What would you do if you found a bag full of cash? Some people wouldn’t say anything and would keep the cash. Others might try to return it for a reward and fawning media coverage. Not one young man who works as a waiter at Applebee’s in Fresno, Calif., who found a bag full of more money than he makes in a year, $32,000.
An Applebee’s waiter in central California turned over $32,000 in cash that a family left behind at the table.
The amount, which far exceeds his annual salary, says he returned the money ‘because it was the right thing to do.’
Brian Geery, 33, said he found a canvas pouch at a table in the restaurant where he works in Fresno after a family finished eating, and noticed a rectangular shape inside.
He showed the pouch to his manager, who suggested it might contain medicine, and at his boss’s suggestion Geery opened the pouch to check.
The rectangular shape was in fact a stack of bills.
‘I couldn’t believe it, I’d never seen so much cash in my life before,’ Geery said.
Carrie Hellyer, Applebee’s regional director, said Geery declined a reward from the family, and initially withheld his name from media outlets wishing to cover the story.
‘He just said that he did it because it was the right thing to do and he didn’t want the right thing being overwhelmed by anything else,’ Hellyer said.
‘I don’t know that he would accept it honestly. He’s just not that guy. He made it very clear that he did it because it was the right thing to do, not that he wanted anything in return.’
Geery, a 10-year Applebee’s veteran who said the money exceeded his annual income after taxes, gave the pouch to his manager and went back to waiting tables.
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