We Own a Restaurant. A Server Made a Massive Mistake During Rush Hour. The Fallout Was Hard to Watch.

Good Job Photo illustration by Slate. photo by Kwangmoozaa/Adobe Stock, BillionPhotos.com/Adobe Stock, and CandyRetriever/Getty Images Plus. Good Job is Slate’s advice column on work. Have a workplace problem big or small? Send it to Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir here. (It’s anonymous!) Dear Good Job, My husband and I run an upper-tier Chinese restaurant. Recently a mishap occurred that has left us arguing over whether or not to fire the employee who was responsible. Just under a month ago, a man came to us with a request: He was bringing his girlfriend in for dinner the following evening, and he wanted us to put his marriage proposal to her inside her fortune cookie. We thought it was a lovely idea and agreed. When the big moment came, we waited eagerly just outside the dining area with most of our staff to see her reaction. We were all puzzled when there was none. Then suddenly, a woman who was part of a couple at a nearby table let out a scream of joy upon opening her own fortune cookie and told the man she was with that of course she would marry him. I felt my stomach drop into my shoes, and one of our staff hurried over. He apologized profusely and took the fortune from her and delivered it to the proper party. The woman who thought she had been proposed to burst into tears. The man she was with glared daggers at all of us. The woman who had been the intended recipient looked embarrassed beyond words, and the expression on her would-be fiancé’s face said he would liked to have sunk through the floor. Obviously the fortune cookies got mixed up. My husband wants to fire the server who made the error. The girl who screwed up has been otherwise extremely reliable and I have no desire to let her go. It occurred during one of our busiest times and was a regrettable mistake without any malicious intent. She has been nothing but apologetic. Can I put my foot down and tell my husband we’re moving on from this? —Fortune Cookie Mix-Up Dear Fortune Cookie Mix-Up, Oh dear. I really feel for everyone involved here, including your employee! I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that not only should she not be fired, but it was in fact your and your husband’s responsibility to build redundancy into this extremely important task. That is, there should have been multiple people involved in making sure that the fortune cookie with the proposal inside of it went to the correct table; it should not have been left solely up to the server. Considering that this server has been, in your words, extremely reliable and she clearly feels terrible about what happened, I would keep her on, and tell her that you and your husband have consulted and if there’s ever a situation like this again, one or both of you will personally ensure that no mix-ups occur. There’s too much on the line for mistakes like this to happen, and for it to be left in the hands of one server. So yes, please put your foot down and let your husband know you’re moving on from this, but also make it clear that you’re not fully letting him (or yourself!) off the hook in this whole debacle. Good leadership comes from taking responsibility and having your employees’ back, not hanging them out to dry when something goes wrong that shouldn’t have been left solely up to them in the first place. —Doree Classic Prudie “Laura” and I have been best friends since we were 10. Four years ago her husband, “James,” needed my help on a work-related matter and came over without Laura, who was busy with something else. It involved a very difficult and tedious task, and we decided to make it more tolerable by bringing out some wine. That night James and I ended up sleeping together. Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Workplace Jobs