What ever happened to washing dishes?

[Deleted]

Tonight my wife and I went to Red Lobster for Lent .

Anyway, while we were in the middle of our dinner (not bad by the way) a big discussion/fight broke down a few table down from us. The same table that they were just singing Happy Birthday at.

A few minutes later the cops were at the restaurant and the two girls at the table were crying (loudly if I may add).

From all we could gather and our waitress more than happy to spill it it without being asked it seems
- the guy (I am assuming the father) when he received the bill informed his waiter that he did not have enough money to pay.
And that conversation escalated to the point the cops were called.

When we left the cops were still there so not sure what happened afterwards.

1) I feel bad for the girl that her birthday was ruined somewhat. If that girl is even 1/10th like my wife she will never forget it.

2) Was it necessary to get the cops involved? Dinner for the two of us, appetizer, 2 sprite plus 20% tip came to $65.00. I am guessing double that for a family of 4 so $130. And reduce that amount by whatever amount the guy had on him.

3) how the hell do you take your family to a restaurant and not make sure you either have enough money on you, your account or even your credit card. Worse it was your daughter's birthday. Heck with the little entertainement at the end (cops, everyone staring at their table) I am sure she would have been happier with a nice cake at home with pizza with some of her girlfriends, etc.

4) Back to the title of the thread: couldn't they have let the wife go with the kids and keep him there. Make him wash some dishes or something.

[mithrin]

Can't have the guy work it off nowadays. Too much chance that he hurts himself in the back (either accidentally or on purpose) and ends up suing the restaurant who was his "employer" at the time.

[bobosensei]

Once in college I went to dinner and only had a discover card to pay with. The restaurant didn't take discover and I didn't know until after I had eaten. Luckily my friend covered the bill for me. I didn't have any other way to pay.

[ZaireinHD]

Mar 12, 2011 0:52:27 GMT -5 mithrin said:

Can't have the guy work it off nowadays. Too much chance that he hurts himself in the back (either accidentally or on purpose) and ends up suing the restaurant who was his "employer" at the time.

YES SIR! 100% AGREE WITH YOU!!!

[ZaireinHD]

ALSO washing dishes today? Dad would have to wash dishes for like two weeks / 14 days to make up the difference cause dishwashers don't get paid a lot. IF the restaurant is NOT using a dishwasher machine?

at lease he didn't dine and dash!

people run scams! sure I'll wash dishes for the night and I don't have to pay for a meal....
Homeless people would flood fancy restaurants - LOL

[suziq38]

I understand why they called the cops.
The guy knew he didn't have any money, still ordered the meal, then ate it.
Not only that, he probably tried to walk out without paying the bill.
That is stealing.
Plus, that was not the agreement.
You get the menu, you see the description of the food to order plus the prices. This is a contract of sorts.
It doesn't say that you can order a Red Lobster and then work in the kitchen to pay for the meals.

[cronewitch]

Even if they had wanted him to work off the debt they probably didn't have a job opening. They shouldn't lay off the dishwasher because someone else needs his job a few days. What about the dishwasher training he might need, TB test, quiz on safety and that sort of thing?

He would need to work about 12 hours to net $65 and if he had a real job already would miss a couple days work. If they let him go home at night he might not come back. There isn't a debtors prison so they can't make him work. It is fraud or theft so he needed to handle it with the police.

If they were going to handle it without the law maybe they could hold the wife and kids and let him make a few phone calls or go find friends to loan him the price of dinner. Strange that with two people nobody had money, debit or credit cards, maybe call the mothers of both adults and ask them to bail out the diners.

[cytoglycerine]

Aww those poor girls - how traumatizing! You didn't mention how old the girls were, but I gather they must have been on the younger side if they were crying.


If that had happened to me as a child - on my birthday nonetheless!! - I would never forget it either The only thing we can hope is that this event shapes the way those little girls spend & save their money in the future...As in something along the lines of "I'm going to make sure I always have a backup plan for money-related things, so I don't end up getting arrested like Daddy did that one time on my birthday because he didn't have enough money to pay for the dinner".


Sad though...sad, sad, sad.

[qofcc]

The restaurant manager had every right (and an obligation to the owner) to demand payment, but it sounds like they handled the incident very poorly if they let the situation escalate to the point that the other guests saw the show. I thought these things were usually handled by either letting one person in the party go to retrieve some money or asking the person who needs to speak to the police to step out of the dining room and into a private area. They would have been crazy to ask him to wash dishes.

[kadee]

I've never worked in a bank but I have worked in many restaurants & retail stores....everywhere I have worked it is illegal to take theft shortages from an employee's wages. Even if they are the thief! And I have worked in 4 different states in different parts of the country!

OP, this sounds very much like a scam to me. Some people do it to get out of paying the bill.
We HAD some "friends" that always wanted to go out to dinner with us....but every time we did, one or the other of them would find something wrong with the food trying to get a "free" meal. They just don't seem to understand why my DH & I have become so busy we can't possibly go out to dinner with them any more!

[Nazgul Girl]

We saw this happen also, but they didn't catch the people. It happened at a Max & Erma's. The eight adult diners were particularly noisy and obnoxious, held up their cell phones and played loud music on them for everyone to enjoy ( I don't know why ), ordered crab legs all around, harassed the poor waitress, and called the manager over for some reason. We had asked to be moved away from them they were so loud. That was the first time we'd ever asked to be moved. Then, the lead noisemaker gentleman announced, " We'll have to do this again sometime." Then they got up and walked out ! The waitress was back in the kitchen at the time, and nobody stopped them. Really, what could we patrons do. The waitress and manager came out, and the party was gone. They were both so angry, and were calling the police. I heard the manager say to the waitress, " This isn't your fault. " We figured these folks were pros at walking out on checks.

[katedenorm]

Maybe the guy didn't realize that he didn't have enough money. This board was carried over from another in order to help people with finances...not everyone reads it.

Sad, but I bet this situation happens more often than not. Could have been that he thought his card could cover the balance, or that he had more in his wallet than he did. The manager should have asked him to step aside and discussed it away from the other patrons.

And I'd be a little disturbed if it was an option to wash dishes for a meal nowadays. I like to wash dishes and finding a job is pretty difficult. ;D

[Deleted]

I took the kids out for lunch once and didn't realize my wallet was not in my purse... The kids actually had enough money on them to cover it... lol... but i do keep a cc in a place hidden in my car for emergencies, so i would have been ok... it was embarrasing though...

[MN-Investor]

A number of years ago I was visiting the small town I had gone to college in. There's a gift shop I really liked and I found a number of things I wanted to buy. At that time, I usually carried my checkbook, but I had forgotten it. The shop did not take credit cards. I didn't have the $70 or so cash I needed. The sweet sales lady said, "Oh, we can just send you a bill for this!" So they did and I gladly paid it. But, boy, was I surprised they did that!

[greenstone]

It may have been an unfortunate mistake, and hopefully the waitstaff would be open to a reasonable solution. But since the conversation between the customer and waiter/manager was not heard, it is likely the customer was the one who escalated the incident to the point of needing the police. I had a friend whose daughter worked at a Red Lobster in the lower income part of town and she said the customers pulled every scam in the book to get their meals comped. The restaurant lost so much money it had to close, and it also had been almost impossible to keep employees because the customers didn't tip. In these situations, I feel sorrier for the staff than the customer. If it was an honest mistake, then the man should have done everything in his power to correct it, the embarrassment will pass, but he shouldn't expect any trust from the staff. They have seen/heard it all before. Even if the man was as honest as they come, he should not expect the waitstaff to know it or make special accommodations for him. He may have become belligerent or expected them to just accept what he had on him at the time as payment. It is just another aspect of our society where people take no personal responsibility for their actions and demand "special" treatment.

And as PPs have pointed out, sadly we've created such a legal quagmire that allowing someone to work off a debt is foolhardy if not illegal. As they say 'No good deed, goes unpunished'.

[happyscooter]

There is a show on Friday nights where they stage events and get bystanders reactions. Maybe ABC. One night they replaced the restaurant waitress and manager with actors and had a couple of college guys go in and eat then leave. The other customers were telling the waitress they had left. One older man went outside and blocked the college kids car with his. It's a good show.

[Deleted]

I've been in a position like bobosensei - I use Discover as my primary card and there are a handful of places that don't accept it.

But I suspect that wasn't the case here. If it were a bad card situation, Dad could have stayed while Mom left to procure alternate payment. In that scenario, I suspect the restaurant would have been sympathetic and discreet.

But for some reason, this idiot felt the need to let things escalate to screaming and crying. In which case, I am all for a little public shaming. I'm sorry for the little girls, but they will probably grow up more fiscally responsible as a result.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

I don't buy that this was an 'accident'. A birthday in a restaurant is a planned event - not a quick stop while you're out and you discover you've forgotten your wallet. If you've got a group that's going out to dinner for a birthday, there's a certain amount of preparation - the least of which is making sure that you have enough money on you to pay your bill.

Wouldn't surprise me that they tried a scam - and thought that since it was a birthday, the manager would cut them a break. Didn't work that way though, so good. When someone else does this, we ALL wind up paying.

[Artemis Windsong]

The man is an abuser and did this to keep negative psychological control over that family. He probably tries to wreck every ocassion and mash any thing that would build this family up. I am surprised he didn't walk out the front door and leave the wife and kids to deal with everything.

As an added bump for the abuser, everyone who witnessed that was abused and mistreated.

[Gardening Grandma]

Wow! The poor kid who had the birthday. She'll never forget the humiliation.

A long time ago (before it was routine to carry credit cards), my sister and I were eating dinner at an airport restaurant with our kids (4 in total).
When we got the bill, we discovered that between the two of us, we didn't have enough cash to pay the bill. "No problem", my sister said. "I'll write a check". (It was pretty common, back then, to pay by check).
Nope - they didn't take checks.
Sooooo, I bought some time by ordering desert for the kiddies while sis went in search of someplace that would cash a check for her. Amazingly enough, she did. She was a very attractive redhead with a gift for pursuasion....

Now, why couldn't the dad in question have done something similar instead of ruining his daughter's birthday? I'll bet the restaurant might have even accepted a check.

[MN-Investor]

"I'll bet the restaurant might have even accepted a check."

How many people do you know who still carry a checkbook? My DH has never carried one, and I only carry one if I'm going to Costco or Sam's Club. Otherwise it's at home.

[DVM gone riding]

I bet it wasn't even a birthday!! Restaurants have been known to give freebies for birthdays-not so much now a days-If they were really "scamming" I wouldn't be surprised to find out it wasn't her birthday dad just wanted free desert.

Even if they don't take checks regularly I bet the restaurant would have in this case because checks are legal contracts and they can be prosecuted for writing a bad one. Nothing a manager can do about not accepting discover though, if you aren't set up for it you can't change it.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

How many people do you know who still carry a checkbook? My DH has never carried one, and I only carry one if I'm going to Costco or Sam's Club. Otherwise it's at home.

I do. And if I didn't, it would not be too difficult to make sure that there was at least a single blank check in my wallet. I know that for years, my dad always carried around a blank check in his wallet, to make sure that he'd be able to make a purchase if needed.

I still think that the man was trying to scam a free birthday meal from the restaurant and wasn't successful. At that point, he had to make a ruckus in order to make it look good.

[azphx1972]

Mar 12, 2011 11:20:56 GMT -5 happyscooter said:

There is a show on Friday nights where they stage events and get bystanders reactions. Maybe ABC. One night they replaced the restaurant waitress and manager with actors and had a couple of college guys go in and eat then leave. The other customers were telling the waitress they had left. One older man went outside and blocked the college kids car with his. It's a good show.

It's called "What Would You Do?", and it is an interesting show indeed.

abcnews.go.com/WhatWouldYouDo/

Since none of us (other than the OP) was there and actually witnessed what happened, I wouldn't be quick to judge the father. There are several sides to every story, and I'd be interested to hear what the family has to say. Sounds like an awkward situation for all involved though.

[tea4me]

About ten years ago I ate at Red Lobster with a couple of friends. They had security guards there. When I asked why, they said it was because so many people "dine and dash". My friends and I could not believe people would do that. We were so naive!

[fairlycrazy23]

Something similar happened to me many years ago, I don't remember the restaurant but I didn't have my credit cards or enough cash, so if memory serves me I left my drivers license with them went and got some more cash, paid them and got my drivers license back.

[Deleted]

We went ice skating with the homeschool group a few months ago... one of the little ones, not mine, wanted a 'walker' basically on wheels... the littles hold on to when they go around the rink.... I had to hand over my driver's liscence to take one out... they say people walk out with them otherwise... i was like ?really?

[resolution]

I have gone out to dinner with my parents a couple of times where they have both forgotten their wallets and I ended up paying. I would tease them about their age except that DH did the same thing a few weeks ago. Our state has this crazy rule where they card at any age, so they wouldn't serve him his drink with no license. I am at the point where I try to check for my wallet before I leave the house because I may end up being the only one that brought money.

[sapphire12]

Unfortunate situation whatever the truth may be. Just today. I went into Trader Joes. It was time to pay, when I realized I left my wallet in the truck. After running out of the store like a crazy woman, well at the moment that description fit, and running back into the store coughing. Did I mention, I'm an asthmatic and I don't run. The cashier and the lady behind me felt sorry for me at that point. LOL.

[woodwand]

<<<How many people do you know who still carry a checkbook?>>>

All the little old ladies I have the misfortune of being behind at checkout.