A Red Lobster waitress received a racial slur on a receipt instead of a tip. The Internet responded.

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Tipping guidelines: 20% for dinner, 20,000% when righting a horrible wrong.

Everyone in the service industry has a handful of crappy stories about terrible tippers, but we’re all whiners in comparison to Red Lobster waitress Toni Christina Jenkins. Back in September, Jenkins received the shittiest tip ever. On a $44.53 bill, her customers filled out the credit card slip with “none” on the tip-line, and the word “Nigger” in the total, which I guess is how that equation works out in some kind of ignorant bigot math formula that’s taught wherever those customers were home-schooled.

Rather than follow them to their car and do something destructive with a crowbar, Jenkins did the graceful thing and vented on Facebook.

The venting backfired initially, after Red Lobster suspended Jenkins from her job for violating a policy against posting customer receipts online. But it wasn’t long before the Internet sprang into action to right a wrong the way it so often does: by sending the story viral and raising gobs of money.

Matthew Hanson, founder of AddictingInfo.org, started a fundraiser to give Jenkins the tip her crappy customers withheld. Hanson launched Tips For Toni, and managed to raise over $10,000 within 72 hours. Jenkins was presented with a check of $10,479 on September 30.

“I literally screamed. I was so confused,” Jenkins told ABC News. “I was just so thankful. I felt so blessed and so honored that so many people came together on my behalf to give this to me.”


(pic via Facebook)

Jenkins also got her job back at Red Lobster, which is kind of bittersweet since I don’t wish a job waiting tables on anybody, at Red Lobster or otherwise. Hopefully, she kept a photocopy of the check to cheer her up any time she has to deal with another table of a-holes.

(by Bob Powers)