If you’ve ever wondered if you’re an a**hole, there is a place on the Internet where you can get a lot of opinions. The subreddit r/AmItheAsshole is a place where users tell their stories and submit themselves to judgment. The posts are then labeled: you are or you’re not.
Because of the subreddit’s popularity, there are a lot of guidelines for how people are judged. If it seems like you’re telling a story where you’re obviously not an a**hole, you’ll be dismissed for wanting validation. And if you tell a story where you clearly are the a**hole, you’ll get dragged to oblivion in the comments.
This story from user u/YouGottaStopThat is extremely controversial. The OP really thinks they did the right thing, but most of the commenters don’t. Their story is that they were serving a group of women drinks when they overheard one of them making a comment that led them to believe she was pregnant:
I walked by the back side and overheard one of them talking about how she was 14 weeks along. When I rounded back, they were talking about the same topic and it was clear to me that she was pregnant.
The OP figured one drink wasn’t a big deal, but when the group ordered a second round, they became concerned. They asked the bartender to secretly switch out the woman’s drink with a virgin cocktail, removing the alcohol.
It didn’t seem like she noticed, so the OP decided all’s well that ends well. Until they had to drop the bill.
When Mrs. Pregnant Woman got to the counter, I saw her cocktails were marked with (virgin). My bartender had edited each in the system for inventory.
It was too late for me to edit them back, so I just had her pay, hoping that she wouldn’t look at the receipt. They all thanked me and left, leaving a generous tip in the process. They were talking in the parking lot for the next short while, presumably waiting for an Uber.
Several minutes later Mrs. Pregnant Woman came back and asked what (virgin) on the receipt meant. I fessed up that it meant non-alcoholic. She blank stared me for a few seconds and then asked if she had ordered a non-alcoholic cocktail.
I said no, but told her that I assumed she wanted one seeing as she was pregnant. It was a lame lie and I’ll admit it, but she looked me in the eye and asked me to return her part of the tip. I did so. Then she talked to my manager. My manager took me into her office and literally shrieked at me until hoarse.
The manager had good cause to shriek. There are laws against discrimination that could get the restaurant in big trouble.
However, OP is convinced they did the right thing because they say they didn’t want to feel responsible for fetal alcohol syndrome.
I’d like to point out here that at no point in this story does the OP mention that the woman confirmed she was pregnant.
FAS is a pretty serious condition and drinking while pregnant can be very dangerous. For this reason, OP’s parents took their side.
But when I talked to my mother and father about it tonight, they told me that they understood my position. The entire staff at the restaurant is against me and I think that I’m going to call in and tell my manager that I quit, but I still feel in the right here. I would like some perspective on this and if I’m the a—hole here.
The commenters still had no mercy. According to most of them, messing with someone’s food is always a huge no and the OP was willing to steal from her too! Virgin cocktails are not the same price as alcoholic ones (which is the least of the issues here, but c’mon).
YTA .If you don’t want to serve her, don’t serve her, but don’t try to trick her for her own good.
You would not be the a**hole if you had told her what you heard and said you didn’t feel comfortable serving her alcohol. You also could’ve cut them all off once you saw that they were intoxicated. That would be actually living up to your convictions and dealing with the consequences — via
YTA. I’ve spent most of my working years in food service, and half of that time has been in management. If I was your manager, I would’ve fired you on the spot. While I agree that pregnant women shouldn’t be drinking, you NEVER change a customer’s order without their consent. If you had an issue with her drinking, you should have taken it to your manager and let her deal with the situation — via
Also, they have no idea what’s actually going on here. It could be a much darker situation than they realize.
YTA here, you made a lot of assumptions about a woman and a situation you don’t know anything about – she might not want to keep it, but ultimately it’s not up to you to decide what she can or can’t put into her body. In my opinion that was a pretty big violation of her freedom of choice. You did it for the right reasons I’ll grant you that, but that doesn’t make what you did right.
You just don’t do that.
I have a friend who found out her baby had died in utero when she was 8 months pregnant. From the doctor’s office she and her husband went straight into a chain bar restaurant and both ordered a double whisky.
As she was drinking hers an older lady came to lecture her how drinking could kill her baby. For obvious reasons she lost her shit. — via
Some users pointed out that if the OP really has the strength of their convictions, they would have addressed it directly with the customer—which would have still been wildly inappropriate because it’s none of their damn business! But at least they would have faced the consequences out in the open.
Also, as one commenter pointed out, it’s against the law:
YTA here. Strictly because of how much trouble you can get the whole restaurant into for discrimination. It sucks majorly, I know that’s a shitty position to be in. But I grew up around the bar and casino industry in Mississippi, and if your morals won’t allow you to serve a pregnant woman alcohol, you tell another server or your manager and get someone else to serve her. — via
Is that lady making a crappy choice? Likely. But is it worth the shit storm that could happen to the restaurant, the potential closures, and legal fees you might have brought down on your manager and coworkers? Not really.
Too many people think they have a right to dictate how women live their lives, especially if they suspect a fetus might be involved. If you want to control women’s bodies, maybe you should be in the government, not waiting tables? Lots of a**holes there!