Lunch with Colleagues - don't know what to do

krlyr

milvusvestal wrote: »

Firstly, £20 seems rather extravagant for a tip, no matter how many of you were sitting at table. You would need to have an extremely good level of service to justify that kind of money.

Secondly, tips aren't mandatory, and the restaurant should have made it clear beforehand that extras such as gratuities are included in the price of the meal. In other words, there was no reason why anyone should have emptied their pockets to pay for something that was already paid for.

Yes, by all means expose your so-called friend for rank dishonesty, and make a point of never returning to the restaurant. Any proprietor who asks what was wrong simply because his staff didn't get a tip has a cheek.

The OP and her colleagues regularly use the place and apparently regularly tip, which is why the owner questioned the lack of any tip at all (they may well have queried a lack of a fiver, simply out of concern service was less than par to cause this). They all decided (voluntarily) to tip extra for Christmas.
9 people (everyone bar Thingy) put in £15 (meal + tip) to make £135 on the table. Excluding the tip, the total was £116. So between 10, £11.60 (assuming they just decided to split equally).
If "Thingy" didn't agree on the tip amount but wanted to keep schtum, they could have simply paid for their meal with no tip. £135 from everyone else plus her £11.60 makes £146.60
Thingy paid £116, pocketed £135, so not only did they make the £19 simply in cash but the total was £30 short even if she decided to not tip at all herself.
Thingy had no right to decide how much everyone else tipped or if they were tipping too much - they all (perhaps bar her) wanted to tip about £4 each so the tip should have been £36 minimum. Thingy certainly had no right to pocket the lot! Why does Thingy deserve to keep the cash more than the waitress?

Tropez

milvusvestal wrote: »

Yes, by all means expose your so-called friend for rank dishonesty, and make a point of never returning to the restaurant. Any proprietor who asks what was wrong simply because his staff didn't get a tip has a cheek.

Perhaps, or perhaps it was genuine concern.

Restaurant owners know what a difficult business they're in. If they have regular customers who follow a regular pattern which includes leaving tips, they're going to get to know this - and if those customers do not leave a tip one day, particularly if they were being served by a new member of staff, the restaurant owner is going to want to know whether the staff member did something wrong because no restaurant owner wants to alienate loyal customers.

funnybird

Flippin' 'eck-she sounds like a right cow-didn't know you worked for the same boss as me! If i were you, i'd tell all your colleagues, then invite her out to join you for a new year's eve meal at the same place & persuade your nice chefs to add some complimentary laxatives to her meal. Oh, and maybe you could make sure there was no toilet roll in their toilets at the same time! You could also try getting her so drunk that she doesn't notice you've all done a runner & leave her to pay the bill!

Betty_Crumble

Sooler wrote: »

If you think management would be remotely interested in a private social gathering outside of the workplace you are deluded.

:snow_laug

You havn't seen my company's memo about social gatherings out of work :rotfl:

Talent

Stop pu55yfooting around, confront the thief, with another one of the diners that you can trust. Mind you, even if you give her a face saving way out, you will be in the firing line from then on....

Ooops, the system won't let me put two S's in there, it thinks it's rude!

tallgirld

I would 100% make sure that I tell EVERYONE who was at the dinner.

That way someone is going to pull her up on it.

If not you could always send her an annoymous letter with one word written on the paper.......... THIEF!

tara747

Thingy should definitely be confronted, that is absolutely SHOCKING behaviour. :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

fawd1 wrote: »

Generally speaking when I go out with my friends, we divide the meal pretty equally, although we always make sure to remove the wine from the bill for those non drinkers. Usually it works out pretty well. One day I might pay more, but then next time I pay a bit less etc. Anyway, I once went to a birthday party. There were two out of ten of us that drank white wine, so we ordered a bottle between us. Cost about 15 quid. The set menu was 15£ per person. Anyway, the rest were drinking red, and apparently there was a wine connoisseur at the table (he thought he was anyway-think he just ordered the most expensive thing there) who put himself in charge of ordering the red. Bill came which we were told came to £85 per head.:eek: I almost fell off my seat. This guy had obviously been ordering £70-80 bottles of wine. I would've objected but it was a birthday party for one of my best mates, so couldn't say anything, but jeeez, I nearly punched him!

Deleted_User wrote: »

I've been in a very similar situation... I went to a wedding earlier this year quite far away and was sharing car hire with two couples, so there were 5 of us.

Petrol money came to £80. Between 5 of us, that should be £16 each. When we were putting our money in, the 'head' girl who was organising everything told me I owed about £26. I asked why, and she said I should imagine her and her fiance as 'one', and the other couple as 'one', so we're each paying a third.

It was a bit of an uncomfortable situation where no one came to my rescue, but I was unsure as to why I should pay more than everyone else, just because I was a singleton. When I pointed it out, I could tell the girl wanted to put up a fight and started looking uncomfortably at everyone else. But she backed down thankfully so we each paid our fair share. Surely I'm not being unreasonable here?!

What a total biatch, I'm sure you were really angry. At least she backed down. Very bad form.

2dachs

I would get a copy of the receipt ,show all of the colleagues the copy and then ask Thingy what happened to the tip of which was left.

Again as someone else said earlier in one of the posts if you still pay by credit card then sometimes the tip is added on to the receipt of which is also shown or left seperately on the table or inside the portfolio containing the amount of which is owed by the customer.

If she refuses to stump up the cash, have a whip round and make sure in future she is not invited to dinners out with yourself and your colleagues.

I would not let her get away with it or treat myself or other colleagues as mugs,show her as the thief she is because she has committed theft.

Sambucus_Nigra

This is all great stuff. But the very simple issue is that...wait for it...the OP had previously been accused of bullying by 'Thingy' and hence this is less about the money than about being accused of bullying again.

It's a shame people can't actually read!

lyster101

Deleted_User wrote: »

I've been in a very similar situation... I went to a wedding earlier this year quite far away and was sharing car hire with two couples, so there were 5 of us.

Petrol money came to £80. Between 5 of us, that should be £16 each. When we were putting our money in, the 'head' girl who was organising everything told me I owed about £26. I asked why, and she said I should imagine her and her fiance as 'one', and the other couple as 'one', so we're each paying a third.

It was a bit of an uncomfortable situation where no one came to my rescue, but I was unsure as to why I should pay more than everyone else, just because I was a singleton. When I pointed it out, I could tell the girl wanted to put up a fight and started looking uncomfortably at everyone else. But she backed down thankfully so we each paid our fair share. Surely I'm not being unreasonable here?!

The above is disgusting. In both situations. I'd advise leaving these people well alone. As a good friend of mine said "sometimes, you need to leave some people behind."

I've been the single person in situations like this and now as a part of a of 'couple' am aware of both sides so remain considerate. After all the, ahem, 'benefits' of being in a couple, to seek a financial advantage like this is crass and selfish. Couples, ultimately, do just fine via the tax system as it is.

As for being stolen from in general, I have a great story to tell MSE but will wait to be approached!