An embarrassing receipt profanity story is going viral on Facebook today, proving once again that when unhappy customers have a gripe against a business, they’ll shame it on social media instead of going through dead-end corporate channels.
St. Louis dad and sports bar patron Joseph Gibson was just looking to get his wing on this week and was having a good time until the check came. Under the “special order” section, he took a manually-entered line reading “f*ckin needy kids” as an insult to his young son and all hell broke loose.
The general manager of the bar told CNN that the waitress just meant her receipt profanity error as a joke, and was planning on deleting it before delivering the bill. She forgot, and has been reprimanded by management.
They say they tried to reach out and apologize to Gibson several times, but the man was understandably irate.
He posted a picture of the receipt to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Facebook page, and wrote that the “joke” explanation upset him.
“So customers with children are a joke? This place isn’t so friendly. I got nowhere with management,” he wrote.
He explained that he’s not looking to get anything out of his Facebook post, he was just airing his grievances.
But this is kind of how we do things these days, no? Discounting viral complaints as a whole, how many receipt-specific posts have we seen go viral on social media in recent months? Gibson’s story illustrates that going through the proper channels to lodge a complaint doesn’t really seem to satisfy, and more often than not, that complaint dies pretty quickly.
But social media really gives you a sounding board, and like we keep saying over and over, “social media brings people together.” That Facebook post is going viral right now for that very reason, and the sports bar Gibson once took a leak at is gaining international attention (and infamy) for it.
When will they learn?
Not anytime soon. The bar’s manager said that he didn’t understand why Gibson is “making a mountain of a mole hill,” though awkwardly conceded that he wouldn’t “want anyone calling my granddaughter, who is four, that.”
Oh, and here’s a juicy bit of irony: The bar is named “Friendly’s.”
Do you think that William Gibson was right to share his receipt profanity story on Facebook? Does social media play an important role in how we complain now? Sound off!
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