National Post (National Edition)
Server fired after complaint about no tip
A huge order came in to an Outback Steakhouse in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, on Wednesday: 25 steaks, 25 chickens and 25 potatoes. The total was $735. Server Tamlynn Yoder, 25, spent most of her shift getting it packaged, making sure it was correct and then carrying it out to the car.
But when the Christian megachurch that ordered it didn’t leave a tip, Yoder spoke out in frustration on Facebook — and promptly lost her job.
The firing has reignited a long-fought debate over whether tipping on carry-out orders is compulsory — and how much money a person is expected to leave.
As the story went viral, it drew fire from four factions: 1. people outraged that people don’t tip on takeout; 2. people outraged that someone would expect a tip for takeout; 3. people who wanted to boycott Outback for firing the server; and 4. people who were eager to call out what they viewed as hypocrisy from the church.
The church told the Palm Beach Post that the lack of tip was an oversight from a church employee who was in a rush to pick up the order, and that the church called Outback to try to get a tip to her — not to get her fired.
Servers in the U.S., especially at casual chain restaurants, typically make less than the minimum wage, and the difference is made up by tips. Florida’s minimum wage is $8.25 an hour, but the tipped minimum wage is $5.23.
Yoder said that because she spent so much time working on the carry-out order, she couldn’t tend to other tables, and made only $18 in tips that day.
“We take the order over the phone, we put the order together, take payment and then take (the) order to the car,” Yoder told the Palm Beach Post. “It’s a lot of work, just as much as serving.”
When she wasn’t tipped for the order, she posted a rant on Facebook without mentioning her employer’s name. A friend who saw it told her he would call the church, Christ Fellowship, to ask it to make amends.
Instead, Yoder arrived at work the next day to learn that the church had been refunded for its order, and that she had been terminated.
A spokeswoman for Outback Steakhouse told the Palm Beach Post that company policy prohibits employees from posting about customers on social media.
The code of etiquette around tipping has evolved over time. For table service in a restaurant, the 10 per cent tip that was the average in the 1940s has increased to a standard 20 per cent.
Yoder said that after the incident, a few families from the church gave her a sum totalling “more than the tip.” But she’s still out of a job.