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An Applebee's waitress who posted a receipt with a note from a pastor complaining about the automatic gratuity added to the bill on the Internet was fired on Wednesday after the pastor complained to her manager.

Chelsea Welch, the waitress, wrote in an email to Yahoo News that the pastor (who has since been identified as Alois Bell) told Welch's manager at the St. Louis-area Applebee's that the ensuing firestorm had "ruined" her reputation.

"I give God 10%," Bell wrote on the receipt, scratching out the automatic tip and scribbling in an emphatic "0" where the additional tip would be. "Why do you get 18?" (There were more than eight people in Bell's party, triggering the auto-tip.)

Welch, who snapped a photo of the bill from a fellow server and uploaded to Reddit, defended her right to post the receipt. "I thought the note was insulting, but also comical," she told Consumerist.com. "And I thought other users would find it entertaining.”

Bell, a pastor at Truth in the World Deliverance Ministries Church, was not amused, and she called Welch's manager to complain.

“[It was] a lapse in my character and judgment,” Bell told the Smoking Gun, adding she did not expect her easily recognizable signature would be, as her friend informed her, “all over Yahoo. You went viral!”

“My heart is really broken,” Bell added. “I’ve brought embarrassment to my church and ministry.”

A spokesman for Applebee’s said it apologized to Bell for violating her "right to privacy" and confirmed that Welch “is no longer employed by the franchise."

Welch was surprised that Applebee's fired her, "especially because there was nothing specific in the employee handbook admonishing this behavior."

"I had no intention of starting a witch hunt or hurting anyone. I just wanted to share a picture I found interesting," she said. “I come home exhausted, sore, burnt, dirty and blistered on a good day. And after all that, I can be fired for ‘embarrassing’ someone who directly insults their server on religious grounds.”

Welch also isn't buying Bell's embarrassment. “If this person wrote the note, obviously they wanted it seen by someone," she said. “I’ve been stiffed on tips before, but this is the first time I’ve seen the Big Man used as reasoning."

Justin Lee/Author, 'TORN: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate' wrote:According to the server, the pastor's party tried to get around the automatic 18 percent tip by asking for separate checks, even though the same person was paying for the whole table. The server says that everyone was happy with the service; they just didn't like the idea of a compulsory tip. {emphasis mine}

The result? The pastor scribbled out the tip, leaving none at all, and adding the note, "I give God 10%. Why do you get 18?"

In my book, for instance, I tell the story of my first job waiting tables:

"Sundays are the worst," one of the servers explained to me. "That's when the church crowd goes out to eat."

"What's wrong with the church crowd?" I asked.

"Oh, honey," she said. "They're usually the most demanding, and they're always the worst tippers. I guarantee you, if you see your table praying before the meal, you can mentally subtract a third from your tip."

Standing nearby, the manager cracked a smile. "They already gave at church," he said. "They don't have any money left."

In conversations with my server friends across the country, I've heard the same sentiment echoed time and time again. As a Christian, I find this infuriating.

But if there's nothing I can say to convince you to tip well, then at least do me this one favor: Don't go out to eat after church, don't pray before your meal, and don't sign your receipt with the word "pastor." In short, don't let people know you're a Christian. Because your bad behavior is reflecting on my God and the faith that I love. We Christians are supposed to be the generous ones, not the stingy and selfish ones. And I can tell you from experience, when servers see a pattern of Christians who tip poorly, it gives them one more reason to distrust anything and everything connected with Christianity.

And for heaven's sake, whatever you do, please don't make the mistake some of my customers did:

Some of them would leave fake "money" as part of their tip -- pieces of paper designed to look like high-value bills until you picked them up and realized they were tracts telling you about giving your life to Jesus. Why would anyone think that tricking and disappointing a broke food-service employee would be a good way of spreading the Christian good news? ...

Don't misunderstand me. I know that Christianity isn't about us at all. It's about Jesus. Our human failure to live up to what we believe doesn't make the gospel any less true. But as the old saying goes, we are the only "Jesus" most people will ever see. People inside and outside of the church judge Christianity by what they see in its practitioners.

A St. Louis pastor is apologizing after she left a rude comment on a receipt at an Applebee’s location where she recently dined.

Pastor Alois Bell had dinner at Applebee's Saturday following an evening service at the Truth in the World Deliverance Ministries Church.

Her party of 10 that included five adults and five children received individual receipts; upon noticing that her bill indicated that at 18 percent tip should be given, she wrote on the receipt, “I give God 10% why do you get 18,” in addition to writing "zero" in the tip section.

According to Bell, she left a cash tip of $6 and later discovered that the 18 percent gratuity was charged to her credit card.

A mother of three, Bell heads a 15-member church that rents a storefront space. Bell said she has a separate full-time job--which she declined to describe--and tithes 10 percent of her earnings to the church.

ShneekeyTheLost wrote:If I were the manager, my response would have been:

"SIr, we are neither attorneys nor doctors, as such we have no 'client privacy' requirements to uphold. Furthermore, anyone at any table nearby could have taken that picture, it did not have to be anyone on staff here. As such, I feel no particular need to discipline anyone on my staff at this time. My suggestion to you is that if you do not wish your actions to be seen in the public eye, that you do not perform them in a public venue.

We have that automatic gratuity because the difficulty of handling large parties is exponentially more difficult than handling a large number of smaller parties, particularly when you ask for split tabs. We feel that our employees deserve adequate compensation for their hard work and effort. Because I strongly feel that this is entirely appropriate, I covered the balance of my waitress's gratuity out of my own pocket.

I do not permit anyone to harass my employees, nor do I permit anyone to take away their livelihood. As such, I shall have to request that you not return to our establishment. The seating staff have been advised of this, and should you return, they will get a manager who will politely ask you to leave. Failure to do so will result in the police being called and charges levied for criminal trespassing.

If you feel that this is unfair, you are free to contact Corporate over this matter. Their number is...

Have a nice day, Pastor Bell."

When she was hired, the team member was provided the franchisee’s employee hand book which includes their social media policy and states:

Employees must honor the privacy rights of APPLEBEE’s and its employees by seeking permission before writing about or displaying internal APPLEBEE’S happenings that might be considered to be a breach of privacy and confidentiality. This shall include, but not be limited to, posting of photographs, video, or audio of APPLEBEE’S employees or its customers, suppliers, agents or competitors, without first obtaining written approval from the Vice President of Operations. The policy goes on to specify: Employees who violate this policy will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.

Leak wrote:Well, you kinda have to understand what that pastor is going through - having a definitely male first name (and I'm definite on that one as an Austrian) as a female is a probably a hardship that can lead to doing such things...

(Sorry, couldn't resist... )

Mark N wrote:I still find it amazing how the media gets away with twisting the perceptions of the event by leaving out information and no one knows it until yet another report is released.

Fairportfan wrote:

Mark N wrote:I still find it amazing how the media gets away with twisting the perceptions of the event by leaving out information and no one knows it until yet another report is released.

The ports have been coming out as information came out.

I will guarantee that this Applebee's statement is at least partially in response to the server saying "They never told me not to," which is what the last reports said.

Jabberwonky wrote:

Leak wrote:Well, you kinda have to understand what that pastor is going through - having a definitely male first name (and I'm definite on that one as an Austrian) as a female is a probably a hardship that can lead to doing such things...

(Sorry, couldn't resist... )

Oh, I thought they'd misspelled 'A Lois Bell'. Not wanting to point out the particular Lois Bell...

Fairportfan wrote:Latest.

An newer article says:
Applebee’s defends firing of waitress who posted pastor’s ‘God’ receipt

When she was hired, the team member was provided the franchisee’s employee hand book which includes their social media policy and states:

Employees must honor the privacy rights of APPLEBEE’s and its employees by seeking permission before writing about or displaying internal APPLEBEE’S happenings that might be considered to be a breach of privacy and confidentiality. This shall include, but not be limited to, posting of photographs, video, or audio of APPLEBEE’S employees or its customers, suppliers, agents or competitors, without first obtaining written approval from the Vice President of Operations. The policy goes on to specify: Employees who violate this policy will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.

<full story>

Julie wrote: Well, there goes the waitress's chance at getting back at Applebee's for firing her. They had legitimate grounds to do so (really, it's shocking how few people actually read their employee handbooks...I have answered tons of questions about proper dress code and company holidays by referring to mine...and the people who ask the questions act like they've never been told this stuff before ).

I still say that Pastor Bell is a witch for complaining about it though. And while I think it would be awesome if the manager had done what Shneeky proposed, I can guarantee that he'd have been fired as well had he said that. *sigh* It's so sad that people can behave badly and be the "victims" when they're called out for it these days.

Mark N wrote:

Julie wrote: Well, there goes the waitress's chance at getting back at Applebee's for firing her. They had legitimate grounds to do so (really, it's shocking how few people actually read their employee handbooks...I have answered tons of questions about proper dress code and company holidays by referring to mine...and the people who ask the questions act like they've never been told this stuff before ).

I still say that Pastor Bell is a witch for complaining about it though. And while I think it would be awesome if the manager had done what Shneeky proposed, I can guarantee that he'd have been fired as well had he said that. *sigh* It's so sad that people can behave badly and be the "victims" when they're called out for it these days.

You are preach-en to the Choir here my friend. I knda hope that there is a Karma effect here for all of those involved, especially Preacher Bell.

Julie wrote:Well, there goes the waitress's chance at getting back at Applebee's for firing her. They had legitimate grounds to do so.

MerchManDan wrote:

Julie wrote:Well, there goes the waitress's chance at getting back at Applebee's for firing her. They had legitimate grounds to do so.

As it happens, she doesn't need to: The Internet has decided to get back at Applebee's. Legitimacy be damned.
This may not end well.

NOTDilbert wrote: re: the Applebee's Boycott link:
Notice she tried to get THE OTHER EMPLOYEES WORKING THAT NIGHT fired? She told Applebee's she wanted 'a brand new staff' there 'by the next time she visited'.

Amazing.

NOTDilbert wrote:

MerchManDan wrote:

Julie wrote:Well, there goes the waitress's chance at getting back at Applebee's for firing her. They had legitimate grounds to do so.

As it happens, she doesn't need to: The Internet has decided to get back at Applebee's. Legitimacy be damned.
This may not end well.

re: the Applebee's Boycott link:
Notice she tried to get THE OTHER EMPLOYEES WORKING THAT NIGHT fired? She told Applebee's she wanted 'a brand new staff' there 'by the next time she visited'.

Amazing.

NOTDilbert wrote:re: the Applebee's Boycott link:
Notice she tried to get THE OTHER EMPLOYEES WORKING THAT NIGHT fired? She told Applebee's she wanted 'a brand new staff' there 'by the next time she visited'.

Amazing.