Woman Gets Waitress Who Complimented Her Husband's Eyes Fired
She now wonders if she was in the wrong.
garetsworkshop via Shutterstock / Zalquarius via Canva A wife went out to dinner with her husband and his family to celebrate his 30th birthday at a new diner in town, hoping to have a good time celebrating. However, events unfolded throughout the night that left the wife uncomfortable — and their waitress without a job.
The woman accused the waitress of "being inappropriate."
In a Reddit post, the woman recounted the events from the night, explaining that "Throughout the entire celebration, this 20ish waitress who served our table kept acting strange, she didn't take her eyes off my husband and threw some inappropriate comments at him and infront [sic] of us as she came and went."
Despite "feeling uncomfortable" with the situation, the woman chose to ignore it — until she couldn't anymore.
"When she brought the drinks, She puts them on the table, leans close enough towards my husband thinking no one would hear but we heard what she said and it was, ‘The sparkle of those eyes is igniting me!’” the woman said, leading her to scold the server for the remarks.
Photo: BearFotos / Shutterstock
In response, the wife left a bad review on the restaurant's Facebook page.
Upon receiving the review, the manager contacted her to ask about the experience, worried it would negatively affect the new restaurant's reputation. When asked what he could do to convince her to take the review down, the woman explained that the waitress should face "some consequences" — which ultimately led to the server being fired.
After being fired, the woman explained that the waitress reached out to her through a social media message to tell her "she didn't mean to cause disturbance and was just ‘complimenting’ my husband's eyes.”
According to the wife, her in-laws are upset with her and claim that she acted out of jealousy, leading the wife to question her actions.
Flirting is somewhat of an unspoken tactic servers use to make more money on the job.
According to research, "flirting comprises an element of hospitality employees’ informal protocol." In fact, a 2018 study found that managers even encourage servers to flirt with customers "to maintain an appropriate customer feeling."
That said, there's a fine line between innocent flirtation and outright harassment. And as one person on Reddit commented, this particular waitress crossed it.
"'Your eyes ignite me' = your eyes turn me on. Sexual harassment. MARRIED MAN," they wrote, adding that the waitress should've known better.
"The fact that she reached out after you filed a complaint (even if she was fired) is extremely inappropriate too," they added.
Most agreed that the wife handled the situation as best as she could, as she simply left a review — it was the server who caused the situation and the manager who exacerbated it. As an admittedly new restaurant, let's hope the situation serves as a warning for its staff to prevent the same moving forward.
Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Follow him on Twitter here.