Regardless of how you feel about the intelligence and decision-making skills of politicians, bad judgment comes in all forms. In the case of State Representative Mary Littleton of Tennessee, she mistakenly thought it was a good idea to stiff her Hooters waitress.
On a $36 dinner, which she shared with another state lawmaker, Littleton failed to make use of her $204 spending allowance courtesy of taxpayers. Instead of writing a tip amount on the receipt, she scrawled the word “Sorry.”
Not surprisingly, the untipped waitress, Amanda Anderson, took to social media to out State Rep. Littleton for her bad behavior. Posting a picture of the receipt to Facebook, Amanda wrote, “State representatives are supposed to exhibit class and integrity … this one acted like a child.”
TN State Representative Mary Littleton
The incident has since escaped the borders of Tennessee to become national fodder for our current politically-charged climate. Littleton’s false tip line apology has come under fire for representing Republican greed at a time when income equality is a major topic of conversation on the campaign trail.
When asked by Nashville Scene, a local Tennessee new outlet, about why she didn’t leave a tip, Littleton offered this explanation via email:
Everyone has had a bad experience with service at some point when dining out at a restaurant. It is unfortunate that my private note to the server regarding the quality of service in this instance was made public. Due to the overall experience that evening, I decided not to provide a tip. In hindsight, rather than writing a note on the receipt, I should have asked for the manager so that I could register my concerns with the quality and promptness of service. As the mother of someone who has been a server, I know that servers have difficult and demanding jobs and, as such, it is has always been especially important to me that I make sure to tip generously when I receive good service.
Take this statement for exactly what it is; a calculated response from a politician whose thoughtlessness has put her in some hot water. It is designed to pull the attention away from herself and place the blame solely on her waitress, Ms. Anderson. I don’t buy it.
“Sorry” is not the word you would write on the tip line if you were unhappy with your service. It’s more apt for a situation in which a customer doesn’t have enough money to leave a tip. It’s impossible to know whether or not the service was truly as bad as Littleton described. I struggle to believe that it was bad enough for a state representative not to leave a tip. For that to have been the case, Littleton would have had to be mocked, spit on, or cursed at to be justified in not leaving at least a couple bucks for gratuity.
Hooters window image by Mike Mozart