JANUARY 31--The St. Louis pastor responsible for the credit card receipt heard ‘round the Internet termed her snide scribblings a “lapse in my character and judgment,” adding that the Applebee’s employee who posted the receipt online was fired yesterday after she lodged a complaint with restaurant managers.
In a TSG interview, Alois Bell said that the online firestorm created by the receipt has left her stunned. “My heart is really broken,” said the 37-year-old Bell. “I’ve brought embarrassment to my church and ministry.”
The Applebee’s receipt, which was posted earlier this week to Reddit, includes Bell’s handwritten notations referring to an 18 percent tip added to the bill (for groups larger than six). “I give God 10% why do you get 18,” wrote Bell, who scratched out the tip and added a zero in its place. She also wrote the word “Pastor” above her signature.
The January 25 meal came after an evening service at the Truth in the World Deliverance Ministries church, said Bell, who added that five adults and five children were in the group that dined at Applebee’s (a traditional post-service destination for church members). The subsequent bill was divided up amongst the parties.
Bell, seen above, said her notation on the receipt was a “lapse in judgment that has been blown out of proportion.” Despite scratching out the tip added to the bill, Bell claimed that she left a $6 tip in cash, adding that she subsequently discovered the 18 percent gratuity had been charged to her credit card.
Bell said she learned yesterday that a copy of the receipt was online when a friend called to say she was “all over Yahoo. You went viral!” In response, she called the Applebee’s to complain about the dissemination of her receipt, which includes her easy-to-read signature.
In a follow-up conversation with an Applebee’s manager, Bell said she was told that the waitress was immediately terminated.
According to The Consumerist, the receipt was not uploaded to Reddit by the Applebee’s worker who waited on Bell’s party. Instead, the server showed it to waitress Chelsea Welch, who photographed the receipt and later shared it online. Welch told The Consumerist she was fired yesterday. In a statement, Applebee’s spokesperson Dan Smith reported that, “Our franchisee has apologized to the Guest” for violating the patron’s “right to privacy.” The individual responsible for the leak “is no longer employed by the franchise,” Smith added.
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.
According to her biography, Bell “gave her life to Christ in 1997 while she was pregnant and homeless with her youngest son.” Living at the time in a Catholic homeless shelter, Bell recalled that she was laying in her bed one afternoon when “the Lord touched her heart and she invited him in.”
The below YouTube video shows Bell preaching last year before a small crowd at her church. (1 page)
Post by EloiseWeenie on Jan 31, 2013 14:06:02 GMT -5
The article says that the Pastor eats out weekly. Surely she knows when 8+ bodies are sitting at one table, you get a set gratuity- regardless how many ways you split the check. She was being awful.
I really hope that it wasn't the Pastor's waitress that got fired. If I read the article correctly, it looks like it was a different employee. It's a suck way to lose a job, but girl should have blurred the name out.
The article says that the Pastor eats out weekly. Surely she knows when 8+ bodies are sitting at one table, you get a set gratuity- regardless how many ways you split the check. She was being awful.
I really hope that it wasn't the Pastor's waitress that got fired. If I read the article correctly, it looks like it was a different employee. It's a suck way to lose a job, but girl should have blurred the name out.
Heifer got the scratch to eat out every damned week but not the scratch to pay the damned tip?
STAY HOME, THEN!
Yes, I'm having Ruby Tuesday flashbacks. I bet she wants her steak cooked without a trace of pinky but chockabock full of juice and her broccoli cooked way past dead.
Post by downtoearth on Jan 31, 2013 14:15:33 GMT -5
Applebee's is just a douchey as the "Pastor" - I'm sure they have a policy about privacy of patrons, but they also should have just put it in her file or something like that.
Oh and even if the "Pastor" is black, I think this sort of douchey stuff has nothing to do with race b/c I know a handful of white people who I think would do the same.
Post by heightsyankee on Jan 31, 2013 16:33:06 GMT -5
Good follow up on HuffPost religion...
When Christians Are Christianity's Worst Enemy
excerpt:
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. Yes, a lot of us think the tipping system in America could be improved. In many countries, servers are paid a decent wage, and tips are an added incentive to reward a job especially well done. I know a lot of people who think it should be that way in the United States, too. But it's not. In most states, servers are paid only a little over $2 an hour (yes, you read that right), with the expectation that they will make their living from tips. You might not like that system, but if you choose to express your displeasure with it by tipping your server poorly, the only person you're hurting is the server -- someone who is already living on very little money and depending on your tip to help them pay their bills.
As a former server myself, I always tip at least 18-20 percent unless the service was just so unbearably horrible that it destroyed the dining experience. Even then, I still tip, just not as much. If I can't afford the tip, I don't eat out, or I eat someplace where diners aren't expected to tip. Otherwise, I consider paying my server to be part of the cost of the meal.
I think everyone should tip that way. It's the right thing to do, regardless of your faith, and followers of Jesus are especially called to be generous and give more than people expect. Personally, I'd love to live in a world where non-Christians said of Christians, "I don't agree with their beliefs, but those folks sure do know how to tip!"
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.
Pastor Who Left Sanctimonious Tip Gets Waitress Fired from Applebee’s, Claims Her Reputation Was Ruined Neetzan Zimmerman
Hell hath no fury like a pastor scorned by the Internet.
After a copy of her Applebee's receipt began circulating online yesterday, Pastor Alois Bell of the St. Louis-based Truth in the World Deliverance Ministries phoned up the restaurant and asked to have everyone involved fired.
"My heart is really broken," the 37-year-old told The Smoking Gun. "I've brought embarrassment to my church and ministry."
Last Friday, after evening services, Bell and her congregation headed to Applebee's for dinner as they did on many nights.
But a disagreement over the establishment's auto-gratuity of 18% for parties of 8 or more would soon propel the pastor to the heights of Internet infamy.
"I give God 10% why do you get 18," Bell wrote on her credit card receipt after crossing out the tip amount she was obliged to pay.
A server working at the restaurant uploaded a scan of the receipt to Reddit, and the rest is viral history.
Though Bell was denied her request to have a brand new staff awaiting her the next time she dined at her neighborhood Applebee's, she did succeed in getting at least one person fired: The waitress who posted the receipt online.
"I originally posted the note as a lighthearted joke," Chelsea Welch told Consumerist. "I thought the note was insulting, but it was also comical. I posted it to Reddit because I thought other users would find it entertaining."
They did — but Bell did not.
The pastor called it a "lapse in my character and judgment" that "has been blown out of proportion." Somewhat an ironic statement coming from someone who ordered Applebee's to fire everyone who came into contact with the receipt.
For her part, Welch did what she could to avoid having Bell's identity exposed, asking Reddit to stop posting the personal information of potential culprits.
In fact, Bell still isn't sure what exactly she did wrong.
"I didn't break any specific guidelines in the company handbook - I checked," said Welch, who had no complaints about her service prior to this week. "Because this person got embarrassed that their selfishness was made public, Applebee's has made it clear that they would rather lose a dedicated employee than lose an angry customer. That's a policy I can't understand."
Neither will Reddit, which is no longer being kept at bay by Welch, and has already put out a call to "grab them pitchforks."
Post by secretlyevil on Jan 31, 2013 16:41:56 GMT -5
Honestly, the more I read this, the more I hope that pastor is fired. Her behavior has been anything but christ-like from start to finish. She is a bully hiding behind her pulpit.
"I didn't break any specific guidelines in the company handbook - I checked," said Welch, who had no complaints about her service prior to this week. "Because this person got embarrassed that their selfishness was made public, Applebee's has made it clear that they would rather lose a dedicated employee than lose an angry customer. That's a policy I can't understand."
Neither will Reddit, which is no longer being kept at bay by Welch, and has already put out a call to "grab them pitchforks."