Who's More Wrong Here?

The BBQ Pit
221

jimpatro I have a question for you…does your company cover tips as well as the meal?

And if so is this a standard practice?

Like I said earlier maybe the guy thought they did…after he found out otherwise that’s why the large tip at first then he wanted the money back later

All that is speculation though…for all WE know he found out his wife was pregnant later and decided he needed the money back

Or maybe as incredible as it would be he was NOT lying when he said he had a bunch of sticky twenties and it was all an accident

Who knows?..Certainly none of US

222

Gus, I’m gonna make this really simple and clear.

Don’t fucking call me a liar.

There. Is that really clear? Did it penetrate the fog?

I didn’t make any claims in my OP concerning what the customer’s intentions were because I DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY WERE. And they don’t matter, anyway; the OP is a question of whether or not Jeff should’ve returned the money. The guy’s motives really aren’t the point, b/c we have no idea of knowing what they were. He could’ve honestly thought he gave Jeff a single $20; he could’ve meant to give Jeff 2 $20’s. He could’ve thought, “Hey, I’ll hook Jeff up,” and then thought better of it later.

THAT’S THE POINT.

His motives are whatever he says they are; if he says that it was an accident, nobody has any way of verifying it either way. The question was: If Jeff honestly thought it was a tip, should the customer get it back? Are waiters responsible for returning any tips that people later decide against giving? Whose money is it, in the end, and who has a better claim to it?

I’m sorry if you, unlike everybody else, didn’t GET THAT from my OP, but I’m not apologizing for failing to break it down so YOU could understand it, when everybody else did. I purposely left the guy’s intentions blank in the OP, so that only his actions would be judged. God only knows what he was fucking thinking! It doesn’t really matter! The only person whose intentions I understood were Jeff’s, and I made those clear.

And, oh, before I forget, let me break this down for you one more time:

Don’t call me a liar. Don’t accuse me of making up a story, and don’t call my OP a crock.

Fuck you.

223

Tommyturtle, what I meant was that the company pays for the bill not the tip. I pay that myself…20%.

I pretty much think that Jeff shouldn’t have to give anything back.

Hey, Audrey. Is your restaurant on the river?

224

It is still a crock IMO. ( you got all nasty with me so you can stamp your feet all you want…)
You won’t say that you personally saw that the two 20’s were separate or stuck and you won’t say if Jeff said. Why not?

And I VERY clearly said that FOR ME, no matter what, if the bills were stuck together, FOR ME it would be stealing.

I did not say I would not steal the money, I just said I would not rationalize it.

Oh, and if you don’t wanna get called names… get out of the pit.
:::::: sheesh :::::::

  • If my questions are bothering you so much, wait until someone really takes you to task in the pit.* Heck, I thought I was trying real hard to be nice but since you won’t answer the questions… well ::::: shrug ::::::
    You have a reading problem a lot worse than mine it seems.

I said it was about me.
I said the customer was either out of luck or wrong.
Yes, I want to know the facts of what Jeff saw when he opened the book. You did not comment at all on the possibility that they were both right. Remember that ?

Do you remember the one where I asked why it was even a question? So I think it is just a story you wrote, so what?

And you will need to go to email if you want to back up your demands on what I can and not say.

225

Yes, jimpatro, it is. (Hello, fellow SA-er!)

For the love of God, Gus, I TOLD you what Jeff saw when he opened the book; he saw two fucking $20 bills. There was no question in his mind as to what he’d been given.

I have also already made it clear that I WASN’T THERE when Jeff opened the damn book. I’m going on what he says, and his actions, which back up what he says. (You yourself have failed to address the fact that if he HAD seen one and realized it was two, and he wanted to keep it, he wouldn’t have mentioned it to anyone.) As for whether or not both of them were right…that was the whole point of the OP! Even if the guy genuinely thought he’d given Jeff a single $20 bill–which seems, IMO, pretty clear based on his actions, but not verifiable–the question is whether or not Jeff should have to pay him back! The point being, if Jeff was required to, where does that leave any waiter who gets a tip from somebody who later wants it back?

It was an interesting question/situation, so I posted it.

And what is this crap about “going to email” if I want to “back up my demands?” You accused me of making up the entire OP, which means you’ve accused me of lying. I fail to understand why I’m supposed to be mellow about such a serious accusation. I also fail to see why you should get to call me a liar on this board, and then I have to “email you” in response.

You called me a liar in public. Ergo, in public, I’m calling you a fucking asshole.

Get it?

226

jimpatro

I kind of thought most companies wouldn’t cover tips just because I could see that being abused if they did

But never having had that type of job I didn’t know for certain

Thanks for the info

GusNSpot

Why does it make you so incredulous to think she wasn’t there to see this for herself? This no doubt was the talk of the restaurant at the time and she could very well have heard of this situation second-hand or even third hand and posted here the information as she knew it

As to why this is in the Pit in the first place…she explained that in her OP…many people have strong feelings about tipping and she just figured to save some Mod from having to move it later

In fact until recently it was a relatively calm discussion of the points brought up in the OP and might not of really needed to be in the Pit at all(surprised me too…I’ve seen other threads about tipping end up in the Pit as well)

Anyway…

If the customer had handed Jeff the two bills stuck together and on his way to make change he noticed there were TWO bills and pocketed the second one THEN and ONLY then would I agree with you as to whether there was any stealing going on

But that was not what happened…the customer put those bills in the book…handed the book to Jeff and left saying keep the change…after that there is no way for Jeff, Audrey Levins, or any of us to know whether those two twenties were originally stuck together

Under THAT specific situation it is my opinion that Jeff was under NO obligation to give back any of the money and if he did not…it was NOT stealing

There are far too many possible explanations for someone to want their money back later…the so-called “stuck” twenties story is just one of them

227

Well Tommy T, I never disagreed with that either. I said what it would be if I kept two stuck bills. I have repeated this manny times and A.L. can’t seem to read that. Just keeps yelling I was saying Jeff - the whole world - how I was claiming high ground - High ‘racin’ - when I did not say that. :smack: And the tone of the thread was that the customer was a liar… and A.L. did not disagree with that with the other posters until I asked my questions and stated what I felt about it if if or IF it was me and stuck bills and I also said that anyone ( IMO ) who kept stuck bills was a thief, including myself. I did not bring up Jeff specifically until A.L. went ballistic.

I also disagreed with the moral question because the OP as stated had no moral question in it IMO. Just a legal one.
Then yadda yadda yadda and poor little A. L has his / her panties in a wad. I did not notice any gender on the profile page.

And A.L. can call me all the names there are. But to be able to enforce the demands that I not say bad words to A.L. on this MB is not not gonna happen in the pit, so I was just saying to come to email and we can decide how to deal with addresses and phone numbers and tickets to a neutral ground and how manny lawyers we would need etc. ::::::sheesh :::::

You don’t make threats on the SDMB even in the pit and it seemed to me that the demands by A. L. were getting to that point so I was trying to head off any of that type action so… Email.

If disagreement on the presentation of an OP causes A.L. to freak out, then maybe A. L. has a problem.
Oh, and go read the OP, it was not stated that Jeff saw 2 bills, just that he got a great tip. After I questioned the condition of the ‘book’, only then did it get strident and panties wad time. Addition of qualifiers is fine but not after first calling people names. That smacks of making up stuff to strengthen you position. IMO YMMV

228

GusNSpot, can you work on the spelling and punctuation a bit? I don’t understand what you’re saying. Seriously.

229

GusNSpot

I don’t see your point about:

since in the OP she/he(I don’t know if Audrey Levins is male or female either…just guessing) said at the end:

At this time no one even considered if the customer was telling the truth about his sticky twenties(he could of been…I just don’t think it matters once he left)

That was what the whole debate was really about…at what point the money becomes irrevocably the property of Jeff and no longer the customers’

Everyone has their own opinion on when exactly the tip changes from a tip to someone elses money even if it really was an accident

Personally once the customer left…if Jeff had opened that book and saw two stuck together twenties IMO the “You snooze you lose” principle has gone into effect…mistake or not the money is now Jeff’s to do with as he chooses…the guy coming back later was tacky at the very least even IF he was telling the truth why he gave Jeff the extra twenty…sure Jeff was a good guy to give it back days later but if he did not EVEN if he had known for certain it was an honest mistake I don’t consider it stealing

It has been interesting to see where everyone’s “point of no return” is this last six pages of the thread(so far)

Even YOUR point of view was unique to say the least

230

a.) I am a girl.

b.) I made you no threats. I told you not to call me a liar. If you can find a quote where I said, “Or else” or “I demand,” you might have an actual leg to stand on, but as it is…I fail to see how you could rationalize that you get to call me a liar, and then if I tell you not to, I’m “threatening you” and we should “take it to email.”

Get over yourself!

c.) The “disagreement on the presentation of an OP” is a nice no-fault way of backtracking on what you said, which is that “my OP is a crock” and that “it sounds like a story.” You have been saying all along that I made the OP up. You said nothing about “the presentation.”

Obviously, you’re the one with the problem.

And thank you, Tommyturtle, for your sound and rational backup.

231

Yeah, “Not reading the whole thread.” :slight_smile:

I don’t recall anyone in this thread calling the customer a liar. An asshole, yes, but not a liar.

232

As a pragmatist, I can’t answer questions about who is more wrong, but I can offer what I believe to be an appropriate course of action.

On the theory that the customer is always right, I would give Chris his $20 back. I would give Jeff $10 out of my pocket for his trouble. Having obtained closure, I would then try to get on with my life.

233

Hey, I ran it through spell check so it is up to you to point out the misspellings IMO… LOL Yeah, I try to go slow and be clear but it does not always work.

What bugs me that my stuff does not get read any better than other peoples stuff does and I’m special so Waaaaaaaa

A.L. Thanks for clearing up the sex thing.
Oh, and you told me to stop calling you a liar. That is a request or a demand or…

Now, I said that FOR ME getting 2 bills stuck together and I keep them, no matter what the customer said later, I am stealing. To ME that is the same as finding a wallet on the side walk and keeping the money from it but returning the wallet to the owner. Sure, I did not steal his identity or his credit cards, just his money. So for me, I think anyone who keeps money not intended for them is stealing.

Now I know a lot of you people who are presently working for tips think differently about that. So what.
I’m an old man of 60 years and I learned in a different time about right and wrong. Remember, truth is relative to time and place.
So a lot of you think Jeff has a right to that money and I agree that he does if the bills were loose in the book. If they were stuck together as he opened the book, then IMO <-- note … he is a thief IMO and those who agree with keeping the money, are thieves. I don’t care what the law says. Now, if they were never stuck together, then it was not stealing. <-- note…

A.L. did not open the book, Jeff did, so she can’t say with direct knowledge that the bills were separate. That does not mean I’m calling Jeff a liar. I don’t care how well she knows Jeff, she has no direct knowledge of the conditions of the bills when the book was opened. That is all I am saying. ( unless she is skipping something.)

What I would do if I was Jeff or the customer has no bearing on anything. I claim no moral high ground.

Hyperelastic has a good solution but too bad it was not thought of at the time.

I have repeatedly said that if the bills were separate, then the customer has little to stand on, but it seems to me that if there were 5 one hundred dollar bills stuck together that some here would say, to bad, you loose Mr. Customer. And if they say that $500 would be different than $5, then they are rationalizing theft.

YMMV :smack: