We like to think we’d return to pay, but would we really? Photo: Yanuar Dani Alfarizi.
I want to blame ‘new mum brain’ for what happened on Mother’s Day, when I merrily told my family that brunch had been paid for and walked out of the restaurant without settling the bill.
In my defence, when I booked the $75 per head special brunch for five, I had given my debit card details and had assumed that they had taken the payment then as the screen was laid out much like a checkout page.
When I got a call a few hours later from the flustered restaurant manager, awkwardly asking me to return to pay, I was mortified. Frustratingly, they couldn’t access my card details or take payment over the phone, so I had to return in person. I assured him I would but noted that with a small baby to cart around, it would likely be in a few days’ time.
I finally managed to get there two days later, and when I went to settle the bill, the reactions of the staff floored me. The first waiter I spoke to seemed completely confused.
“You want to pay for a meal you had on the weekend?” She asked, frowning at me. “Like, you came back to pay?”
I sheepishly explained the whole ‘I thought I paid online’ scenario, but she still seemed surprised.
“Wow, that’s really good of you,” she commented before taking me to a different counter to find out how to take the payment.
Her colleague at the second counter also gave me a once-over before explaining how to make the payment, which had to be done at yet another counter. Before we walked away, though, he nodded at me. “Respect to your honesty!”
I gave him a bemused smile, but by the time I left, $375 lighter, I was feeling more shocked at the fact that, apparently, what I had just done wasn’t the norm. I later posed the question on social media, asking if people would have gone back to pay, and an alarming number of people said no, even justifying their thievery as being some sort of stand against corporations.
To me (and I assume most people), it comes down to basic honesty. I wouldn’t steal money in any other circumstance, so there’s no way I would intentionally not pay for a service I had. Also, having worked in hospitality and retail, I know that the people who suffer from the till not balancing aren’t the business owner but the staff – though I don’t see stealing from a business as a radical anti-capitalism act.
The idea that getting away with not paying would be a sort of bonus – brunch, AND we got to keep almost $400! – suggests to me that perhaps our morals are loosening. Then again, I was the kind of kid who, if the vending machine at school accidentally dispensed two bottles of soft drink, would return one to the canteen.
In any case, what I thought would be an embarrassing experience of having to slink back to the restaurant and pay the bill I had walked out on turned into a congratulatory one, where the staff treated me like a hero for simply giving them what was owed.
What would you do? Return and pay, or take the meal as a bonus and avoid the restaurant in the future?
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