A couple in Singapore was previously reported as having dined-and-dashed after feasting $245 worth of food and fleeing without paying while the staff was not looking.
The couple had reportedly entered the restaurant when it was about to close, and the staff stayed back to work overtime to serve them.
After the couple fled without paying, the poor staff had to pay the customer’s unpaid bill out of her own pocket, with the amount being deducted from her $1,800 salary.
Following the incident, Ho Ching, the director of Temasek Trust and wife of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, shared her thoughts on it and said that the couple should be caned for preying on the weak and vulnerable.
Ho Ching’s Facebook post
There are cheats and there are cheats.
The ones who cheat retirees, low wage workers, and the vulnerable, are the lowliest of the low life.
We should try to find these folks, and cane them properly for preying on the weak and vulnerable.
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Afternote 1:
Some folks say employers are heartless to make the employees pay.
This is really shifting the blame from cheaters to employers.
Just think – what if employers are required to absorb such losses?
More cheats will turn up.
Dishonest employees may also collide with collaborators to cheat the employer.
Dishonest employees will also report fake incidents of cheating customers to disguise their own stealing of ingredients.
No – it is a perverse system to blame and charge the employers instead of going after the original cheats.
True, if this happens rarely, or if it is the first time it happened, perhaps the employers can give the employees the benefit of doubt, and split the difference.
But that it is prerogative of the employer, and should not be a requirement.
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Afternote 2:
True, there are people who forget to pay.
Perhaps they were too absorbed in other matters, or they were troubled by some other priorities.
But such forgetful people would typically be lone dinners, and less a guy trying to impress a date, and even less a family or a group of friends on an outing together.
Most of us would remember, and then come back to pay, either the same day, or within the week.
Rarely would someone be totally forgetful that they don’t come back at all to pay.
So again, in such a case, the sustainable solution is to go after the diner who forgot or chose not to pay.
In such cases, the police or judge could exercise discretion if restitution or repayment is made with apologies.
This is no different from the police waiving charges and letting us off with only a warning, if it were the first time we forgot to pay our parking charges, and we have had a clean record up to date.
There are folks who had a long track record of not paying parking or doing illegal parking for 3 or 4 dozen times.
If such a persistent offender pleads forgetfulness, it would be stupid of anyone to take their plea at face value, right?