this one (or is there?). The waitress says the bill is fifteen dollars and walks away. Bob puts down a twenty dollar bill and walks away.
But Bob’s annoyed by this. As he walks out the door, he decides he shouldn’t give a tip for poor service like that. So he goes back into the restaurant and returns to the table. The twenty is still there. Bob puts the twenty into his wallet and puts fifteen dollars in its place. He then leaves.
Did Bob take back his own money? Or did Bob steal five dollars that now belonged to the waitress?
Places ive worked, ther server usually ends up eating the loss. It is their responsibility to pay put the exact sum of their sales and the end of the night. Therefore they are responsible for getting the money from the table. If they think someone is acting funny, then the get the manager involved.
I agree with that basically. I think the people claiming Bob is putting a $10k duffel bag on a street corner are going a little overboard with their contrarianism or contrariness. Leaving an even amount of cash which covers the bill (and whatever tip the customer chooses) and walking out is a highly common way of paying a restaurant tab especially in mid/downscale table service places. It’s not like some strange way of paying in some made up strained analogy.
Bob paid by putting the money down, restaurant’s loss if somebody else stole it from them, which is what happened in the hypothetical.
If Bob is both reasonably well off financially and reasonably easy going, nor sensitive enough to really care if they think he’s now paying the first time just because they ‘caught’ him, he might well cough up another $20. That’s probably what I would do, while making a mental note never to go back to that place (they really shouldn’t follow me assuming I’ve stiffed them; here’s where some accusation of attitude of ‘X/Y/Z privilege’ on my part might follow, that I expect such consideration but be that as it may, I would not go back there ).
If $20 is much money to Bob or he’s the ‘it’s the principal of it’ kind of guy to overreact to various petty money situations then he might kick it up to the manager, ask to see CCTV, etc. I wouldn’t do that. I might say, ‘I paid, somebody must have swiped it’ and if the reaction is ‘OK then have a good day’ I’m off, and never going back. If it’s ‘well you know that might be but we didn’t get it’, then I’d pay again and off, never coming back.
Question of people who’ve worked as servers various places (all my kids did at one time in inner NY area mainly ‘yuppie’ clientele places, I never happened to have). Would you actually follow a customer out that way? The server themselves has been stiffed any tip, but that happens all the time (especially in a diverse area like ours people visiting or immigrated from countries with no tipping often don’t seem to have heard the phrase ‘when in Rome…’ and don’t leave tips, per my kids). What’s the special incentive to have a confrontation with a customer (which in some areas and clienteles could be physically risky) unless the restaurant is putting the server on the hook for the money? Is that actually common?
Because the waitress has the opportunity to ask Bob to wait while she checks the money. If she neglected to do that and told Bob “Okay, have a nice day” that’s on her.
It’s getting a little murkier, but I’d say in scenario#2 waitress could have chosen to look in the folio, chose not to and so it’s on the restaurant.
In scenario#3 Bob was still confronted after he left the money, there’s nothing the waitress can do to check the veracity of his statement other than telling him to stay in the restaurant and that would be awkward. If she then immediately goes to Bob’s table and finds nothing there I’d say Bob was still on the hook, but it’s a little dodgier. From the restaurant and disinterested observer’s perspective Bob put her in a bad position by trying to leave.
I was just about to pose a similar question. Everything about the OP is the same, but when the waitress comes by with the bill, she says something to the effect of 'just leave the money on the table when you’re set".
That’s getting into Seinfeld-esque antics. Like, what if the waitress doesn’t see that I tipped her, so I take my tip out of the tip jar so I can drop it back in while she’s watching.
Why wouldn’t you go back. There was some confusion, you explained your side and they took your word for it without question. ISTM, that’s about the best possible outcome. In fact, I’d say you should continue to patronize a business that treats you that well. The money wasn’t there, so they were right (or at least, not wrong) to question you first. But when you said you’re sure you left money, they understood that something happened to it after you left.
Not really. I mean, it sucks that you have to punish everyone because of a few bad eggs, but you have to be very careful not to make stealing overly easy. If the business’ policy is to eat any shortages, what reason would an employee have for not stealing. It would be like a car insurance company that you can call and say ‘hi, my car got hit, they said it’s $1000 to fix’ and you get a check for $1000 without question or proof that it actually happened.
Of course, it’s kind of a double edge sword since the cashier/waitress has to cover shortages, but the business keeps overages, but like the first part, if employees can keep overages they’ll go out of their way to short customers.
My feeling is that the restaurant is responsible for the bill, as they have been stolen from.
This is based on my perception that in USA, restaurants are accepting of money-left-on-the-table as a condoned form of payment. Here in Australia, payments are not made in this way, so Bob would be responsible for paying the bill.
Leaving an even amount of cash which covers the bill (and whatever tip the customer chooses) and walking out is a highly common way of paying a restaurant tab especially in mid/downscale table service places. It’s not like some strange way of paying in some made up strained analogy.