I'm a bartender, and I've been letting my regular customers eat and drink for free because they can't afford it.

I'm a bartender at a hotel chain in a small town in the US (it's kind of in the middle of nowhere) and I've been working there for about 3 months now. We've gotten a lot of new regulars since I started working there, and I've gotten pretty close to a lot of them. There's one guy in particular who sticks out in my mind though. An older man who comes in by himself pretty often. I've tried talking to him and I've noticed that he always keeps his wallet open on the bar next to him.<br><br>It didn't seem like he was trying to flash the money or anything, it just seemed like he wanted to be prepared to pay his bill whenever it came. I pressed him a little more about it and he told me that he doesn't actually have any money in his wallet, but he's had experiences where he's gone to other places and the server has been rude to him when they found out he didn't have enough money to pay for his food, so he keeps his wallet open to show that it's empty so the server knows ahead of time.<br><br>It broke my heart. I don't know if he was just saying it to sound cool, but he told me that his house was destroyed in a recent flood, and he's been living in the hotel for about 2 months. Not only that, but the company he works for went out of business during the pandemic, so he's been out of a job for a few years. He told me that he was considering killing himself because he almost had no money left, and he felt like a burden on his children when he goes to visit them.<br><br>Hearing all that made my eyes well up with tears and I felt my voice crack more than once as we talked. I don't even know this man, but the idea of him never getting to experience anything new again because of things he can't control is just, I don't know, it made me really upset. I don't know how long he'll have to stay or if he'll ever get a new job, so I've decided to give him as much free food and drinks as I can whenever he comes in. I feel bad doing it when my manager is around because I could potentially get in trouble, but I don't really care at this point.<br><br>The more I've gotten to know him, the more I love the guy. And the more I want to help him, you know? I want to help him because I care about him as a person. I feel bad because I know I'm technically stealing, but at the same time, I feel like I'm doing something good for someone who needs it.<br><br>I know this is probably not the "right" thing to do, but I don't really care. Humans are people, not dollar signs.<br><br>EDIT: Wow, this blew up. Thank you so much to everyone who's commented or DM'd their stories. It's really great to hear that there are so many other people who do stuff like this.<br><br>I'm going to try to respond to as many of the comments as I can, and I'll probably edit in a few things that I think are relevant. I'll try to make it clear what are my original words and what are edits.<br><br>***EDIT: I am not, nor have **ever** been, a journalist or a student doing research. I don't really know where people got that from.***<br><br>***EDIT: I feel really bad that a lot of people think that the story I wrote was made up, and I don't blame people who think so. There are a LOT of fake stories on the internet, and I completely understand people who don't believe this. The reason I didn't think about the potential for people to think this was fake is because I've never really had anyone call me out for anything like this before. I don't blitz around telling fake stories about myself and I'm not a "cool kid" who makes shit up for attention, so I don't think anyone in my real life would be surprised to hear this. I'm just a normal, boring person who goes about my day-to-day life. I don't talk very much and it's hard to get me to open up to new people, so I don't really think anyone would be surprised that I would do something like this.***<br><br>***EDIT: I'm also not trying to get "internet points" or make myself sound cooler or anything like that. I don't really care if anyone thinks what I did was cool. It was just something I did because I care about this man as a person and because I want to help him have a better life, not because I want to sound cool.***<br><br>***EDIT: I've also seen a lot of people saying that I'm "better than" whoever the person was who was mean to this man in the first place, but that's not really true. I'm just a person who was able to help him out and decided to take that opportunity. I'm not really doing anything out of my way.***<br><br>***EDIT: I've gotten quite a few DMs almost shaming me for taking tips (sorry if you messaged and I didn't respond, I do appreciate it). I don't feel bad taking tips for services that I've actually performed. The man that I'm talking about in this post is the only person I've comped the bill for. I do appreciate the thought though :)***