The Michigan waitress who received a huge US$10,000 (C$13,500) tip was fired days later, but the restaurant said her firing had nothing to do with the generous tip and that it was a “purely commercial decision.”
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The Mason Jar Cafe in Benton Harbor, southern Michigan, fired waitress Linsey Boyd a week after an anonymous customer left the already famous tip on her bill of $32.43, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The man, who wished to remain anonymous, had asked Linsey Boyd to share the money with all the service staff, which amounted to a little more than US$1,100 (C$1,480) for each employee.
His firing “had nothing to do with the tip. She received the entire tip and did not pay taxes on it (the company did). Yes, she shared the tip at the request of the man who left it,” owners Able Martinez and Jayme Cousins wrote on Facebook.
Problems followed
Boyd, however, said problems surfaced a few days after she received the money.
For example, management asked him to take his Sunday off for mental health reasons, the media reported.
Ms Boyd then said management contacted her on Sunday evening and asked her to take the next day off as well.
The waitress messaged the restaurant Monday to ask if the phone call was actually a notice of dismissal.
She was fired by phone the following Tuesday, WSBT-TV reported.
“One week I’m a great, hard-working employee, a great mom…couldn’t have happened to a better person. Now I am unemployed, for the first time since I was 15,” the main person concerned wrote on Facebook.
“Illogical”
Restaurant management has since refuted Ms Boyd’s claims, saying the firing had nothing to do with the tip or the consequences that followed, but that they also could not go into detail due to legal work.
“I know there are a lot of people who say we let her go because of the tip, but that doesn’t make sense,” Mr. Cousins told WOOD-TV, which said it had employees who have worked for him for several years, and that he would never let someone go “for no reason”.
Mr Cousins added that the decision was not taken lightly and that laying off an employee was something the restaurant was working to avoid.
“In this case, it was a purely professional decision,” he said.
