Waitress Claims She Was Fired After Facebook Friend Printed Out Her Complaint About Bad Tippers

It’s always tricky when it comes to dealing with work woes and social media — sure, you want to complain about a rough day on the job, but whatever you post on Facebook or Twitter can always come back to haunt you. In the case of one Ohio waitress, one of her Facebook friends happened to be one of her customers, who then happened to read her complaint against bad tippers.

And it didn’t matter whether her employers could see her post or not, because the customer — a former schoolmate of the waitress — printed out the Facebook status in question. She tells Toledo News Now that she was then fired.

“They told me that I knew what I was doing when I posted that, and they would have to let me go because a customer came in [who had] printed off a screen shot of it,” she says. “And they were really upset.”

As for what exactly the complaint was, it sounds like a bit of a she-says they-say situation: The waitress claims it was simply a vague complaint about bad tippers, with no mention of a specific customer or even the name of the restaurant.

“I just said, ‘If you come into a restaurant and spend $50 or more, you should be able to tip appropriately for that,'” adding that she’d had a slow night that night, with multiple customers tipping only about 10%.

But the restaurant says was fired for using a derogatory name to refer to the customer, which goes against its corporate policy about employees mentioning the restaurant on social media.

Let’s face it: If it’s on the Internet, the wrong person will inevitably see it.

Findlay waitress fired for Facebook post about tipping [Toledo News Now]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.