Topic for Mar 5 (Tue)

[Kristin55]

Server in US Cafe Fired After Receiving $10,000 Tip

When eating at a restaurant in the US, it's not only normal to leave a tip for your server — it's expected.

What Linsey Huff wasn't expecting after serving one man breakfast in a Michigan cafe, however, was a $10,000 tip — on a meal that cost less than $35.

Tim Sweeney, the manager of the Mason Jar Cafe, told the Detroit Free Press the anonymous customer had visited the cafe after the funeral of a friend.

Sweeney said the man had left the tip as a way of honoring his friend's memory, and had asked for it to be shared among the cafe's eight servers.

But according to The Guardian, the kitchen staff also felt they deserved a share of the tip, leading to a disagreement.

Huff went to the cafe managers to tell them about the disagreement. But when asked to name the workers who were upset with the way the tip was being divided, Huff refused — and was then fired.

That's according to Huff's lawyer. In a now-deleted Facebook post, Huff explained that she had been asked to take the following day off work, before being fired over the phone a few days later.

She added that she had gone from being a "hardworking employee" to being without a job for the first time since she was 15 years old.

But the owners of the cafe wrote in their own Facebook post that, while it was true Huff had been fired, it was not because of the tip disagreement.

Sweeney told the Detroit Free Press there had been problems with Huff's work for months, and her being fired after receiving the tip was just bad timing.

However, not everyone on social media thinks this is likely — with one person writing: "Your story just doesn't add up."

1. What are your thoughts on Linsey Huff being fired?

2. Do you agree that the cafe's story doesn't add up?

3. Do you think the kitchen staff deserved a share of the $10,000 tip?

4. Do you think Huff was right to refuse to name the coworkers who were upset?

5. If you were the cafe owner, how would you have dealt with the tip?

6. Is tipping normal or expected in your country?

7. Have you ever had trouble with tipping in a foreign country?

8. Do you ever have to deal with disagreements at work?

9. If you got a $10,000 bonus, what would you do with it?