RT’s is a local eatery about five minutes from my house. It specializes in seafood and Cajun/Creole dishes; its she-crab soup is the best I have ever slurped. My house guest—lets call him “Bert”—took me to lunch in celebration of progress we have made on a joint project, the substance of which is irrelevant to the tale.
The RT’s food and service were, as always, terrific, but while we were waiting for dessert, a middle-aged woman, shabbily dressed, came up to our table and asked for money, saying she was hungry. She asked Bert for money, and he said he would be happy to buy her a sandwich. She said she wanted the money so she could buy her own food, and was getting agitated.
Bert finally gave in, and handed her 20 bucks. After she left, he said that he was worried that she might cause a scene, and that it was worth the price to defuse the situation. Our waitress then ran over to our table and apologized profusely, saying the woman had been appearing and bothering diners lately, and that Bert shouldn’t have encouraged her by giving her cash. He told the waitress what he told me: he had felt trapped, and that giving her money seemed like the safest and quickest way to address the problem.
When the waitress brought our check, she told Bert that, again, she was very sorry, and that she had taken twenty dollars off the charges to compensate for us having to deal with a homeless woman. He told her that it wasn’t her fault and that the gesture was unnecessary; she responded that it was the restaurant’s responsibility to protect diners from such intrusions. Bert said that he wanted to give her the $20, and again, she refused.
When he paid the bill, however, he added ten dollars to her tip.
I think everyone did the right thing eventually, at least if the homeless woman really used the money to buy food.
Didn’t they?
Ethics Alarms 
everyone did well, even Bert.
Burt (if that was his real fake name), however, seemed a bit slippery.
-Jut
Why do you say that?
Because Bert/Burt sounds a little schizophrenic.
I was trying to make a sly joke about your spelling of the “fake” name.
And, now that I have had to explain it, I find my observation less amusing.
Funny how that works.
-Jut
I’ll fix the name. Yes, Bert (his real fake name) was clearly conflicted about how to respond to the whole situation, as I would have been. Grace was an easy mark for the homeless.
Many years ago, while driving in Boston, a woman came to my car with a young child, probably about two years old, in her hands. She asked if I could give her some money to buy food for her and the child.
There was a restaurant across the street – KFC or Wendy’s- and I told her to go over there and I’ll get them anything they want. Her rely was “fuck you.”
I once gave a left-over half-sandwich (clean, not one I’d taken out a bite off) to a man asking for food at a street corner. Before the light changed to green he had thrown it into the trash without even looking at what the sandwich was made of. It’s really frustrating.
Many, many years ago, I worked at a facility that was on the capitol square in Madison, WI. At lunch time I’d venture out for lunch either somewhere around the square or head down State St. One of my favorite places was Parthenon Gyros a few blocks down State street, as far as I was concerned they have the best Gyros in the world and I venture down there anytime I’m in downtown Madison. To get a nice brisk walk in over lunch time, I’d regularly stroll all the way down State St. to the University of Wisconsin (UW) Library Mall and then head back up State St. to the capitol square and back to work. That was a routine lunch for me.
While walking up and down State St. and around the capitol square area you would regularly be confronted by individuals asking for money, they always got the same answer from me, I’ll buy something to eat but they couldn’t have a penny of my cash. The regulars got used to me and avoided asking me anymore. There was also an individual that roamed these streets and sidewalks nicknamed “the screamer”. Bet you can’t guess what he did regularly, you, you guessed it; this guy would walk around mumbling and yelling and anyone that was in close proximity to him. One day I decided to try something other than simply ignoring his rants.
I was down close to the UW library mall one day at lunch time and crossed paths with the screamer once again. I walked on past him as I usually did but then I chose to do something different. I walked down to the Lake St. McDonalds, ordered a quarter pound burger, a large order of French fries, a large cola, and an apple pie. I took the bag of food to “the screamer” who was screaming at me as I walked up, I handed the food to him with a smile on my face, he stopped screaming, I told him to enjoy his lunch and headed back up State St. to work. From that day on any time I walked in the immediate area of “the screamer”, he would stop screaming, we’d exchange smiles, and he’s wait until I was out of the immediate area to start screaming again. This went on for about 6 months until I left that job and headed to US Army BCT and Infantry School at Ft. Benning Ga.
A moment of kindness was remembered and respected from a most unlikely source.
I still to this day will not give anyone that begs for cash a cent, no matter what they do or say, but I am willing to buy them a small meal. I don’t offer that to all of them and it really does depend on the circumstances. I’ve only had a couple of times that any person begging for money has taken me up on my offer.
Lastly, I paid it forward one time in a Denny’s restaurant after having a really great dinner conversation with a Vietnam vet at the walk up bar. I tracked down the waitress out of his sight, I paid for his entire steak dinner and added some dollars for dessert and a tip, I waited around and watched from my vehicle so I could make sure that the waitress passed on the gift. He didn’t know about it until just before he was leaving, when I knew he had received my gift, I drove away.
My wife and I routinely donate and volunteer at area food banks. We fully believe in helping our food banks and part of the reason we volunteer is to make sure the food bank is doing everything they can to put our dollars for food to good use. Food is important.
GREAT story Steve! From someone who lived (121 W. Wilson St., the 500 block of W. Main, and N. Bassett just south of the Mifflin Street Co-op) and worked (The Concourse Hotel) downtown, and knows the…um…lay of State Street, and its…er…characters: Snowball the window washer and State Street Art (also a window washer) to name but a few.
PWS
I heard about “Snowball” but never saw or met him. My days up there were in the late 1980’s.
I bet you were familiar with Goeden’s Fish Market. My x-wife’s aunt and uncle owned that place. They lived at a really nice place at 120 S. Broom St. until well after they sold the place and retired. They were really nice people.
Jack wrote, “I think everyone did the right thing…”
I agree.
It was a really really good idea for the restaurant to put forth the effort to cover the $20 cost, it was a good idea for your house guest to add half the cost of the money donation to the tip for the waitress thus floating some of that money changing hands to the labor force, pay it forward. In the end it your house guest only forked out an additional $10, but the shabbily dressed middle-aged woman got $20, the waitress got an additional $10, and the restaurant floated $20 towards the overall effort. So $50 changed hands by “doing the right thing” which began by an unethical woman pressuring some random stranger to give her money. Sure there may be a little bit of enabling (which I consider unethical) going on at the beginning o the saga, but after that, all the reactions were quite responsible and ethical.
Everyone but the begging woman acted in the best manner.
It’s been my experience that when people looking for handouts for gas or food (their claims) are offered to have gas or food purchased for them, they decline and only want cash. Our policy changed many years ago and we no longer even attempt to have the conversation with anyone asking for handouts, the response is just “no.”
I hope the waitress didn’t get in trouble for comping the meal.
Otherwise, I don’t see anything wrong. Some might argue that giving beggers money will just encourage them. That woman may come back and solicit other customers which could cause the business problems with less sympathetic customers.
When I worked at McDonald’s back in the 90s, our owner/operator used an organization that worked with the developmentally disabled and provided employees to clean the lobby and do minor tasks like making salads.
Many of these folks were fine to work with, but one woman would solicit money while in uniform. We were told by customers that she was standing by the drive-thru speaker and asking people in cars. The employee at Roselyn Bakery across the street (If you know you know, Indiana) said she was pestering their customers, too.
She didn’t last long. My owner/operator was an advocates for the homeless and wrote a book of photographs called “No One Sees Me” later. But even he couldn’t have uniformed employees asking people for money.
Comping the meal? That would have meant we were at McDonalds. The lunch for the two of us cost 75 bucks even after the 20 dollars was taken off. And that’s not unusual around here.
My kids begged me and often had tantrums at the grocery store asking for candy. I would say something like “it’s not in the budget” or simply “no I don’t reward behavior like this”. It’s the same with adults. He just encouraged her to do it again and more aggressively. If she needs food there are many food banks, as well as programs that offer food. She doesn’t have to harass people at random.
“Bert” said that he essentially felt the same way, but that the woman was obviously agitated and in the middel of a crowed restaurant, and he feared that she would cause a disturbance. he felt the safest option was to get her to leave. (He gave her a 20 because he had just changed a 100 at my bank and that was the smallest bill he had.