In the latest example of capitalism being irredeemably awful, a restaurant server from Michigan is claiming that she was fired after receiving a $10,000 tip on a $32 check.


According to The Guardian, Linsey Huff, who worked at the Mason Jar Cafe in Benton Harbor, received the tip earlier this month from a customer who wanted to pay tribute to a late friend by doing a good deed. Unfortunately, a dispute quickly arose over the question of how many of her coworkers deserved a share of the tip.

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The customer requested that the tip be divided amongst the servers equally, resulting in eight servers walking away with $1,200 each, but the kitchen staff felt slighted by their exclusion. Huff went to her managers to seek help in calming things down, but they wanted her to identify the people making the complaints. Huff declined, with her lawyer telling The Guardian that she said, “I’m not going to give any of their names … because I don’t want to create a bigger issue. I would just like some assistance in getting this resolved.” Ultimately, Huff, a mother of two, was fired for refusing to name names.


Huff, obviously upset by this bizarre turn of events, made a Facebook post about the situation, which prompted her former employers to retain attorneys and threaten to sue her unless she removed the post, which she quickly did, despite standing by the truthfulness of its contents.




In the post, she’d written, “One week I’m such an amazing, hardworking employee, awesome mother … couldn’t have happened to a better person. Now, I’m without a job for the first time since I was 15 years old.” The owners of the Mason Jar Cafe responded with their own statement, claiming that the firing was unrelated to the tip. While some expressed their support for the cafe, according to the Detroit Free Press, many were upset, with some calling for a boycott.


Huff’s lawyer, Jennifer McManus, told The Guardian, “The people with the money … control the narrative, and the people that work for them understand that and often have to cower because of that.”


What’s that about no good deeds going unpunished again?