After a video of a terrible tip went viral, a waitress became the target of widespread internet harassment.
Staten Island Applebee’s server Dana G. said she is ‘scared to go to work’ after a TikTok video featuring her earning a $6.55 tip on a $73.45 bill was viewed 722,000 times.
“You was great holidays are just rough right now,” the customer wrote on the receipt along with a frowny face.
The video has sparked a lot of discussions online, with some blaming the broke customer and others debating how businesses get away with underpaying employees by using the tipping system. Others have formed a virtual mob, believing Dana G. was the one who made the video in order to shame the customer for not tipping more.
“I turned the check in at the end of the night and went home,” Dana G. told the publication. “Two days later I went food shopping with my children and my manager called and said, ‘You know anything about a receipt? It’s on TikTok and it has a lot of views and people are thinking it’s you.’”
It is terrifying to her to think that she could ever publicly humiliate someone who tipped at all.
“I would never ever shame anybody for anything they’ve ever given me,” she said.
Management investigated the viral video and discovered that Dana G. was not only not at fault, but also the victim of a cyber prank.
The server did nothing wrong, according to Apple-Metro, the Applebee’s franchise in the New York Metropolitan Area.
It’s a joke that they’re playing on — not us at Applebee’s — but this poor girl Dana who’s been with us for some period of time,” Apple-Metro CEO and chairman Zane Tankel told the publication of Dana G.
“She’s not a kid. She has two children. She’s a mother — a hard-working mother — and she remembers the guest well. We talked to her about it. She remembers him well and she did not take umbrage or offense at that comment on the check.”
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