I
will start off cynically. I do not know how and why an article on a waiter/waitress
being stiffed a tip in St. Louis, MO, US and consequently another waitress
getting fired got onto the pages of the London based paper The Guardian. As far as I could tell, this was not a syndicated
piece the London paper picked up. Basically, the story reached across the
Atlantic and not just on social media. Whatever the motives may have been, the
article [1] made for interesting reading. The other reference to this incident
is in Daily Mail, another British media
outlet, a tabloid [2].
The
crux of the story (but really, you must read the story in full, as can be
accessed through the links) is that a patron at a restaurant did not leave any
tips and stiffed the waitress. But, it is slightly more than that. It was a
bill for a group of eight people and the US taxman comes after your tips, at
18% of bill, whether you are tipped or not. In fact, this is one of the
reasons, though not relevant to India, I leave a not-ungenerous tip when I eat
out, like at Hotel Saravana Bhavan, Adyar Ananda Bhavan or Sagar Ratna in Delhi
and other dine-in places.
There
is something more. Perhaps the patron wrote what sounds nasty, but she must
have been feeling mighty righteous.
Apparently,
after the social media came together against the patron and the establishment, the
patron feels chastised, but she had not, as far as I know, requested the
establishment to take the waitress back. Why? Oh, she has God behind her! She
offers 10% tithe to the “Big Man” and she expects Him to take care of the fired
waitress. This is pretty much what the waitress wrote on Reddit.com “I'm sure
Jesus will pay for my rent and groceries.”
Here in India, we are talking about our sentiments being hurt, our religions being insulted, our Freedom of Speech rights curtailed etc. But, it takes merely a trivial (for everyone but the fired waitress) incidence to show how sensitive Americans are: they cannot stand being “embarrassed”. This is what the patron wrote to the restaurant while seeking the pink slip for the attending waiter/waitress, the fired waitress, the manager on duty and indeed the other manager, who was not on duty.
Here in India, we are talking about our sentiments being hurt, our religions being insulted, our Freedom of Speech rights curtailed etc. But, it takes merely a trivial (for everyone but the fired waitress) incidence to show how sensitive Americans are: they cannot stand being “embarrassed”. This is what the patron wrote to the restaurant while seeking the pink slip for the attending waiter/waitress, the fired waitress, the manager on duty and indeed the other manager, who was not on duty.
To
paraphrase a saying: hell hath no fury like a woman religionist embarrassed.
Raghuram
Ekambaram
Reference
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