Tips are often a vital source of additional income for those working in the low-paying service industry. However, one waitress claims that a customer's generous tip left her without a job.
Linsey Boyd, a Michigan mother, was working at the Mason Jar Cafe in Benton Harbor when she received the astonishing tip.
She explained that an anonymous customer added a $10,000 (£8,000) tip to his $32.43 (£25.70) bill to honour a friend who had recently passed away.
Advert
According to Detroit Free Press, the middle-aged man said he was in town for his friend's funeral and wanted to spread some cheer with the gratuity.
Linsey said: "I just gave him a hug. I didn't even know his name at that point, but I gave him a hug. He then told me he left her a memorial of someone very dear to him and he wanted to do something kind and generous in her name."
She then took the $10,000 and split it with her eight co-workers.
Advert
What was supposed to be a beautiful dedication to the man's late friend, however, ended up with Linsey's dismissal, she claims.
In a since-deleted Facebook post, she claimed that she lost her job because of 'all the drama, animosity and hurt' that ensued because of the tip.
According to the post, she was asked to take a day off work 'for things to settle down,' and didn't respond when she was asked 'in a professional way not to come back.'
Linsey says she was fired through a phone call on Tuesday (13 February).
Advert
But, restaurant owners Able Martinez and Jayme Cousins have since claimed that her termination had nothing to do with the tip.
"We cannot comment on the nature of her losing her job due to labor laws and to protect the staff involved," they wrote in a Facebook post.
"However, I will say it had nothing to do with the tip. She did receive the entire tip, she did not pay taxes on it (the business did). Yes, she shared the tip at the request of the man that left it."
Advert
The owners claimed that her dismissal was purely a 'business decision' and completely unrelated to the tip.
They also emphasised that the decision was not 'made lightly or hastily.'
"I know there is a lot going around that we let her go because of the tip and that's just not logical," Cousins later told WOOD-TV.
Advert
"We have a staff that has continued to work for us for years and college kids that come back every summer and we give chances after chances to our staff, so we clearly would not let someone go for no reason at all."
LADbible has reached out to Martinez and Cousins for further comment.
Bec Oakes