You would expect an employee at Tim Hortons, where tips are few and far between, to react with cheetah-like speed to a $100 gratuity.
But that's not what happened when one Toronto Tim Hortons worker was on the receiving end of an unusually large tip.
Tavis McKenzie decided to give the woman at the Timmies drive-thru a $100 tip after he found $200 on the ground.
Rather than jump at the chance to augment her wages, the employee told McKenzie he should give the money to charity.
When McKenzie insisted, saying he felt "guilty," the worker wondered aloud if she was part of some sort of TV stunt before jokingly checking to see if the bill was real.
The employee then gave McKenzie his coffee free of charge. Now that's service with a smile.
McKenzie, a 34-year-old entrepreneur, told HuffPost he had just finished satisfying a craving for a Five Guys hamburger after a month on a raw vegan cleanse when he spotted two $100 bills fluttering in the wind in the parking lot near the intersection of York Mills and Don Mills.
While McKenzie was waiting around, bills exposed, to see if the owner of the money would come to claim the cash, he asked his Facebook friends what he should do.
McKenzie drove away after the owner failed to appear, but said guilt quickly set in.
It was then he decided to do something positive with the money based on the idea that he couldn't "'take this out of the world without putting something back into it."
McKenzie said he made up his mind to give away one of the $100 bills to whoever served him coffee at the nearby Tim Horton's drive-thru at Don Mills and Lawrence. A Facebook friend who works in social media suggested he film the moment and post the footage to YouTube.
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The rest is all in the video.
McKenzie did, however, want to stress that he thinks the woman at the drive-thru paid for the free coffee herself out of the $100 tip.
As for whether he thought he would end up in the news, McKenzie said he just wanted his Facebook friends to see that he actually went through with the tip while also spreading a positive message.
"The more people see this kind of thing the more people will do this kind of thing," he said. "We need gifting with no expectation of reciprocation... That's what matters."
"There's too much negative in the news"
McKenzie even took the opportunity to reach out to whoever lost the money.
"I don't mind giving the 100 bucks back," he said.
Would you give $100 to the person at the drive-thru window if you were in McKenzie's shoes? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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