To think dramatic colleague should not have done this?

[Mabeldram]

I work in big brand hospitalality.

Last night there was a married couple in my section. She was lovely and he was a bit of a sleaze. I saw him scrolling through his for you page in Instagram - full of bikini babes. And he was a bit lechy with one of our teenage food runners, so I stopped her attending the table. I'm a sturdy mid fifties meno woman, I feel very protective of the youngsters.

When the couple came to settle up, the husband had a discount QR on his phone, so as per normal protocols I asked permission to take the phone to the host station to scan,

I asked a colleague to take it over as I needed to head to another guest as a priority. He scanned it, printed the bill and popped the phone down on the platter.

I always switch a phone off once scanned but Malcolm, the colleague didn't.

Malcom came back over to me after dropping the bill and phone down to the couple and ushered me into the kitchen.

Gleefully he told me that as he was heading back to the table, a tinder notification came up on the phone so he deliberately left the phone in a very visible position for the lovely wife to see.

AIBU to think he should have closed the phone down, or placed it face down, to save the grand reveal?

We will be best friends.

That's a perfectly reasonable point.
I can understand it being out of order if the colleague had accessed anything else on the person's phone. If he (the tinder guy) was that bothered about potential notifications popping up, then he should have managed them better and not given his phone to someone else.

Good for him. You don’t seem to actually give be a give no fucks menopausal woman while you’re arguing to hide this from his wife, that would be a more accurate self description if you’d said out loud to him excuse me you’ll have to stop scrolling scantily clad and naked women pictures while in our restaurant, some of our staff and clients are under 18.

It was done as an act of spite for a cheap laugh rather than for concern for the wife

dropping a grenade into someone’s life for a laugh isn’t something I think anyone should congratulate themselves on

I would suggest it's the husband that dropped the grenade rather than the waiter.

I want to know what it said.

Well, it's not great from a business perspective. The bloke is about 500x more likely to leave a bad review or claim he got food poisoning now.

as per normal protocols I asked permission to take the phone to the host station to scan

I have been anywhere that does that. I am very surprised guest are willingly handing their phones to restaurant staff.

YABU to take guests phones.

Malcolm did the right thing.

I think Malcolm is messing with you. Even the sleaziest of men wouldn’t have notifications turned on for Tinder. So nice story but I’m not buying it

Seems weird to me to take the phone away to the host station - is this in the UK? I’ve had people taking the card away in the US but never here, and I def can’t imagine being asked to give my opened phone to someone in a restaurant.

FWIW I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what the waiter did. Leave the phone in the state you found it - open and visible.

Even the sleaziest of men wouldn’t have notifications turned on for Tinder.

Especially when out to dinner with their wife.

So you asked him if you could take his phone to the pay point and then you gave it to someone else?

That seems very irresponsible to me. He didn’t give you permission to pass the phone on.

I’d be furious if I were the customer.

Whilst I get the husband was a complete arse it wasn't your colleague's place to judge nor interfere in their business. He's not there to judge people he's there to provide a basic service of serving food not to play judge and jury in other people's lives. Totally unprofessional on his part.

Idk he didn’t write anything or do anything to the phone. Just left it open… conveniently. Yes yours is the strictly professional method but his was hardly a reprimandable offence.

the point is the waiter did it purely for his own entertainment

I've never come across anywhere that expects to take a customer's unlocked phone away. I struggle to believe any customer would allow it or a company would want to take that risk.

You'd be amazed how many people (men) get caught out this way.

He didn't judge, interfere or in fact do anything at all.

The minute the notification flashed up, Malcolm had a choice: hide it or don't hide it.

Placing the phone face down to be discreet would have also been an active decision. Placing the phone face up is simply letting matters play out normally.

(I've also never been anywhere that would take my phone away from the table though.)

It sounds like the practices around mobile phones are very very poor and there is likely going to be a disgruntled customer making a complaint before too long. This is just one of many examples of what could go wrong when you take an unlocked phone off a customer. You need to change the procedure.

I’ve had phone taken from me at an ‘Italian’ chain. No drama. Certainly wouldn’t be ‘furious’ if it was given to a colleague to return. How silly to get that het up!

Your colleague did the right thing, return the phone without tampering with it in any way, right side up so no potential screen scratches. Unfortunate for the customer that his ‘hobby’ happened to alert him at the same time.

Nope. If you are cheating on your wife and have incriminating evidence on your phone, don't be so cheap as to use a voucher on your phone when you take her out for dinner!

I think this is fine. He didn’t open the tinder chat / start scrolling etc. He merely returned the phone as it was found.

Anyway, who are these trusting people handing over their phones like this 🤣