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acts of kindness

Joy

Two women at a Texas Denny's realized it was short-staffed so they jumped in and started cooking

'We just looked at each other and it wasn't even a question. We both knew what we had to do.'

Courtesy of Sylvia Arrendondo

Strangers help restaurant serve customers.

We've all been there. Standing in line to be seated at a fairly busy restaurant while your stomach growls in protest. But when two women left a concert August 22 in search of food, they had no idea they'd find themselves taking orders and cooking food. Sylvia Arrendondo and her mother Idalia Merkel went to a local Denny's in Texas and were seated by another customer before realizing the restaurant was extremely short-staffed. Instead of taking their business elsewhere, they decided to roll up their sleeves and get to work.


Arrendondo wrote about the unique experience on her Facebook page where she explained that only two people were working. One was serving tables and the other was the cook. As for the man that was acting as host, seating new guests, he had no idea what he was doing because he didn't work there. He told Arrendondo and Merkel that his wife used to work at Denny's so she started helping to serve tables and he decided to help get people seated.

Idalia Merkel helping cook.

Courtesy of Sylvia Arrendondo

The service industry has been hit hard by the pandemic and the subsequent "great resignation." Complaints about low wages, poor management and rude customers that abuse staff members are just a few of the reasons cited by people who have left the industry. It may be surprising for some to learn that the federal minimum wage for tipped employees like servers and bussers is just $2.13 an hour. The rest of the wage is supposed to be made up of tips, which, depending on where you work, may be split at the end of the night between other workers. This act of splitting tips is called "tip pooling" and is calculated by number of hours worked.

Splitting tips after a long day of work dealing with customers who may not have been so kind would understandably make some people upset. But it didn't take a deep dive on the treatment of restaurant employees for Arrendondo and the other customers who helped out. They saw two seemingly college-aged kids doing their best to keep the place running and they didn't hesitate to jump in to help, completely unpaid.

When asked why she didn't just leave, Arrendondo said, "We just looked at each other and it wasn't even a question. We both knew what we had to do."

"This was probably the most beautiful act of American unity that I have personally encountered," Arrendondo told Upworthy. She added that the sole paid server would occasionally start to cry before being comforted by the cook, only to return the favor when he would get overwhelmed.

Talk about community.

These two kids had exhausted all of their resources, including calling their manager multiple times. And instead of customers getting angry, demanding better service or walking away, Arredondo and Merkel stepped up. The kindness of this group of strangers will surely stick with these employees and the people who were involved.

"The strength, courage and integrity by these two workers was beyond admirable. My mom and I have never been so proud and happy to help," Arrendondo told Upworthy. "After all, we have all been there."

Eventually after some convincing, the two employees shut the restaurant down and Arrendondo and Merkel went home much more tired than anticipated. Still hungry, but full of gratitude and pride.


This article originally appeared on 08.26.22

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Man goes out of his way to leave tip for a server after realizing he grabbed the wrong receipt

Instead of just brushing it off and moving on, the man wrote out a note explaining what happened with a sincere apology along with a $20 cash tip and delivered it to the restaurant.

RestaurantAnticaRoma|Canva

Man goes out of his way to leave forgotten tip for server

Being in the service industry can be hard. People have to spend long hours on their feet, deal with repetitive movements that can create pain and sometimes interact with not so nice customers. When you rely on tips for survival on top of everything else, it can feel like a bit of a gut punch when someone decides not to leave you one despite how good your service was.

One customer must've realized the disappointment that can occur after not receiving a tip when serving tables because he went out of his way to give one. In a post shared on Reddit, a customer revealed in a letter that he realized he took the wrong receipt after leaving. Instead of taking the blank one, he took the merchant's copy which holds the tip amount and his signature.

The error was discovered when he was checking his bank account and saw the amount taken off of his card was not the amount he expected. That's when he decided to check the receipt from that day and saw the error.

Instead of just brushing it off and moving on, the man wrote out a note explaining what happened with a sincere apology along with a $20 cash tip and delivered it to the restaurant.

The note read, "When I checked my bank statement Tuesday (1/2) I noticed that the pending withdrawal tied to my and my wife's lunches did not appear to be correct. Relying on memory (never a good thing) I had in mind that the scheduled withdrawal should have been larger. I pulled my receipts and discovered that I had inadvertently retained the signed merchant's copy of my VISA receipts when I left your restaurant Saturday (12/30) afternoon. As a result, while the food was fully paid, the tip which I had intended to leave for our server, Hope C, was not relayed back to VISA. I can only trust that Hope will forgive my blunder. Please find the enclosed her tip in cash. That was no way for either of us to end 2023. Here's to a fresh start."

Ted, the forgetful patron ended the note with an apology to the manager and the server. After the photo went viral on the social media platform, commenters told their own stories of people going out of their way to make things right.

One commenter writes, "Been about 30 years or so but my grandfather would take me on trips in the summer to visit relatives. We were driving to Florida and we stopped to get gas. We leave and drive 50 or 60 miles. My grandpa pulls over and says I never paid for the gas. We turned around and drove all the way back to pay for the gas."

Another says, "I once forgot to pay for my dry cleaning when I picked it up. I went back the next day to give them the cash and they said 'You came back!' the second I walked in. I was very surprised that this wouldn't be the default behavior of everyone."

The Reddit thread shows that there are still good people in the world that will go out of their way to correct a mistake or make someone's day.

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Joy

Stanley responds to woman's intense video showing how only her Stanley cup survived a car fire

Free marketing turned into an act of kindness.

@stanleybrand/TikTok

People love the way Stanley responded.

Sometimes bad luck quickly turns into good luck. And sometimes, one person’s outrageous story quickly turns into grade A advertisement.

Danielle, aka @danimarielettering on TikTok, uploaded a rather intense video showing her scorched car after it caught fire.

Though her car was completely burnt to a crisp, thankfully Danielle was okay—but it wasn’t just her that went unscathed. In her now-viral clip, she shows her still pristine Stanley cup, which she picks up from the center console.

Not only pristine, in fact, but still holding unmelted ice from the day before, which can be heard clinking against the glass.

"Everybody is so concerned if the Stanley spills but what else? It was in a fire yesterday and it still has ice in it,” Danielle says.

@danimarielettering Thirsty after you catch on fire? @Stanley 1913 is like no problem i gotchu #fyp #carfire #accident #stanleycup ♬ original sound - Danielle

This inadvertently gave Stanley a free commercial, which people were very quick to note.

“Stanley better cut you a check after this advertisement,” one viewer joked.

Another quipped, “Never understood the Stanley hype until now so they better get you money for this free advertisement.”

Daniel’s video began racking up millions of views, even making its way to Stanley's global president, Terence Reilly, who made a special response.

"We've all seen your video. Wow what an ordeal, and we're all really glad you're safe,” he says in a video for Stanley’s TikTok account. "I've seen a lot of comments that we should send you some Stanleys. Well, we're gonna send you some Stanleys.”

But then, he sweetens the deal.

@stanleybrand #stitch with @Danielle ♬ original sound - Stanley 1913

“But there's one more thing and we've never done this before and we'll probably never do it again, but we'd love to replace your vehicle… yeah all of us at Stanley we'd really like to replace your vehicle."

Going by the comments section, the gesture was well received—and might have even scored Stanley some more loyal customers.

“As a marketer the is exaaaaactly what I was hoping they would do.”

“This is awesome definitely buying a Stanley now!”

“Ngl love the honesty of ‘probably not gonna do this again’ and that alone might make me consider buying a Stanley.”

“They responded, that freaking awesome. I’m gonna have to buy a Stanley now.”

“Me on Christmas— YOU get a Stanley…YOU get a Stanley…we ALL get Stanleys!”

”Absolutely how you work a marketing opportunity. Take your moment in the spotlight and do good with it. Nice job, Stanley.

Danielle has since posted a heartfelt follow-up video thanking the millions of viewers for supporting her, a complete stranger.

“I think that is the best form of humanity,” she says. “As a person who’s gone through most of their life feeling invisible, you have made me feel incredible. And I can't thank you enough. And I just want to say to anybody that maybe feels like that, like you’re not seen or heard…just give it fifteen seconds. Everything might change”

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Joy

Mail carrier saves dog on her route after she noticed it had been bitten by a snake

She let the owners know what happened by leaving a message in their doorbell camera.

Fox5 Atlanta|YouTube

Mail carrier saves dog after its bitten by poisonous snake

Pets are family members and when one is hurt or sick it can feel devastating. But all animals are curious which means sometimes they get out or another animal gets curious about them and they get into a sticky situation. Which is what happened when one family's beagle mix, Ginger was bitten by a copperhead snake while they were at work.

Their mail carrier, Holle Prigmore was out delivering mail when she noticed the dog limping by the side of the road but it was when she went to grab a treat that she realized something was wrong. Prigmore told Fox5 Atlanta that she noticed something moving near the mailbox and when she got closer she could see it was a snake.

The postal worker took a photo of the snake and posted it to social media where the group members identified it as a copperhead. That's when Prigmore knew she had to act fast if she was going to save the dog.

"You should take their collar off cause there could be swelling, and I just knew she might be fine but she's a small dog and I couldn't stand the idea of her maybe suffering throughout the day if nobody was home," Prigmore says.

Not wanting to waste time, Prigmore typed up a quick message on her phone and showed it to the doorbell camera so the Ginger's owners would know what happened. Then off she and Ginger went to the emergency vet. Thanks to the mail carrier's quick act of kindness for the family dog, Ginger is going to be just fine and the family got to thank her in person.

Watch the entire video below:

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