Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
then open in external browser
and click "Open in External Browser" 
To our parents, ‘Karen’ is probably just a name. But on the Internet, the word stands for so, so much more. According to a popular meme, Karen is a middle-aged white woman with an asymmetrical bob who is always asking to speak to the manager. She’s entitled, she’s ignorant, and she’s often a racist, too.
As the meme has become more and more popular, however, its meaning has become muddled. Hopefully, these Karen stories will help clarify things.
Some time ago, Redditor ghostofgenerayburn asked people to share the most ‘Karen’ things someone has ever done to them. Over time, their post received over 1,5K comments packed with crazy Karen stories, many of which detail what actions make you a ‘Karen.’
With that in mind, we’ve handpicked 49 standout stories that perfectly capture those unmistakable Karen moments. From the absurd to the infuriating, these real-life encounters showcase Karens being Karens in their natural habitat, giving us a clearer picture of what it truly means to meet one.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
When I worked at the Home Depot a Karen told me that she didn't want any black men to install her flooring. I was in charge of arranging her order and told her that we don't select which individuals exactly will install her floor and that she'll get who she gets. She proceeds to have a fit about it, demands white installers, asks to speak to my manager. I'm so glad she did, because my manager's name was Dwayne and he was a real big black dude. Turns out she didn't want to speak to the manager
Hans 5 years ago
Good one...although this was more than a Karen moment, rather blatant racism.
Ripley 5 years ago
Yes, but demanding to speak to the manager because she didn't have her whim indulged makes it a Karen moment. A racist Karen moment . . .
Load More Replies...
ElusiveIntrovert 5 years ago (edited)
Why are people so racist, instead of asking for experience or reviews she asks for color, as if it is a qualification.
Steve Cruz 5 years ago
I lived near a Karen who didn't like Mexicans. She came home and the roofing company she hired had sent six men, most of them Hispanic, to work on the roof. She very rudely ordered them off her property. The foreman said she would have to sign for the materials that had been delivered and that she ordered work to stop until a suitable crew could be sent. Meanwhile, more than half of the old roof was gone. As predicted, two days later it rained -- HARD. The roofing company wouldn't cover damage due to her interference with completion of the job. Her own insurance wouldn't cover them after they spoke to the roofing company. She ended up paying almost double to have her roof completed by the same company, by an all- Hispanic crew; She had to cover all the water damage inside on her own dime and b*tched about it. She stopped talking to me when I said, "I never realized how expensive it is to be a BIGOT."
RELATED:
#2
It's been long enough that I think anyone involved has long since forgotten. Now, I should say that this didn't happen to me personally, but it occurred in real time while I was (indirectly) present. I was working for A Phone Company in a call center. We were in training for a new scope of service, and part of that training involved listening to some of those calls that 'may be recorded for training purposes'. Normally, the recordings are selected semi-randomly, but this one was specifically selected because it had happened to a supervisor in our center ten minutes prior. Karen called us in a fury. It seems that she had discovered that her son had replaced her number on his 'five favorite numbers' list with the contact information of an unknown female. She wanted us to change it back. We legally could not do that. It's not her phone, after all, and he made the change intentionally. When the agent on the call tells her this, Karen flips her [crap] in the way only a true 'Karen' can. It's the full package: screaming, shouting, accusing us of being crooked, unfair, 'the customer is always right', etc, etc. At this point, I should mention that Karen was calling from the store in her local mall. After about five minutes of Karen Rage, we hear the following exchange: *Serious 'Authority Voice'* 'Ma'am, if you can't calm down, you're gonna have to leave the store.' *Mostly incoherant K-Raging* (sounds like 'I will not calm down!', 'they're cheating me', and so forth). *SAV* Okay -- ma'am? -- you're under arrest.' *Shocked, disbelieving pause in K-Raging* 'I'm what?' *SAV* 'You're under arrest, ma'am, for [something muffled and unintelligible]. This final declaration is followed by the sound of a mobile phone clattering to the floor/countertop, from where the sales person retrieves it: 'Uh...yeah, sorry about that. I don't think you have to worry about this any more, she just got arrested.'
Sue Knerl 5 years ago
It's been suggested that "Karen" should be replaced with "Ivanka."
Load More Replies...
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
Man, what I wouldn’t give to have been a fly on that wall. If I’d been in the store, I would’ve used MY phone to take a video of it. Imagine just how viral that would’ve gone. I’ll bet good money the look on her face was priceless, as she was put in cuffs, ignominiously escorted out of the mall in front of everybody, and put in the back of the police cruiser. Did they have to hogtie her to keep her from lashing out? Wonder if she threw another hissy at the police station. We all know just how well it would’ve been received there.
Ian Taggart 5 years ago (edited)
Operator: "The son you are trying to reach does not love you. Please hang up.".
katboxjanitor 5 years ago
Oh, this is totally believable...I have encountered similar types of people in my roles at call centers. Male and female on the other end of the line are equally entitled and selfish.
#3
I deliver appliances for Best Buy. We had a woman call and complain that her fridge was not pre-cooled before it was delivered and that she had to wait for it to come down to temp. No one in the office was prepared for that one.
George Pepe 4 years ago
When you preheat an oven, it always starts at room temperature too.
Load More Replies...
Pretty Pangolin 5 years ago
Our local appliance store actually did deliver my new fridge pre-cooled, without being asked. It was pretty awesome.
Dave Chapman 5 years ago
You idiots probably forgot to FILL IT as well....typical Best Buy...I prefer 1%, NOT Skimmed!!
N Gregory 5 years ago
NO! No, that's a false equivalence. "As you wish" means "I love you" and no-one loves these b*tches
Load More Replies...
Lisa Pockat Bork 5 years ago
Seriously? Wow... just when you think people can't get any more stupid.
Michael Hill 5 years ago
Not only that. Our ovens don't come with ready baked cakes in them either.
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago
So what did they tell her? More precisely, what did they say to her after they stopped laughing loudly and uproariously at her right into her ear?
According to Know Your Meme, a Wiki-style site and one of the cornerstones of internet history, it’s unclear where exactly ‘Karen’ began being used as a pejorative character. It argues that “Karen” the meme might’ve started with the ‘Oh My God, Karen, You Can’t Just Ask Someone Why They’re White’ meme from Mean Girls. Others believe that the popularity of the name may come from the character Karen from the 1989 gangster film Goodfellas.
#4
When I was working retail, this one women had a big bag of coupons. Most of them were unusable because either they were expired or they were duplicates. She berated me because the system was rejecting most of the coupons. She called me stupid amongst other names, telling me I just wasn't doing it right. Then as a typical Karen would, she asked to speak with my manager. My manager came and asked what the problem was. The women ranted about how incompetent I was because I didn't know how to scan a coupon. My manager looked at the coupons and the coupons were the problem, not me. My manager [called] out the customer for being disrespectful for me and told the customer to leave the store. I hated working there but I'm so grateful that I had managers that totally didn't go by the "customer is always right" rule and weren't afraid to stand up for their employees. That was just one of many incidents.
Rissie 5 years ago (edited)
"The customer is always right" refers to the preferences of a customer for the choices available. If they want oak kitchen doors with a fake oak counter on top (yes I encountered this and yes this is absolutely fugly) then you smile and place their order. Coupons come with restrictions. A customer's opinion does not change those conditions. They are strict rules. And it's not what the frase is about.
Leo Domitrix 5 years ago
Good on them. I didn't last in retail. The manager I had was "Customers are always right, an dif you give in to them, it comes out of your paycheck". Construction was a much better job.
Steve Cruz 5 years ago
I had a 30% OFF coupon for Lowe's and filled my cart with everything I thought I'd need -- the total was about $700 (ceiling fans, dimmers, tools, etc.). After rining me out, my coupon was scanned and the clerk said, "Sorry, this is for next month." I was embarrassed and said I was sorry, and I could put everything back. He said, "If you don't tell anyone..." and fished around in the drawer, and produced a coupon that gave me 25% off. He asked if that would work. I said absolutely! In most situations if you give nice, you get nice.
Lynn Korbel 5 years ago
I worked in an A & P as a teenager under a sign that read, "The Customer Is Always Right." Most of the customers were "Karen"s. This was in a very wealthy town in southern Connecticut. I was traumatized for life.
Victor Lail 5 years ago
oh god. nobody can deal with that many: "Oh my God! I cant have free coffee because i didn't want this coffee? Im gonna speak to the manager and say you should be fired!" its frickin insanity. you are a frickin legend.
Load More Replies... Allison B. 5 years ago
I stopped wearing my name tag that had my entire title on it, so when they would demand a manager, I'd hit them with that "You're speaking to her" line, and trust me it always felt great.
Erick Blood 5 years ago
I’m a retail manager and seldom is the customer right. That saying just emboldens the entitled.
#5
In medical school, we had a Karen. She was...not a very nice person. She was notorious for losing her temper on just about everyone and being an overall bully. One day, she picked me as a target, apparently I was sitting in "her seat". I asked her to point out to me where it was posted or embroidered on the seat that this was "Karen's seat". I refused to budge. Prof. entered lecture theatre, Karen protested to prof. Prof. proceeded to give her a verbal beatdown on entitlement and how these types of people make horrible doctors. Karen felt wronged and left. The whole class applauded as she was leaving, she mostly kept to herself afterwards. I felt it was long overdue justice being served.
Rick 5 years ago
Why do people embarrass theirselves in public like this? ESPECIALLY in places where they know they have to continue attending?
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
Because, in their pea-brains—-and their personal bubbles—-they think they’re totally in the right and everyone else will automatically agree, because they’re so special.
Load More Replies...
CatWoman312 5 years ago
Oh god I hope she didn’t become a doctor in the end. Imagine a Karen doctor
Arleen Wiley 5 years ago
One can only hope that she failed medical school...otherwise, she's out there making lives miserable.
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
The very last thing we need is more doctors with that damn “God Complex”. They’re fallible humans, just like the rest of us. Nothing infuriates me more than being dismissed by a doctor who is more interested in making a quick—-and unquestioned (I’ve had doctors actually get pissed off at me questioning them when something doesn’t seem right or applicable to me)—-diagnosis than listening to me describe how I actually feel, or how their treatments aren’t working. Regardless of their egos, they have the potential to be dead wrong in their diagnoses—-and risk having dead patients, and the totally justified malpractice lawsuits that accompany them, because of it.
R De Backer 5 years ago
My mother died because of medical mal practice but in our country starting a law suit is not common practice. As a kid I was taken to hospital to have my tonsils removed and when they picked me up to take me home my parents realized the surgeon INSTEAD had removed my polyps (something in the nose area). Worst thing :the hospital was even offended that my mother refused to give them a second chance and that she took me to another hospital for the tonsillectomie.
Load More Replies... Leo Domitrix 5 years ago
Oh, we had one of thsoe. He did not become a doctor. Thank goodness. His big snit was not getting a dissection partner he "liked". Translation: He wanted a girl he could hit on and accidentally "touch". So none of us females were going anywhere near him, obvs! I heard years later that he went to jail for sexual assault. Anyone else unsurprised?
Meyer Weinstock 5 years ago
No. I always had the baseball team in my classes...after a few years of me yelling at them for the attempted grope, I was blacklisted by the coach. Happy to never see them again, sad that they probably were successful in groping the female students all over campus.
Load More Replies...
Becca Gizmo the Squirrel 5 years ago
I hate being notuced. I could never make a scene like that. I would literally pass out if more than four people looked at me at the same time. When I was a waitress I could deal with small tables but if they pushed tables together and I had to speak to 6 or so people at once I would start stuttering and sweating. I don't wear clothes to stand out of even make up. I could go the rest of my life without anyone noticing me and be just fine. Have you seen life of the party with Melissa McCarthy? I think I that's the name of the movie. Where she goes to college with her daughter. She has to get up in front of class for her report and passed out and can't breathe. Thats me.
Meyer Weinstock 5 years ago
...not all of us professors ever assigned a presentation in front of the class...
Load More Replies...
Katie Bell 5 years ago
Omg I had this exact experience but at a job and the employee said I was "writing the sign on her day" outside cus we take turns and then I'm like if you don't show up for two months for "illness" then why should I care for you to write the sign. Story from my days at sooubway
Mark Savoie 2 years ago
I have OCD. I always sat in the same sest in class. One day, I walked in and my seat was occupied. By the look on the person's face snd those of others, I could tell it was intentional. I paused in my stride momentarily and then sat in another seat. We all had a good chuckle about it afterwards. Next week, I was back in my normal seat. Even as a person with OCD, I knew and know that my habits are not other people's problems.
#6
The mother of a girl I went to school with, comes into the shop I work at at 5.58pm (we close at 6), lights are half off, front door is closed, roller door is half down, and goes "Hi *my name*! I'm just running in to grab a few things!" Before I can tell her not to, she's gone into the aisles. My manager comes over and goes "what are you doing? We have to be done by six!" He went to find her, she's already got a basket full of things going "where are the capsicums? Can I just grab...?" keep in mind this is a fruit shop - half the items come off the shelves and into the cool room. My manager is literally the nicest guy ever and agrees to ring up her items as long as she pays card, as the cash is all packed into the safe. "No that's ridiculous, I only have cash! *My name* Hun can you tell him I only have cash?" So I tell her the exact same thing, that we literally can't access the cash once the safe is closed for the day. "Oh. Well can you just pay for it on your card and I'll get *daughter* to pay you back?" I tell her that I can't do that, she starts shouting about how unprofessional we are, that the shop is awful because half the items are gone (WE WERE CLOSED), and that she's "never coming back!" (thank god). She avoids me at school events now, and I honestly feel sorry for her daughter, the stories I hear about this cow are shocking. Icing on the cake? Her name is actually Karen.
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago
Ahhh, you must’ve run into the original Karen. And yeah, I pity the poor kids who have to endure a Karen as a mother. How embarrassing.
Courtney Christelle 5 years ago
A lady came to drop of some laundry in the dry cleaners I work at. Her name was Karen, very nice and I almost wanted to apologize for her misfortune.
James Burrows 4 years ago
I love how they scream they're never coming back, like they expect management to get on their knees, in tears, begging them to say it's not so . . . But then they're back the very next day XD
Gage Franke 5 years ago
Once I was at Burger King, a Karen who had just finished causing a scene said she was never coming back. Someone actually said, "Oh, thank god!" I don't know if it was a worker or customer, but the look on her face was f*cking priceless! XD
Mimi777 5 years ago (edited)
A******s always tried to do this where I worked. One time this Karen came in an hour before we opened. And demanded to be let in because she had an exchange and needed to be somewhere and couldn’t wait. We always had to do inventory in the mornings before we opened and we told her our registers aren’t open yet. She threatened to call corporate. Which she did. And our GM didn’t give a s**t because we were right. Oh and she threw her bag at the gate and just left it there and left. We grabbed it and kept it at the register for her to return and she never did. One of us took it home eventually after a couple months since it was paid for. It was a shirt.
TerryTheMoose 9 months ago
Sorry, but I am with the Karen on this. If you are open until 6, you should be able to buy something at 5.58, with whatever tender you like. After six you should refuse them
Regardless of where it came from, ‘Karen’ is now a slang term for an antagonistic female character. BBQ Becky is a Karen. Permit Patty is a Karen. Amy Cooper is a Karen.
But not everyone is behind the meme. For example, David Dennis Jr., a journalist who has written about the pitfalls of assigning nicknames to women who do nefarious things, told Insider that calling women like the aforementioned trope by a false name grants them a level of “anonymity” and belittles what they’ve done.
#7
Told me I couldn't work on my car in my own garage at noon because she didn't want my fast looking car to influence her son's to "be hooligans like you"
Ripley 5 years ago
"Your lack of parenting skills sounds like your problem, so I'm not going to make it my problem".
joan-of-argh 5 years ago
God forbid they become interested in something constructive and challenging like mechanics... I would love it if my kids wanted to watch someone working on a car!!
deanna woods 5 years ago
The same. That means that they are learning a skill.
Load More Replies...
Spinaap 5 years ago
or she did really ment that his car would influence her son's car ... thats just weird, but still its a Karen
Load More Replies...
Celtic Pirate Queen 5 years ago
My ex & I owned an auto repair shop (back in the 90's) which we operated out of our 4 car garage. We grossed about $75K a year. Here's to being a hooligan!
Michael Hill 5 years ago
Would you mind leaving because I don't want my nice kind mother to be influenced by a woman like you.
Zelda Blue 5 years ago
She was probably afraid that if her kids saw a fast car they would steal it just to get away from her.
CatWoman312 5 years ago
I would laugh in her face and continue working. What a loser she sounds like
#8
Blew up at me for ignoring her son, who was trying to hit on me by saying ~konnichiwa~ and calling me ~kawaii~. I had never met him before and I am not Japanese. She called me a stuck-up racist and insinuated that I should be glad he was worldly enough to "speak Asian" to me. I just responded "Sorry, no English" (they had previously heard me speaking English with my friend, I'm pretty sure) and walked away.
Francis 5 years ago
yes you're racist for ignoring her son speaking asian.. yes totally... NOT
Meyer Weinstock 5 years ago
Yeah, being brown here is the US gets accusations of speaking 'Mexican' around folks. (WTF???) So, in my strong upper Midwestern accent, my response is, "Oh, ja, so ya waant me to speak Spanisch around you, here, eh? Oh-kaay...ja: 'bwenose deeyaas, senyorah." -from a Native American, who never forgot his Scandinavian Minnesota drawl (and speaks Spanish when necessary)
Load More Replies...
kalastaja774 5 years ago
I always bring my mom with me, when i go out to shout racial slurs to women passing by.
Meyer Weinstock 5 years ago
hey, be nice to us incels...or at least, that's what these Pandas are calling me...
Load More Replies... Kathy Baylis 5 years ago
Like she was racist for ignoring that woman’s son being offensive and downright creepy to her, and not comprehending that no means NO!
Viviane 5 years ago
Maybe the mother and son don't understand North American.
Load More Replies...
Monday 5 years ago
I didn't know how badly I wanted to see this response until I did
Load More Replies... deanna woods 5 years ago
So not only is she a Karen, but she's also an idiot and an overbearing mother.
Pseudo Puppy 5 years ago
"speaking Asian".... are they kidding? How f*****g ignorant can someone be? jeez!!!!!
Viviane 5 years ago
My husband speaks European: Schnauzer! Olé! Samovar! He had me at "Vino!"
Load More Replies...
M Kate McCulloch 5 years ago
Asian... Hmm like Cantonese? Mandarin? Thai? Laotian? Russian, Hindi, Mongolic? Which friggin Asian language was she talking about??
Meyer Weinstock 5 years ago
Mian, Miao, Bengali? Singhalese? Bahasa (all three forms)?
Load More Replies... #9
Working retail one afternoon and here comes Karen with a return. At first glance it’s no big deal, just coming in to return a shirt. She walks up to the register, hands me the receipt to start processing and we exchange a pleasant greeting. I take the shirt out of the bag to examine it and it is beyond disgusting. There were brown sweat stains all over it, from the pits to the stomach to the shoulder. It looked like whoever wore it rolled in mud or some nonsense. I proceed to tell Karen that I cannot return the product because it had clearly been used and that only unused and resellable items could be returned. Karen through a fit, started screaming at me and accusing me of calling her a liar and what not. I hold up the shirt and point to the brown pit stains and say ‘Karen, can’t you see this stain?’ Oh man did that make it worse. She continues making a huge scene and demands to see the manager. News flash Karen, I am the manager and I’m not budging. After 20 or so minutes of complaining she finally leaves saying she’ll be complaining to corporate and getting me fired and blah blah blah. Fast forward a few days. A guy walks into the store, finds the first store associate he can and immediately asks for me by name. Uh-oh, here we go again. Anyway, my associate bring the guy over to where I’m standing and I politely greet him. The guy spends the next 10 minutes apologizing for his crazy wife Karen verbally abusing my staff and I a few days prior. Apparently, the guy went to the beach and did some type of CrossFit / HIIT training class IN THE SAND. Karen knows all of this; she was at the class with him! The guy ended up not liking the shirt for some reason and Karen thought she could pull a fast one on us by making a scene. Think again Karen.
Ripley 5 years ago
Probably because she's made a scene in the past and it's worked a treat. Don't ever reward this kind of poor behaviour by giving in.
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
The guy who came up with “the customer is always right” BS just didn’t think ahead to all the nasty entitled Frankensteins he was creating with that highly incorrect motto. Hope he lived long enough to witness the phenomenon, and regret the evil he unleashed with it.
Load More Replies...
Daniel Callaway 5 years ago
At least her husband is a decent guy. I feel sorry for him as he probably had to do this before and will again in the future.
Mimi777 5 years ago (edited)
I worked at a small but expensive clothing store for several years. This wife and husband came in all the time they were pastors at a local church. They would buy jeans and then bring them back the next weekend without tags and claim they didn’t wear them I would check the bottoms of the bootcut jeans and low and behold they were covered in dirt and grime from where they dragged the ground when worn. I never understood how they could be pastors and lie so damn much isn’t that wrong specifically because they’re pastors. Like they should be setting an example for others. And the fact that they acted all high and mighty all the damn time. They shopped with us a lot and loved to talk.
Meyer Weinstock 5 years ago
Really? Please know, not all of us are like that.
Load More Replies... Courtney Christelle 5 years ago
I feel bad for the spouses of people like that, it's like "who did I just chain myself to for life?".
Victor Lail 5 years ago
i think he got a divorce later on, either that, or he is trying to get her out of his house. trust me, there was a woman hat my grandpa was with, but ended up hating her but he couldn't kick her out cause she still had his keys. later on everyone in the neighborhood started hating her.
Load More Replies...
Steve Cruz 5 years ago
I saw a scene like that go down. The manager finally put a piece of paper on the counter and asked "Karen" to fill it out, then compared the info to Karen's credit card and ID. The manager then said, "If it's the last thing I do, I'll have your credit card number rejected in the entire chain and inform central management that you are abusive and foul. If I still have a job, you'll never be able to shop in any of these stores or our affiliates."
Not to mention the real-life Karens caught in the crosshairs. “I spend a lot of time on Twitter, so I find it rather annoying,” Karen Geier, a writer and podcaster from Toronto, told The Guardian. “Anything you say, people can be like, ‘OK, well, whatever, KAREN’ – but that’s not even how the meme is supposed to be used. It’s supposed to be about people who want to speak to the manager.”
#10
One time, Karen put her own hair in her half-eaten plate of food and then threw a royal fit, demanding that her meal be comped and that she speak to the manager. I went into the back of the restaurant, pulled out the orange hair with 3 inches of regrowth and asked the Mexican guys in the kitchen “HEY, DID ANY OF YOU BRING A WIG TO WORK TODAY?” They told me to f**k off. Went back out, told Karen that nobody on staff has red hair with blonde roots (while staring directly at her disastrous dye-job) but the manager said we would be HAPPY to buy desert for the whole table to make up for this strange phenomenon. The 4 other people at the table were clearly mortified and declined desert. She ordered cheesecake and they all sat there and glared at her while she devoured it. [Friggin] Karen.
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
Why would you reward her despicable behavior with a free dessert? This really makes me mad because what you are telling her is that she gets things for free if she's acting like a POS. Should have told her that she's free to pay the bill and leave before you call the police for this pathetic attempt of fraud. And ban her for life.
Veronica 3 years ago
I was shocked when i read that too. It was obviously not the staff’s hair so why give her a free dessert 🤦♀️
Load More Replies... Kathy Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
Managers need to stop and get the full story from BOTH sides before undermining their employees like that. In this case, he allowed Karen, who was more than obviously in the wrong—-and legally so, having blatantly tried to defraud the restaurant—-to “win”, especially in her own opinion (she did get something for nothing, even if only free cheesecake, after all), even though she should’ve been arrested, or at least asked to leave (and her picture added to their public “Wall of Shame”), after being made to pay full price plus minimum 20% tip for her meal.
Pseudo Puppy 5 years ago
ie so everyone, let her get away with it. The wait staff, the manager, and all of her 4 companions, fully, intentionally, rewarded her bad behaviour. Lesson here: put your hair in your food, and you'll get free dessert.
Carole Hamilton 5 years ago
wouldn't go anywhere with her again, what other dishonesty would she get up to.
RaroaRaroa 5 years ago
You'd hope so, but then some people do struggle to separate themselves from trash for various reasons.
Load More Replies...
Kevin Donegan 5 years ago
And tell me why these people are still friends with "Karen?" I've ended relationships over how s****y people I though I knew treated others. It's only a matter a time when they treat you the same way.
#11
My grandparents live on a lake, and the first 20 feet from the lake is communal property. I was about ten years old and feeding the geese corn on the lake across from my grandparents' house, and Karen walked halfway around the lake just to tell me that I wasn't allowed to "encourage" them to poop on her lawn and that I had to stop feeding them immediately. When I told her that my grandfather said I was allowed she marched me up to his house, rang the doorbell, and only deflated when she realized my grandfather was the president of the HOA and pissed at her for grabbing his granddaughter. From that point on I made it a point to scatter corn on the 20 feet directly in front of her lawn.
deanna woods 5 years ago (edited)
No adult should be grabbing a child, especially if they don't know that child.
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
I was managing a pet-friendly riverfront townhouse community that was also on a Canada Goose migration route. Migrating flocks would sometimes land to eat and rest, leaving their poop (goose poop is really big) on the lawns, which we’d remove as best as we could. Had one woman, a cat-hater, who swore up and down that people’s cats were responsible for all the poop, so they should be told their cats had to stay indoors, and any stray cats should be immediately destroyed. I repeatedly told her the cats were NOT responsible for the poop, we cannot tell people their cats must stay inside while okaying dogs to be outside on the fenced patios, and that we were not in the business of destroying “strays” who could possibly be pets from the surrounding neighborhood, so she could take it upon herself to call Animal Control if she liked, but cats were not the problem. She refused to believe me. Come to find out, she’d already made a nuisance of herself repeatedly calling Animal Control, who told her it was private property and up to the property management—-ME!
Celtic Pirate Queen 5 years ago
I would have tossed some onto the lawn just because. Entitled b***h.
Azure Adams 5 years ago
I'd call the cops for assaulting a child on her dumb a*s to really hit home the consequences of her behavior
#12
When I worked at a bakery, Karen bought a chocolate cupcake and ate half of it. Karen then asked if she could return her half-eaten chocolate cupcake...not because she didn't like it, but because she wanted to exchange it for half of a vanilla cupcake, "something less decadent." Like most bakeries, we did not sell cupcakes "by the half." She became offended when I asked if she wanted to purchase a vanilla cupcake.
Tanya Kysel'ova 5 years ago
you had to answer: "you have to wait until someone eats up the half of vanilla cake"
MiracleChild😊❤️ 5 years ago
It’s one thing to cut it in half and ask, but its a whooooole ‘nother thing when you EAT the first half, with all your salivating grossness, and ask to RETURN IT SO THEY CAN SELL YOUR GROSSNESS TO ANOTHER INNOCENT CUSTOMER
Pásztor György 5 years ago
You should have offer her, that yepp, you can sort it out, no problem. That would be 150% of the nromal price of the vanilla cake: fee adjusted to managing return of the half eaten one plus, the vanilla. Maybe if you tell her politely that you can do this for this "small" fee, she might accept it. Be aware, most of these Karens are not the brightest bead on the rosary ;)
Nicole Bowman 5 years ago
So you buy the vanilla, eat half, *put it with the other half of the chocolate one, take them home, and eat them the next day. Voila!
George Pepe 4 years ago
Or eat both of them as they would both be very good
Load More Replies... Meyer Weinstock 5 years ago (edited)
OK, I see a potential new product: take one of each cupcakes, and before frosted, split them, and then unify them as two half-cakes. Then frost. Boom! New product!
Meyer Weinstock 5 years ago
Hey, any openings at the bakery? I've got more ideas...
Load More Replies...What is a Male Karen Called?
Is there really a Ken to every Barbie—or every Karen, in this case? The internet thinks so, and a few names are in the mix.
The contenders? ‘Ken’ himself, ‘Greg,’ ‘Keith,’ and intriguingly, ‘Terry.’ The name ‘Terry’ has mirrored ‘Karen’ in its rise and fall in popularity since the 1950s, which makes it a strong candidate for the male equivalent. But it’s not just about the name. It’s the behavior—demanding, entitled, and often complaint-driven.
Speaking of complaints, a study by Trustpilot threw a curveball. The name ‘John’ came up as a frequent complainer in their records for the US, with ‘David’ taking the first place in the UK. So, while ‘Karen’ has become a catchphrase for a certain type of behavior, ‘John’ and ‘David’ might be her male counterparts—at least in online reviews.
#13
That I needed to leave the gym because I made her son feel like only fat people go to the gym
Berry Budgie 5 years ago
I would like to see her answer me when i ask if Dwayne Johnson is fat
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
Bet you anything she was massively out of shape and could’ve used a few gym visits herself. I can remember watching one woman at my gym, over the course of a year, go from obese to fit. Because she stuck with it, and no one ever thought to make her feel ashamed for being initially out of shape. And she wasn’t the only one I saw, male or female. FFS, what the hell does Karen think people go to the gym for in the first place?
Pretty Pangolin 5 years ago
I remember watching a TV segment where they interviewed a gym-goer who was very large (like 400#). But the twist was, he'd already shed 100 or 200 pounds, and went there every day to teach a pool exercise class that was suitable for everyone. I'm reminded of that often when I'm tempted to think I know someone's story.
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
Seriously. Can’t always judge a book by its cover. We also need to either be encouraging or shut tf up when we see someone who is trying to get fit—-or improve themselves in any way. I mean, would you like it if someone tried to embarrass you for it? Of course not! So why do that to someone else? I’ve gone to the gym and watched lots of people totally transform their bodies over the course of months or years. If anyone had ridiculed them, they might have been too embarrassed to come back, but as far as I know no one did. In fact, I recall seeing some of the more knowledgeable, and nicer, give them valuable advice for avoiding injury. Live and let live, ffs.
Load More Replies... CatWoman312 5 years ago
I hope you reported her to management. Most gyms don’t tolerate abuse like that
ZombieGirl 5 years ago
I would have told management that she was calling me fat....they most likely would have kicked her out and banned her
#14
Was at the park with my daughter(she was 3 at the time). Her and a couple other kids started to play together. Then she attempted to use the monkey bars(she’s a very adventurous child). About mid way through, she fell. I didn’t do anything because she’s fallen before and I want her to learn to get back up on her own and not be scared to try again. Anyway, one of the boys was about to get on the monkey bars too, until I heard a woman run toward him screaming to stop. She picked him up and looked at my daughter. Told her it wasn’t “smart” of her to go on the monkey bars if she wasn’t fully ready because then others might get that same idea. That’s when I got up and went to my daughter’s defense. Sternly told the woman to not speak to her that way and it’s no fault of hers that she wasn’t scared to try something new. She took her kid and left.
Rissie 5 years ago (edited)
Yeah, I do think that some supervision is no luxury. Of course I don't know these monkey bars, but I have seen some that are quite high. Some kids are very adventurous and know how to fall, others are not so lucky. I somehow feel there is more to this story. Solely based on being a bit too easy with a three year old falling down. You don't have to come running and pretend the world is ending, but if they fall it is nothing out of the ordinary to check if a three year old is fine after falling a few feet from a construction that is built for kids a lot older. It sends a signal about trust and still being there and also to other kids to maybe be more careful. I wouldn't call her a Karen, just a mom that's more on the safe side of parenting. I feel the story teller is making this bigger because she knew not checking on her kid is noticed by others.
Load More Replies...
CatWoman312 5 years ago
Do not be a helicopter parent. Your kids will grow up spoiled, entitled, and just naive AF
Rissie 5 years ago
Supervising a three year old is not helicopter parenting. Most monkey bars are meant to be a challenge for older kids, so they are a few feet higher than a three year old. There's a spectrum that ranges from putting your kids in bubble wrap to sending them out to fend for them selves from the ripe old age of two weeks. And clearly these moms are pretty close together but one checks in a kid falling from a few feet and the other doesn't. I don't think this is a Karen.
Load More Replies...
Brook Riddick 5 years ago
I had a very similar thing with a woman and my daughter. She came back with, "you weekend fathers don't know what your doing"(I have full custody BTW) I looked at her and said, "It's Wednesday 🤷♂️"
Mazama de Soto 5 years ago
Good for you. But I can imagine in her recounting of the story, she'll paint you as the Karen.
Olga Nolastname 2 years ago
That " Karen" totally has a point. If it seemed to her that those bars are dangerous for her kid and others' kids, then she did the right thing and YOU are the Karen.
Olga Nolastname 2 years ago
Forgot to add: she didn't think about the possibility that she herself may be wrong. And didn't think it necessary to respect other person's opinion. It's totally NOT for her to call other people "Karens".
Load More Replies...
Chloe *Leah* Pheonix 4 years ago
I couldnt breathe once when I fell on the monkey bars learning how to use them. Didn't stop me. Terrible feeling tho.
#15
I was working a backdrive at a fast food joint years ago, and older Karen comes driving in to give her order. Now, this location doesn't have a speaker due to a neighborhood ordnance, so all the orders in drive thru are taken face to face. She orders a double cheeseburger without onions, and I ring it in, complete her order, and send her on her way. About five minutes after she's picked up her food she comes back through drive-thru and says "they put onions on my burger". I apologize, print her up a duplicate recipt to confirm to her and myself that I rang it in without onions. I then tell her that if she goes up to the front window and tells the manager who's working up front that they'll replace the burger for free made correctly, but that I can't do anything about it back here. She does so and they give her a brand new burger and an apology. I thought that was the end of the situation, but boy was I wrong. Karen called the state government on me, by name, demanding I be fired. If I recall correctly I was told that she called the food safety department, the Chamber of Commerce and the governor's office. The franchise owner called to say that it turned out that Karen is allergic to onions, and she straight up accused me of deliberately ringing her sandwich in wrong and trying to poison her, then printing up a false duplicate receipt of her order to make her look like a liar (keep in mind that I read the receipt back to her and she confirmed it was her order). I didn't get along with the manager who was working at the time, but even he was like "that's complete [crap],, it wasn't even his mistake it was the kitchens and we fixed it for her". The franchise owner was told by whichever branch of the state government called them that Karen had demanded that I be fired. I wasn't, I wasn't even written up, but I did stop wearing my name tag at work when I could get away with it. TL;DR - got the state government called on me by Karen because the kitchen messed up an order, which got replaced free of charge. Could've been fired for a mistake that wasn't even mine.
Rissie 5 years ago
Not to mention complete bs. If she was actually allergic to onions, which is very doubtful, it would be something to be really careful with and since they probably grill the onions in the same kitchen as the rest of the burger, not the place to buy food without strict instructions. So yeah, bs it is. Awful people to spend their time messing up other people lives without any reason or even a benefit... Scary.
Load More Replies... Dave Chapman 5 years ago
I can guarantee that she didn't have a "life threatening" allergy to onions, she has an allergy to decency! People with severe enough allergies that their physical health can be dangerously affected by a product, are SUPER CAREFUL to make this known when ordering food, to make sure that a contamination doesn't occur! I had a work friend awhile back, that was horribly allergic to tomatoes and made sure that any drive-thru personnel were aware of this. Many times, the staff would ask a manager to take the order personally and they would make sure that nothing was touched by a tomato while making the order. I would expect that this is a standard protocol at any restaurant worth it's license, even Mickey D's...people dying while eating your grub is bad for business!!
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
Probably Karen's allergy to onions is "I don't like onions, my parents always made me eat them."
Azure Adams 5 years ago
all of those entities should have told her that isn't their problem and to stop bothering them
Sue Prewitt 5 years ago
Did the branch that called actually expect you to be fired on her say so?
deanna woods 5 years ago
I'm allergic to fish, but even i would not call the health department over a mistake. Especially about someone who had nothing to do with it.
Ripley 5 years ago
Some people are just not wired correctly. When I was a teen a friend working at Maccas (that's McDonalds for you non-Aussies) told me the tale of how a man needed to be held back from leaping over the counter and assaulting him, a teenage boy, because he accidentally put only one slice of cheese on the Qtr pounder the guy had just bought. *eyeroll*
For more Karen moments, check this: 33 Moments ‘Karens’ Were Nothing But Typical ‘Karens,’ As Told By Retail Employees In This Viral Online Thread
#16
I used to work retail, so I have come across my fair share of Karens. They were a huge reason why I went back to school and no longer work as a cashier. Anyways, one day while I was manning the registers with a few other coworkers of mine, I had a massive nosebleed right as I was finishing a transaction. I grabbed a tissue and quickly excused myself to run to the restroom so I could try to get it to stop bleeding; this meant that I couldn't say goodbye to Karen and give the little spiel about how I was oh so grateful for her shopping with us. Anyways, after about 10 minutes, I was finally able to get my nose back under control and headed back to the registers. I saw her waiting to the side with a scowl on her face, arms crossed over her chest, the whole nine yards. She proceeded to scold me about how rude I was for not saying goodbye. After I apologized and explained that I had an unexpected nosebleed, she told me I should have tried holding it in and that the customer comes first.
Helen Haley 5 years ago
The whole 'customer comes first' 'customer is always right' thing, needs to die.
Courtney Christelle 5 years ago
By decapitation. Also shot, then set on fire.
Load More Replies...
CatWoman312 5 years ago
Okay ma’am next time I’ll proceed to bleed all over your groceries if that’ll make you feel better
Richard Brown 5 years ago
The whole Customer comes first/ is right isn't practised in the UK as it was over exploited. Now when a customer says "You know the customer is always right" we can say "No, you're not"
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
"Customer is king" are the three words that literally opened the gates of hell for people in the US that have to deal with customers. In the Netherlands the reply is "Yes, but I'm the emperor so you loose."
Jesse 1 year ago
France too. I was accosted by a rude American Karen (as a tourist myself) and the employee told the Karen off. Loudly and for the whole store to hear.
Load More Replies...
MistyCat 4 years ago
Let's see if she can hold in her puke when you projectile-bleed all over her manager haircut!
Load More Replies...
A Random Panda 5 years ago
As a person who has. nosebleeds all the time, I can say this. Lady, you can't sniff up like you can with snot. You will get blood in your lungs and that can kill you.
Sue Sanders 5 years ago
Ridiculous. The woman has a definite problem. Probably for a severe lack of compassion and understanding. Her day will come, if not already.
#17
Doctor here. I used to work in a public night shift service, kinda like an emergency room but for non-emergencies, to keep the hospitals clear of white codes (so anything from a fever to a sore throat, to prescriptions for urgent treatments), and a Karen walks in at 3am asking for a prescription for hypertension drugs, which isn’t unusual, as people (old people, more often than not, but she looked 55~) sometimes don’t notice they’re running low. Anyway, the law (not a rule, not my decision, the law) states that this service can only write prescriptions for potentially life threatening conditions’ drugs for a maximum of 72 hours coverage (so if you take one pill a day, I can only prescribe you a single blister. Here we don’t have bottles, but blisters), and while I’m writing the prescription Karen casually mention that she was insomniac, and while cleaning the medicine cabinet she realise she was down to her last full blister. My pen stops, I ask her to repeat, “full blister?” “Yeah”, so I take the prescription, tear it in half, then again, then I throw it in the bin, explaining her the law. She gets mad, starts yelling and threaten to call the cops. “Go ahead.” Cops came, and she triumphally announce that I’m refusing to treat her. I explain the situation, and they ask her if it’s true that she has a full blister, and she of course (being a Karen who is always right no matter what) confirms it. The cops look at her (still with a look of triumph, waiting for them to arrest me), then at me, then ask her politely to leave, as I’m in the right. She’s livid. The day after my boss called me and cracked up cause she went there during the day to talk to “the manager”, and she (my boss) told her the exact same thing. Never saw her again in there, weirdly enough...
Leo Domitrix 5 years ago
Ah, yes, the "I just noticed I ran out". Sure. And I"m a platypus. Never had anyone go that far. The minute we heard "I just ran out and didn't notice", we asked "How many do you have?" First answer was always none. A few questions later, innocuous stuff about what it's for, who prescribed it, "When did you refill it last?" ALWAYS caught them out, it was always "Last week." Really? You went through 30 days in a week? A few questions later, usually about her current symptoms, and "When did you take your last pill?" and it was "a few hours ago". By this point, you're waitin gfor the person to realize they're busted...
Rowan Jeffus 5 years ago
Hey uh... sorry if I'm bothering, but can someone please explain to me what a blister of pills is?
Steve Cruz 5 years ago
If she had just kept her stupid mouth SHUT, she would have had another blister. SHE IS A BLISTER, a pus-filled human blister.
Nancy McLaughlin 3 years ago
What an entitled b***h! I think a dr. would know what the law is about prescriptions better than that nutcase!
Nicole Bowman 5 years ago
Some of the new, like this one, makes me wonder if some of these Karens are panicking (either social anxiety, or just plain panicking "Oh my God! I'm almost out! What do I do? I can't run out! Oh my God!")
#18
My manager Karen sat me down for an hour after my shift had ended preaching to me why it was my fault I was physically assaulted by a customer.
Richard Brown 5 years ago
Friend had this happen and she asked if it was on camera. Manager said yes so she called the police and pressed charges. Manager got reprimanded for her part in covering up the customers actions and got demoted to floor staff until she quit 4 months later. Customer came in like clock work so the police came back and waited for him on his next visit and charged him with assault and the acting manager banned him from the store. My friend quit the following year.
deanna woods 5 years ago
That's the way to handle and not by blaming the victim.
Load More Replies... Viviane 5 years ago
It also sounds like an extreme example of "The customer is always right".
Load More Replies... 
Michael Hill 5 years ago
At least your manager does it quietly. I had a boss who would belittle people in front of others. Twice he got it wrong with me, so in self defence I had to point out what an idiot he was. And there was nothing he could say about it since he had made it public.
Randy Klefbeck 5 years ago
NOOOOOO. I would have made it her fault after I physically assaulted that mgr.
#19
So glad I finally get to post something. Buckle up, it's story time. For my grade 2 end-of-the-year school party, we went over to a community pool. It was designed for kids, with a lazy river, slide, etc. There were a few kids that had gotten hold of inner tubes, like the style you find at water parks all the time. I wanted one too and found one sitting on the edge of the pool. I grabbed it and started to play with it, as kids do. Some lady comes over and tells me that she had rented it, and that I couldn't play with it. Ogre lady takes the tube and leaves it on the edge of the pool, not even using it, smirks back at me with this crappy face like she beat me in some major contest of wills. Me being raised to respect people that were (at least technically) adults, I say fine, whatever, weird flex to prove your adulthood by bullying a seven-year-old but w/e, moved on with my play. Some swim instructor that had another tube noticed and let me play with one that her class was done using. I say thank you, happy me has a tube now. Another kid in my class immediately bobs over and asks if he can use my newfound tube. I tell him no, I just got it. he shrugs and goes over and takes ogre lady's tube, which she is not using and has left on the edge of the pool. I keep playing for probably another two minutes when ogre lady comes splashing back. The conversation goes like this: OL: "I told you to stop playing with that tube. Give it back." Me: "This isn't your tube, that swim instructor gave it to me and another kid in my class took yours down the lazy-" OL (interrupting and now shouting): "I don't believe you! Give it here!" *proceeds to yank the tube off my head* Me: "Hey!" OL: *puts tube back on the edge of the pool right where the last one was and comes over to me* "you're a little thief and your mother ought to be ashamed of raising a liar. If I see you going near that tube again, I'll have you kicked out of the pool." *goes back to gossiping with the other stereotypical suburban moms* I obviously am terrified and feel awful cause I got yelled at and insulted by a stranger. I don't remember the rest of the day, other than it was pretty miserable after that. The injustice of the whole thing, especially that the other kid who took the tube got off with the whole thing (he often wasn't very nice to me), still makes me grit my teeth. I am now a full-grown adult. TL;DR Karen called seven-year-old me a thief and a liar at a public pool because I was the closest punching bag when she lost track of a pool tube.
Berry Budgie 5 years ago
I have a Karen story- I was visiting my cousins and we went to a restaurant. There was a kid with down syndrome on a table accompanied with his mum and grandma. The kid got up, went to another family’s table, and started eating their food. They politely took him back to his table and then his grandma blew up at the man screaming and swearing saying that he can’t help it and that he should just ignore him. She was saying she was going to call the police and that she wanted to talk to the manager of the restaurant. The manager politely asked her what was happening. She screamed at him for not being able to see the problem. He asked her to leave his restaurant. The poor kid was just standing there crying because of the shouting :(
Meyer Weinstock 5 years ago
She probably was passive-aggressively abusive.
Load More Replies... deanna woods 5 years ago
This woman's behavior was completely and utterly ridiculous. Especially since she wasn't even using the tube.
Steve Cruz 5 years ago
Wasn't there a teacher present -- or the instructor who gave the tube? Karen needed an adult talking-to.
scrappyrat 5 years ago
I'm so sorry you had to experience not just the awful outburst but the injustice of being blamed for another kid's (minor) error in judgement. I am an adult who is not comfortable with children, but I can't imagine being so aggressive and accusatory. This is a good reminder of how one unnecessary angry outburst of name calling can really cause lasting pain and upset for someone who wasn't doing anything harmful, simply because of a misunderstanding. Why injure someone's happiness over something you don't even need?
#20
I met plenty of Karens while working retail but there's one who stands out. Karen was Indian and had the most entitled attitude of anyone I've ever met. She was also a regular customer so we had to deal with her [crap] at least twice a week. Karen's favourite pastime would be to literally fill a trolley with clearance items. These are a nightmare as you have to reduce the price on the till manually. Management were worried about scanning fraud and so had disabled the multiplication button on the till. This meant that each item has to be scanned and discounted individually. Once all of her items had been scanned and discounted, Karen would always kick up a fuss over the price, accusing us of overcharging her and demanding to see a manager. Some managers would give in to Karen, which meant voiding the transaction and starting over. If they told Karen to get lost, she'd complain about "never shopping here again" and storm out, leaving a full trolley of goods to put back. Thanks b****. Either way, the entire [crap]show would take at least an hour. There was a nice moment of karma for Karen however. One winter, we had an especially heavy snow storm. Our policy in this case is to clear the car park access to the spaces closest to the door. We do this as very few people come out when it's snowing and it lets people park as close as possible. Not Karen though. Oh no. She pulls into the car park, drives into the uncleared section and tries to drive through a snow drift, hitting a covered bollard in the process. She then clomps into the store, demands to see the manager and proceeds to yell at him point blank. Apparently she was going to sue us and get every employee fired for "not clearing her usual parking space of snow". Our manager responded by banning her from our store for being abusive towards staff.
Jeremy Goldstein 5 years ago
That is easy it is to show not all Karen(s) are white
Load More Replies...
Roselyn Park 5 years ago
When people toss the “I’m NEVER shopping here again!”, try throwing back “Do you Promise?”
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago
Didn’t realize Karens weren’t exclusively white, but I guess it’s more the attitude than the makeup of the person who has it, and every culture has its own variation. Is it safe to say this was a wealthy high caste Indian woman, who was accustomed to having staff to do everything for her, just like a white Karen?
M O'Connell 5 years ago
Believe me, "Karens" are by no means exclusively wealthy either.
Load More Replies...
#21
Came up to my register and asked for the price of a protein bar. Every item in the store had a physical price tag, because we didn't have scanners at the register. I took it from her, flipped it over, and let her know it was $2.49 before tax. She asked me how much the case would be. Normally we did discounts for cases, but they had to be ordered ahead of time, so I started explaining we couldn't do a discount unless - she cut me off aggressively and hissed "I didn't ask for a discount." So I typed in $2.49 x 12, added tax, and told her the final price. She stared me down for a few minutes before asking me to get my manager. Once my manager arrived she spent literally 10 minutes tearing into me, describing me as the least helpful person ever, talking about my bad attitude, complaining about how awful and rude I was, etc. etc. etc. I was working nearly full time (35.5 hours per week) and commuting to a school over an hour away four days a week. This lady took the time out of her day to break me down to the point I started crying. Thanks Karen, I still remember you - hope you enjoyed your [friggin] protein bar.
Hans 5 years ago
How can such people nor be ashamed or themselves? Their rulw of life mist not tbe to make at least one person per day to smile, but to cry. Ultimately they need to be pitied.
deanna woods 5 years ago
You have to be one of the most miserable people on the planet to get upset about a protein bar.
Berry Budgie 5 years ago
Ouch im sure whatever she said was just Karen lies and i hope her protein bar gave her food poisoning ;)
#22
Cut more holes in her daughters swiss cheese because her daughter wouldn't eat the sandwich because it didn't have enough holes. This was my first month of restaurant ownership and still the most Karen request thirteen years later.
Myrtille rat 5 years ago
that's all? thirteen years... what's the secret is there some sort of "Karen repellent" sprayed around the restaurant?
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago
She didn’t say it was the only Karen request, just the most extreme one.
Load More Replies...
Rick 5 years ago
There’s serving and then there’s being a servant. I feel like this is a typically American list. I worked (albeit briefly) in a restaurant and if someone requested I did this (after establishing they weren’t just joking) I would have stared blankly at them before walking away (not fulfilling the request).
Becca Gizmo the Squirrel 5 years ago
Unfortunately waitresses only get about $2.13 an hour plus tips. I used to be a waitress. They should get a living wage and a tip of they were good. Not solely depend on tips. If you worked breakfast shift some people would only order coffee maybe an egg or biscuit. Bill would be less than $3 and the would throw down a quarter and a dime or nickels for tips. And they got free refills so we were constantly making and refilling coffee. Lunch shift and dinner shift was better but they should get at least minimum wage plus tips..
Load More Replies... CatWoman312 5 years ago
At least she didn’t bring her own food from home and ask you to cook it. Back in my restaurant days some rich snobs would do that. It was very insulting to the kitchen whenever this happened.
scrappyrat 5 years ago
I totally remember someone bringing a bunch of pork sausage biscuits they had made into a vegetarian restaurant I worked at, wanting them heated up in our oven. We served simple breakfast food (bagels and pastries and things). There was food she could have eaten, but she brought a huge basket for all of her friends to eat instead *and* wanted us to prepare it. I thought it was just weird (and so rude in a veg restaurant especially). I didn't know other people did this kind of thing.
Load More Replies... Meyer Weinstock 5 years ago
I'd hate to be the kid's teacher...imagine that discourse... -Dr M, retired teacher
Load More Replies... 
Athenalikesowls 4 years ago
Should have just cut a huge hole in the middle and left the ring surrounding the hole and put it on the sandwhich that way.
Charlene Parker 5 years ago
i work a dollar general. this Karen came in and started talking about how some customers warnt wearing mask's inciluding in employees. i was so mad
#23
In tech support, this Karen had started a Powerpoint presentation, saved it, gave it a name, worked on it for 8 hours, closed it, and when the program said "Do you want to save changes" said 'No'. So the program did what it was told and dumped them, and 'surprisingly' when she reopened it it was blank. I explained that she told it not to -- Interrupt'd! "No, that is not acceptable. You will fix it." "No, there is no --" Interrupt'd! (go around this circle several times) I finally call the on call support for her company and explain what was going on. Have you ever had someone roll their eyes so hard you could hear them over a phone? Then conferenced Karen, who started right in before either of us could say anything with how incompetent I was etc etc... He let her burble for a minute then cut her off. She started squawking and he cut her off again, and again, and again until she finally shut up out of sheer surprise, I think. "Screeching like a harpy didn't work? What world is this?" He explained to her the same thing that I had, and she started yowling again and he chopped her off. "No. You've wasted my time on my day off, working as a favor to people with ACTUAL PROBLEMS, and you've wasted tech support's time. You were abusive to both of us and I'm going to report you to HR in the morning. Good bye." (click) He hangs up, and I'm laughing my ass off as she spits and sputters like an engine that just got a good solid swig of water. Note: In this particular version of Powerpoint from decades ago, early 1990s, while it did have auto save, the auto saves were both unreliable and automatically deleted when you closed the program. Microsoft wouldn't support anything over 25 slides, and hers was over 250.
Viktor Feurer 5 years ago
Making a powerpoint presentation of 250 slides is a crime on its own...
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
Autosave or not, when it asks if you want to save your work you always say yes, just in case! And that’s on top of manually hitting save periodically as you’re working (in case of a power outage midstream). But I guess we all have to learn that the hard way. She just didn’t want to.
#24
Left her card in the eftpos machine at the McDonalds I was managing as a teenager, rang me to say I needed to drive it out to her, that I ruined her night, ruined her family's night, owed her free food and that she'll be laying a formal complaint when I refused all of the above. She showed up 3/4 of an hour later with steam blowing out her ears asking for her card back. Last we heard from her.
Kevin Donegan 5 years ago
Yeah, the morbidly obese pathological lying vindictive narcissistic imbecile with the emotional maturity of a toddler (AKA tRump) is a perfect example of someone who blames others for their failures ... and look how he's doing.
Load More Replies...
Michael Hill 5 years ago
I would have given her a hard time getting the card back, asking for all sorts of details and casting suspicions on them.
Todd Hollfelder 5 years ago
The great thing is that if you call your bank and report the card lost or stolen, then get it back, it's still been cancelled and you have to wait two weeks for a new one!
Marsha Brown 5 years ago
You were lucky. She could have been coming in regularly for years! :-(
RELATED: 50 Entitled ‘Karens’ Who Thought They Deserved More Than Everybody Else But Got Shamed Instead
#25
I was a supervisor at Cost Plus World Market, a Karen comes in one night pushing a cart full of obviously used throw pillows and asks to return them. Of course she has no receipt, and instead wants us to just "look her up in the system". Except she refuses to provide her information for us to try to look her up. She starts yelling at my cashier and that's when I stepped in to tell her very politely and calmly that she either needs a receipt or needs to provide us her name and phone number. She starts screeching and screaming about how we're [idiots] and she'll get us fired and blah blah blah, then she demands an apology from the president of the world. I'm certain she meant the president of World Market, but in her bleached hair fury she said "the president of the world" and I barely held it together as I calmly offered her the corporate feedback number. She wouldn't take it and instead walked out of the store still yelling and without her cart of dirty pillows. She returned about 20 minutes later, quietly apologized, and took her pillows with her, we never heard from her again.
Hans 5 years ago
At least she apologised. Probably a moment of self awareness. Maybe you changed her for good!
Veronica 3 years ago
She realized how stupid she sounds and how embarrassing she is
Load More Replies... RaroaRaroa 5 years ago
Now this one came back and apologised. This makes me wonder if there's a mental health thing going on and once she calmed down she realised she'd taken her dirty pillows for a walk and caused a scene.
Meyer Weinstock 5 years ago
Cost +....great store, (generally) good people working and shopping. I promise never to do this.
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago
All Karens think “the President of the World” will automatically come to her aid and take her side. They forget no one achieves that lofty position by siding with narcissistic con artists.
#26
Once I told a Karen I didn't know where something was because I didn't work there and she said "Well, you're just useless"
RedstonewolfX 4 years ago
Useless? I'm surprised you gifted such a generous understatement to her
Load More Replies...
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
In cases like that, when I’m not an employee so have nothing to lose, I always feel free to put Karen/Chad in their place for talking to/treating me with so little respect. I’ve found when you do that, the employees love it so much they go the extra mile for you, even better if they can do it in front of Karen/Chad—-after giving them nothing more than perfunctory service!
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago
Just had the very satisfying mental image of you telling her that, word for word, and her just bursting into flames because of it. I think I’ll file that one away in my memory. It’s a keeper!
Load More Replies... Celtic Pirate Queen 5 years ago
Ohhh - I'd love to get THAT Karen. "And you're an ignorant, fat f*****g cow." I mean, since I don't work there, what's she going to do?
Meyer Weinstock 5 years ago
That's why I stopped wearing Hawaiian shirts when I went to Trader Joe's.
Mundo Calissa 4 years ago
If I was in that situation, I would ask Karen, "Do you know where that item is?" and when she replies no I would say "Well you're just as useless as I am."
Daniel Trickel 4 years ago
Years ago, when I was around 19-20 years old, I was working at the Ames Department Store in our town. This particular night, I was walking around the back of our store near Layaway. The area right near Layaway was our automotive department. Now, I am a computer geek and can answer any question about computer hardware, but knew absolutely nothing about cars. Well, a customer asked me where something was. I explained that I wasn't sure what she was talking about and asked her to clarify. If she wanted, I could also get someone who worked in that area, who would be better equipped to answer her questions. The entire time, the lady who worked in layaway was listening to the conversation and as soon as I walked away, this customer said to the lady in layaway, "He can't possibly be that stupid, can he?" Well, the thing is that the lady who was working in layaway that night was none other than my mom. Well, that customer got chewed out. Ha ha ha.
Smile Bestie 4 years ago
She's the ones that useless because she didn't know where it was in the store!
#27
My sister in law is the biggest Karen I've ever met, complains in almost every restaurant we have gone to, but this one time they were moving house and my bro asked me to help, I was staying at their place for the delivery truck that was to arrive early in the morning, we were having drinks and my bed / mattress was on the living room floor, at around 1:15 I said I think I'm going to go to bed. She replied are you kicking me out of my own living room, not realising she is crazy I joke I guess I am. She said no one does that and even though she had finished her last drink made herself two cups of tea. She didn’t go to bed till after two thirty she told me the next morning she stayed up to show no one tells her what to do
Tardis42 5 years ago
Shame on your brother for not telling her to get the hell out of the room you're sleeping in while doing them a favor.
RaroaRaroa 5 years ago
Exactly, how hard is it? Oh, hang one, the wimp was probably avoiding her going on at him about it all night. Too chicken to take the flak himself.
Load More Replies...
Zenozenobee 5 years ago
I would have let them move by themselves... if you need my help, dont talk to me like s**t
#28
I was working at my job as a cashier at my local supermarket. We were swamped with people I had at least 7 people waiting in my line. One of my good friends from high school was in my line and I talked to him as I was ringing up his stuff. After he left I welcomed the next lady in line and asked the usual stuff “did you find everything okay?” “How are you doing?” Etc. Before I could get a word out she asked to speak to my manager. Apparently I was rude to her for not including her in my conversation with my high school friend. She didn’t even chime in or anything and I never seen her in my life [friggin] karen man
deanna woods 5 years ago
How can you be rude for not including a total stranger in a conversation between you and a high school friend?
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
Since Karens are known all around the world she technically wasn't a stranger and therefor has the right to be included in every conversation that happens within a radius of 6 feet. It's your duty, as a mere mortal, to enforce that rule. How it it possible that you do not know that?
Load More Replies... 
#29
Worked at a grocery store and a coworker put a 99¢ sticker on my shirt. We were 2 of maybe 5 employees so we were all good friends and everything is funny when you gotta pass time on a shift so I just left it there. Some woman came through my line and asked me why I had a sticker on my shirt and I just kinda laughed it off. She asked if I thought it was funny and I was like "not really but sorta". she asked if my coworker put it there to which I responded yes. She told me she was going to speak to the store owner cos it was "disrespectful" to behave that way at work. She told me to call my manager and I did but he was a super cool guy and knew this lady was a [friggin] idiot. She talked to the store owner and my manager about firing me to no avail. She accomplished nothing and was a c*nt, the end.
Rick 5 years ago
I would have stuck it on her and then raised a complaint that she was overpriced.
Backtotheislands 5 years ago
She did accomplish wasting people's time and ruining people's day.
Diane Knight 5 years ago
I like when the store workers can have alittle fun at times--the bag boy had his 'name tag' changed to 'Szechuan Pork' ---I knew his name already, so I let him know that I'd be calling him that from now on --He was a bit embarrassed. I'm sure he knew that I wasn't too hard on him.
#30
I used to own a photography store (sold cameras and did pictures for passports etc), we opened at 1pm on Mondays, but I happend to be at the store on Monday morning because I needed to get something, was planning on just grabbing what I needed and go home when Karen tried to get in through the locked door. Door had a sign on it that said we were closed, and a sign with our opening hours. I didn't turn on any of the lights so it was also very dark inside. Karen started banging on the door, I was just about to leave so I went outside to tell her we were closed. Karen didn't take it well and immediately demanded to speak to the manager. I said that I'm the owner, she then proceeded to shout, and curse, so much so that the manager of the supermarket across the street came out to help me. She then tried to make the supermarket manager force me to open my store almost 4 hours earlier. Didn't work. Never seen the woman again.
Veronica 3 years ago
I work at a small movie theatre and we (two closing staff) always lock the doors after our coworkers leave because it’s pretty dangerous to keep it open late at night. Anyway, a lot of people won’t leave until we open the door for them (it can open from the inside while still locked from the outside). It’s quite annoying honestly.
Load More Replies...
Sylvester Quimby 4 years ago
Karen story: My brother and I were at my friend's house jumping on the trampoline with my friend. Karen's son came into his yard and got angry because we didn't let him jump on the trampoline with us. He ran home and got a big garden shovel and continuously tried to hit us with the shovel. Karen must have realized he was gone because she came into my friends' yard. She then proceeded to yell at us because we hadn't come to her house (even though her son was blocking our way) to tell her he had a shovel. THEN SHE YELLED AT MY BROTHER FOR NO REASON ABOUT NOT PLAYING WITH HER SON (she also had a son my sister's age and she must have had something against our family because my sister didn't want to hang out with her other son) and I was so annoyed at Karen for like a year afterward. like karen, stop being annoying to me and my family and just deal with your son who obviously gets his annoyingness from his mother.
RedstonewolfX 4 years ago
A twist on your classic story: Karen got someone else's manager to complain to
#31
Asked for my manager’s personal cell phone number to complain that I (seven months pregnant at the time) would not carry a refrigerator (that she had not paid for in the cost of her room) up to her second story room (we did not have an elevator), rather than just accept an upgrade for free because she didn’t want to unpack her stuff. She refused to believe we had rooms without fridges and I was just being fat and lazy. When I refused to give her the cell phone number, she asked for corporate’s number. I wrote it down on a sticky note with a smiley face. She came down later and asked to move rooms. I made her pay the difference.
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
W T Actual F? So I guess Karens/Chads look upon employees of a business as lesser human beings—-if human beings at all and not cattle—-whose health and welfare are immaterial to THEM and the satisfaction of their ridiculous whims. These people must’ve slept through the History class lectures about what happened to the vastly outnumbered entitled during both the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution. Otherwise they’d realize what could be in store for them if they keep pulling this kind of s**t on the majority of the population, who may make less money—-but are vastly more worthy—-than them.
MqchaXD 3 years ago
Male Karens are just Male Karens or Kens (sorry my friend Ken, you aren’t a Male Karen) and Chads are just cool people
Load More Replies... MiracleChild😊❤️ 5 years ago
That poor lady, she just wanted to do her job, and she was 7 months pregnant! She is working WITH A CHILD IN HER and you’re complaining that she can’t carry a fridge? She’s already a trouper working pregnant.
#32
Had a Karen threaten to report me to my manager for talking with other customers I was serving.
Becca Gizmo the Squirrel 5 years ago
I had a Wal-Mart worker be a Karen to me, the customer, a few weeks ago. I was in the self check out with like 5 items. I gather my bags and the plastic bag with the milk in it busted them the gallon milk busted on the ground. It landed just right to where the circle on the side split perfectly and milk went everywhere. I was mortified. I dropped to me knees apologizing profusely and trying to put the gallon in another bag. Another customer tried to help. We both got milk all over our clothes. The Wal-Mart lady walked inches away without even looking at me as I'm apologizing and then past me again seconds later then just stands behind her podium a few feet away. Another customer stomps up to her and snatched the paper towels behind the podium and said something like can you not help her? The Wal-Mart Karen rolled her eyes at me. I'm still in my knees in the milk. Then a manager comes running up apologizing to me because no one had helped me and I'm about to cry I was so embarrassed.
Becca Gizmo the Squirrel 5 years ago
The Wal-Mart Karen got fussed at for not helping me and I tried to clean up the mess but then the other employees stopped me and got me new milk. People like that woman don't need to be in retail with attitudes like that.
Load More Replies... deanna woods 5 years ago
When I worked in retail, the manager got mad at me for being friendly to the customers.
TamsinElizebethMcCall 2 years ago
as if talking was illegal kinda like how some kids are like "if u talk to sombody ur dating"
Heather Mook 4 years ago
And I will have you permanently banned for harassing staff. Have a good day!!!
Onion rings like to make your breath smelly 5 years ago
makes me so mad i want to extinguish all of them out of the earth and live in uranus
#33
I worked at a coffee shop where a woman came up to me to complain that her lattes weren't filled to the top(I had seen her husband sneak sips on the walk over but I wasnt gonna say that). So I gladly offered to remake both drinks but she said "I dont want you to fix this, I just want you to know Im dissappointed in you"
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
"So I gladly offered to remake both drinks " NOOOO!!! Tell her what you saw and do not reward entitled cows.
deanna woods 5 years ago
I would have said "Since you are not my mother, I don't care that you are disappointed in me."
Michael Hill 5 years ago
I would have walked over to her husband and said his wife is disappointed with him, and explained why.
Sue Sanders 5 years ago
Leaving you with no graceful way out. She earned her "puff up" moment. I see this is so many circumstances.
Aimee Simmons 5 years ago
Depending on your love language and personality type, you may have gotten off easy. As I am a super sensitive person, and my primary love language is Words of Affirmation, THAT wo0uld have made me cry.
Fiona Toms-Yarnton 5 years ago
I wonder why her husband had not stood up and admitted his "crime" when Karen arced up?
#34
This random lady that lived in my neighborhood said I couldn’t bike in front of her house without wearing a helmet because she was afraid of getting sued by my parents if I were to fall off my bike in front of her house or something along those lines. I was like eight. Told her the street wasn’t her property and rode away. Didn’t really look back for a reaction.
Hehehehehehehehe 4 years ago
Yes except for the helmet thing. Please wear a helmet, but still it’s your choice.
Load More Replies...
Gage Franke 5 years ago
True, but she wasn't actually worried about his safety. She was afraid of getting in trouble with his parents.
Load More Replies... 
RaroaRaroa 5 years ago
Yes, she probably read about the woman who slipped on wet leaves outside the hair salon.
Load More Replies... #35
I was standing on a crowded train and a pregnant Karen started screaming at ME because she had nowhere to sit. Me, the person who was standing because there were no seats. She started screaming like it was my fault that there were no seats.
Rick 5 years ago
Visibly pregnant and on a crowded train and nobody bothered to get up for her? Yeah it wasn’t nice that she started screaming, especially at you as it wasn’t your fault, but I understand her frustration at the selfishness.
Viviane 5 years ago
Tabitha, up to you, you're free to refuse to give your seat to a pregnant woman or one with small children. Two reasons I'd rather give up my seat: it's a little hard on my conscience not to do so; I'd rather my eulogy be "she was kind and funny" than "she stood her ground and never let a pregnant woman have her seat" (much as I hate to sacrifice an oxymoron to the saccharine).
Load More Replies... M O'Connell 5 years ago
I had an older woman scream at me on a public bus because there was nowhere for her to sit down. I was literally in the process of standing up for her. I had no problem telling her what an unholy b***h she was (this was long before "Karen" became an entity).
Karen Lyon 5 years ago
I agree with Rick, below. That's not a Karen. That's a tired, pregnant woman at the mercy of her hormones.
Kallyn Desmarais 5 years ago
I can agree to that, but why the lady didn't yell at someone sitting down instead is a little beyond me. The other seating 'victim' isn't at fault and has zero to do with it.
Load More Replies... Richard Brown 5 years ago
You should have gone "I know! What is the world coming to!" She probably wanted a rant and someone to back her up just to cheer her up
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago
Was she blaming you, or just commiserating with you, as someone who was also forced to stand? If commiseration, then not a Karen. If blaming, and yelling at, you because of it, then definitely a Karen—-and unfortunately one who was breeding.
Rael Bludgeon 5 years ago
Pregnant Karens are the worst. I would have told her to look into birth control.
Kayla Frazier 4 years ago
I don't think she was a Karen. Maybe she was just having a rough day, and Hormones are DEFINITELY a factor here.
Load More Replies... Meyer Weinstock 5 years ago
Do tell. There's gotta be more. Age? Race? Gender? Clothing? Appearance? Location? Time-of-day? What? What? This is interesting...
Samuel Zhao 4 years ago
One one hand, she has a right to be mad. On the other hand, why are you screaming at someone who is standing.
#36
I just had a Karen start yelling at me because I parked my car too close to her house. Not on the driveway, literally on the public streets.
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
Yes, it's quite annoying when parked cars do not match the color of your curtains. I know the feeling all too well. /S
Evil Little Thing 5 years ago
Apparently this is a thing to some people. One time I stepped outside my house to wait for imminent food delivery just as a family pulled up and parked in front of my house. They asked me THREE TIMES if I was okay with them parking there, even though I kept saying I was just waiting for food. I mean, it's a public street!
Natalie Scott 5 years ago
My neighbor asked my husband to stop parking in front of our house. Apparently Karen doesn't want to walk on the small grass strip between the curb and the sidewalk because she's like really special, or something and needs two parking spots to avoid it. Ours and hers. When he pointed out he'd have to park around the block ( this was in January, 12 degrees out and he's coming home from 10 hour days) she said well I own my house, you just rent. Needless to say she walks in the grass. And if my husband isn't parked there I am.
Steve Cruz 5 years ago
I was yelled at because I hadn't moved my car in two days -- it was parked on the street where I was house-sitting. I just looked at the woman yelling and walked away. The next day I went to the market in the late morning. I returned and parked in front of the house where I was staying. That same woman came out and yelled that I moved my car just because she had called parking enforcement. Once again, I just looked at her and walked away. "Karens" deserve to be ignored as much as possible.
M Kate McCulloch 5 years ago
We have a karen two doors down who doesn't want any one parking on the other side of the street from her house because, and I quote, "We didn't pay good money for our dream home just so people can park their ugly red cars right where I look when I'm eating breakfast!" I always make sure to go the extra half a block to park right there whenever we need the cars out of the drive way for something. I think she hates me...
Celtic Pirate Queen 5 years ago (edited)
OMG. My ex sister in law! I was hanging out with my brother & this crazy b***h comes in spitting mad because someone had parked ON THE PUBLIC STREET in front of their house, where she usually parked. She didn't realize I was there as she starts screaming at my brother to call the police, she wants that POS towed, blah, blah, blah. I came walking in and was like "What the f**k is WRONG with you, Julie? You don't have any more right to park in that spot than anyone else, you f*****g psychopath". Apparently, this was the first time I got to see "the REAL Julie" as she was always sweetness & light around me otherwise. Turns out, the car belonged to a teacher from the school 1/2 block away. She had parked it there (across the street from her Mothers house!) so it would be safe while she chaperoned a weekend field trip. Never been so glad to lose an in-law.
N Gregory 5 years ago
Where I live, as long as you don't park across someone's driveway entrance (the dropped kerb being a clue), public streets are fair game to all (barring other local restrictions such as yellow/red lines etc.). Had you parked across a driveway entrance though, that's illegal - no need to be a Karen about it, but I would've asked you to move.
btaglln 5 years ago
In my country there are parking spot where you can park for free but you have to put a "disk" with the time you arrived and it is time limited (2 or 3 hours). These spots are very well indicated with the symbol of the disk. A Karen just stormed out off her house to tell me it was her place because it was in front of her house and she was going to call the cops. I knew I was 100% right but the problem was leaving my car alone with the Karen so I reductantly moved
#37
I used to manage a restaurant. I had a lady complain about an issue with a previous order and she wanted something replaced. She didn't have what she wanted to return. She had a receipt dated October of last year. She came in to complain about it in January of this year. She went on to say the manager was a tall white guy that told her that she can replace it. I was the only manager at that time. I'm black. So she threw a tantrum, saying how she was never coming back and was talking about complaining on Yelp. I'm glad I don't have to see her again.
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
Don’t you just love it when the manager calls out someone who’s lying that blatantly—-and a racist to boot—-instead of immediately going to the damn “customer is always right” b******t? Karen thought a black person could never be manager, so of course she’d describe him as white. Idiot doesn’t realize that qualified and capable people come in all shapes, sizes, races, religions, countries of origin, etc etc etc. Personally, all I care about is if they’re good at their jobs and polite to customers—-even when calling them out (you know, like being able to tell them to go to hell in such a way as to make them actually look forward to the trip). The manager in this story was one of those capable people. Karen’s racist assumptions only serve to show her up as a social dinosaur, who well deserves her eventual extinction. Can’t happen fast enough to suit me, though.
Elizabeth Marshalek 5 years ago
I don’t think that she was saying that at all
Load More Replies... liam mckirdy 5 years ago
why do they say i wont come back like its some terrible punishment B**** good i dont want you to come back
#38
I was working at a place that is kind of like Subway but with pizza. Anyway, a family of four came in. Husband, wife, two kids. The wife is immediately mean spirited and insulting. I put the company recommended amount of sausage (about half a handful) on her pizza. Instead of saying, "Oh, can I please get some more sausage?" like a normal adult, she says, "What are you, dumb? That's barely anything! Put more!" I do it with as genuine a smile I can and pretend she didn't just talk to me in that way. She then acts like a b**ch to every single person on the line. The manager saw her the entire time and overheard what she said. Her husband and kids don't say anything (probably scared to say anything to her). She gets to the register and then complains about me and the other two people on the line. Manager defends us and asks her to leave the store and not come back. That, of course, wasn't the end of it. She calls corporate to complain about being banned from the store. The district and regional managers are sent in. The situation is explained. They say we're all clear. That lady was insane. I felt most bad for her kids. Do they think that's normal behavior? Also the husband didn't say a word or make eye contact with us, but I got the vibe from him that he was embarrassed. Poor guy.
deanna woods 5 years ago
Unfortunately, he was probably used to her behaving like that and didn't know what to say.
Sandra Llewelyn 5 years ago
Is it a thing in the US that you can be sacked (fired) because of a single customer complaint? If it is you guys need to seriously unionise and get some workplace protection laws.
Katrin Krueger 3 years ago
Why are American customers entitled to summon managers and bosses? Try this in Germany. It usually is a ridiculous request; trained staff gave you an answer about things they know (THEY are the ones working in the shop) and if you don't like it, soil something, misbehave... they will ask you to leave. Simple as that. You can't require a boss to come out and change a decision s staff member made, especially in retail.
WhatEvenIsLife 5 years ago
Betcha anything she's verbally abusive to her poor husband and kids to the point they're too scared to do anything. That's really sad.
Diane Knight 5 years ago
My mom had a similar story of poor behavior by the wife. But in the end he embarrassed her in front of the others, Never got any farther than the door.
#39
Preparing to return a rental car at Gatwick Airport. It's the type you have to queue to check in and there's no drop off. I'd been standing in the exact same spot for about half an hour. A lady came in, said out loud, "I'm not standing in line," and then sat on a couch off to the side. Fine. My turn was up next, and the lady said, "Excuse me, I was ahead of you. I came in first." I told her she didn't, and I'd literally been standing in the same spot for 45 minutes, including half an hour before she came in. I suspect that because I'm sort of brown (half-Filipino) she thought my English would be subpar, because she seemed surprised when I started speaking in my fluent American English. She said that I wasn't there when she came in. So I told the people in front of me, who I made polite conversation with when I first arrived, "I'm sorry, but I've got a funny question: I was here right after you, wasn't I?" They confirmed it. She sat down with an harumph, saying, "I don't think that's very funny." Then she got up 5 minutes later and literally tried to skip over the entire line to get her car, but the man at the desk wasn't having it, saying, "let me help this gentleman first," while pointing at me.
Celtic Pirate Queen 5 years ago
Many years ago on a saturday morning, my (then) 4 year old daughter & I stopped at the ATM before heading off to run errands. I was about 2 cars behind. There was a car pulled over to the curb (which was well off to my right and absolutely NO WAY in line). I get up to the machine and this older jackass come screeching up behind me insisting that I get out of the way because he was "next". I looked at him and asked "WTF are you talking about? You were parked over at the curb, which by definition means you were not in "line". Starts screaming at me (while I am actually using the ATM, btw). Since my daughter was in the car, I was trying to be polite, but did flip him off as I drove away. Had the same thing happen with some b***h at a deli. She's ranting on her cell phone - way OUT of line - and when I stepped up she started to say she was next, but the guy behind the counter was all "There's a whole line thing going on here. Once you get back in line, I'll be happy to assist you
Steve Cruz 5 years ago
I routinely house-sit in a high-end neighborhood. There is no number machine at the deli, so if there are several people waiting, I ask what order people are in, then I repeat it, ending "you.. then me." Undoubtedly, someone (man Karen or woman Karen) will walk right up and begin ordering. I'm happy to step in and inform the person behind the counter, "Please, this person is next, then him, then me," and I turn to the person who walked right up and say, "then you."
Vinny DaPooh 1 year ago
Well ma'am, you announced you weren't waiting in line. Would you like to join the end of the line now because we help people in their order in line.
#40
I worked at a home improvement store for a while in college. I was a cashier in the garden section. This woman pulls up on the curb in a no parking zone. Grabs her fertilizer and soil. After I check out she goes [friggin] ballistic that I didn’t help load her car and she was going to report me to managers. (Due to company policy, I wasn’t allowed to. Other employees were though). Her face mole was shaking and everything. Over a bag of soil that weighed under ten pounds and a handle of fertilizer.
Alex T 5 years ago
i shouldn't have laughed at this but it was kind of funny imagining that, being aware that slavery is downright wrong and luckily illegal
Load More Replies... 
luzdelmar1 5 years ago
The same thing happened t me when I used to work at the garden register. People would flip if they would have to wait more than 5 minutes for an attendant to help them load a bag of mulch. As a cashier I wasnt allowed to, and these customers would treat me like I was the worst employee ever. Also, we would have this customer come in every few weeks (male, 40s, fit with his teenage son) yeah I want to buy as many bags of mulch as you can fit into my car. Okay, could you get me a guesstimate so I can ring you up? Just load it, count them - and then I ll pay. ( Yeah right, because stores love putting their un paid merchandise in cars.) - Every time he would do this, it would be just short of 40 bags,into one SUV- neither his son nor him would grab a single bag of mulch. Not a single one. They would just stare while the cart boy and I would load them.
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
I'm sorry but that's something you yourself enabled and sustained. No manager in his right mind would allow staff to load stuff that wasn't already paid for into a car.
Load More Replies... #41
At work. I made a tiny mistake filling out a booking sheet for a company: i set the time 15 minutes later than asked by complete accident. Its a 2 second fix (for anybody!) to log back into the account and click on the correct time in the drop-down box. Karen sat next to me and watched me do it. Karen logged in, took a screenshot of it - didnt fix it - then sent said screenshot to my line manager and said nothing to me. After the lecture from my line manager about "paying attention to the details" I turned to her and was like "Why not just say 'Hey dude, you made a mistake' and just fix it?" She doesnt look at me, continues clicking away at her keyboard and says "Yeah, well, if you cant do it right the first time, maybe you need somebody to tell you." O_O I requested to move desks after that.
Helenium 5 years ago
i used to work withsomeone who thought they were a manager but they weren't and would micro manage me and the actual manager who was a lazy cow just let her do her job for her, every tiny thing she would complain about, she even stalked me, followed me home, printed off my face book posts and showed manger so id get called in even though it wasn't work related, glad I left.
Celtic Pirate Queen 5 years ago
A former manager of mine. She hand wrote a memo for me to type to be sent to all store managers (73). She barely graduated high school and was only in management because the company bought her parents store and she was just "passed along". It was embarrassing. Her spelling was atrocious and her grammar laughable, so I fixed it for her. She was furious when I showed her the draft. How dare I presume to correct her, blah, blah .... Okay, I'll redo it exactly as you gave it to me. She smirked like she'd somehow won. I sent it out as she directed. The company president asked to see me. I showed him the handwritten copy she had insisted I copy verbatim. She was informed that from then on all of her written correspondence was to be approved before being distributed. Who's smirking now, b***h?
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
A tattletale management brown-noser like her is probably a total fuckup herself, and did that to divert attention from her own—-worse and unfixable—-mistakes. Shame on the manager who didn’t realize that, and who it seems publicly berated an employee, instead of taking them aside and quietly telling them to be more careful in future (which would’ve been all they’d need to do in a case like this). Don’t worry; every dog has its day. Just be patient. Management changes, and Karen will eventually have a manager who is immune to her brown-nosing and will see her mistakes. Then karma will catch up to her big time.
StillBrian'smom 5 years ago
You're lucky you were able to request a move instead of being stuck with her. Tattletales are everywhere and it's even being encouraged. It's hard to understand their thinking and realize their motives are so sinister
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
Authoritarians rely on the weak ratting out the strong. It, and all the forms of bullying you can think of and then some, are the only ways they can stay in power. However, they don’t realize just how resented they are, and that their days are inevitably numbered. As I said in another comment on this post, every dog has its day, and karma catches up to bite people like this square on their rotten stinking asses.
Load More Replies...
#42
I used to work at a fast food in a theme park when I was 18. Karen held up the line cause she was demanding us to assemble a food for her daughter which we aren’t allowed to do cause we go by a menu. “My daughter can’t have that.” “Well, what can you do for me?” “Do you want her to starve?” Are one of the most irritating lines I ever encountered.
Kathy Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
So Karen, is your arm broken or something? You can’t remove the offending article from your child’s food, if the restaurant employees aren’t allowed to do so? I mean, if they’re not allowed to alter menu items, you just have to improvise. Then you write on the suggestion card that the service was great but, going forward in regards to the food, management (yes, the people responsible for the no menu changes rule) might consider adding a couple menu items for at least some of the more common (and dangerous) food allergies.
Amber odom 5 years ago (edited)
Your kids are not going to starve if they miss one meal. If you have the money to go to Theme parks you are not near starving at any point, just hungry.
Tobias the Tiger 5 years ago
Exactly, even if the theme park states that you shouldn't bring food in, they'll usually make exceptions for special diets. A theme park near me does.
Load More Replies... WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
“Do you want her to starve?” Sorry ma'am, I'm taking the fifth on that one.
#43
When I worked at Harris Teeter (a small grocery store) I had a woman tell me that my nail extensions, which I had gotten for Prom, were not sanitary and that I was unhealthy. I tried to explain, no I wash my hands, I keep them clean, but before I could get a word out she said “I really don’t care.” And wouldn’t let me speak. She then went and complained to my manager because I was “slow”. The order before her was a $300 dollar order, yeah it took a bit. She also had three items and could have gone to self-check out. I had another woman insult my hair and another expect me to open my line for her when I was having a system error on that check out line. Needless to say I quit fairly quickly.
somnomania 5 years ago
ahh harris teeter, i grew up in north carolina, we had one there. good thing you got out though, that sounds horrid.
CatWoman312 5 years ago
I use to work at Harris Teeter. You forgot to mention it’s the Karen of grocery stores. It’s more high end so the customers are usually rich and entitled acting
Katrin Krueger 3 years ago
I actually agree with Karen on this one, most plastic nails (or long natural ones, for that matter) are somewhat unsanitary, plus those women trying to operate a cash register, smacking the screen with their nails, trying to scrape up change is just ridiculous. BUT I would never harrass them, it's their choice and it's my opinion they look ridiculous, so I can take my business elsewhere. (Unless they try to touch me with it - why are hairdressers and nurses allowed to have these???)
WildBerry 5 years ago
No need to have claws. They're unsanitary and look fake. Hope you got rid of them
Cian Thomas McHugh 5 years ago
She keeps them clean. Did you actually read this story?
Load More Replies... #44
I was sitting next to a lady on a plane, and she instigated some small talk before takeoff. When I told her I studied earth science, she proceeded to ask me if there was any real proof that plate tectonics existed, and asked what my Lutheran church thought about that. I'm not religious and there had been literally zero talk of religion at all in the conversation before that haha
Tardis42 5 years ago
Not sure why someone down-voted you. While the woman may have been unpleasant (and I'm not exactly sure she was), she certainly wasn't acting in an entitled way, so as you said, not a Karen.
Load More Replies... Jeremy Goldstein 5 years ago
This sounds like less of a Karen problem and more of a strange encounter
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
Probably she was Lutheran and just assumed that you also belonged to the one true religion. Which is very nice because usually religious people are holier than thou art
Meyer Weinstock 5 years ago
Yes, here in the US there are 5 different Lutheran synods, and some are mainstream, while others are extremely conservative and reactionary. One may have been on one side of the spectrum, and the other was in opposition.
Load More Replies...
#45
I work in a dentist (booking appointments). A mum was bringing her Autistic son to an appointment. I barely remember the phone call but she asked if there was parking, to which I said there is opposite but can get full quick. About 2 weeks later her sons appointment comes up. She doesn't turn up but 10 mins later, calls to say she can't make the appointment, was "promised" parking but was no parking available. Told her she wasn't promised parking and asked where she is. Turns out she drove past the clinic, couldn't find a driving spot, drove to the other side of the city, to park, to call to cancel... The phone call went on along the lines of; "You lied to me" "How dare you do this to my autistic son" "I want to make a complaint as you're discriminating" After a few more cusses, I apologized if she was offended, to which she goes; "That's not an apology" "I want an apology" (Never gave her one) "I want your managers name" "You need to go on a customer support course" I'm pretty chill so I never talk back or raise my voice, but she just went on and on and on...
Karen Lyon 5 years ago
Right? At my school, we have two classes for students with autism, most of them profoundly affected. They are often nonverbal, can be volatile, and occasion, stubborn. This is not a knock, because they are amazing in so many ways (and my admiration for the staff that works with/teaches them is boundless.) It's just to say that I understand why she'd want to park close: convincing a kid with autism to do something can make reasoning with a toddler look like a walk in the park. Why not explain why she needs to park close by then, rather than resorting to that passive/aggressive nonsense?
Load More Replies... somnomania 5 years ago
i feel bad for her son if he really is autistic. that's a horrible kind of person to be around for most anyone on the spectrum, and she sounds like the sort of person who would advocate for autism speaks (which is a horrible organization, please don't give your money to them)
CatWoman312 5 years ago
Best thing about working phones, “one moment I need to place you on hold.” Waits 5 minutes - they usually hang up or cool down in the hold time
#46
I used to work at a coffee shop and this one male Karen gets pissed that we don’t have the small individual sized cartons of white milk. Like, raging. My coworker offered to give him some milk in a cup, but this just wouldn’t do, you see. He continued shouting and hollering about the principal of the matter.
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
Strange that there apparently are so many names for a male Karen.... Ken, Kyle Chad and I even heard the name Brad .
Hunter 5 years ago
MY dads name is brad and his nickname from his friends is chad
Load More Replies...
#47
I worked at McDonalds during the time they switched to child's fries and discontinued the caramel dip in Happy Meals. Everyone was pretty cool with it but one country club looking Karen came in with her daughter and ordered a nugget Happy Meal with three cups of caramel dip, because Braelynn likes to dip her nuggets in it. I apologized and let her know we discontinued to caramel dip, which resulted in an instant melt down. Kid threw herself down on the floor in an absolute screaming tantrum, and Karen was screaming at me that we do have caramel dip and I'm obviously keeping it from her. Then the accusations of me, a 17 year old, purposely trying to starve her daughter. (Honestly, kid coulda benefitted from starving a bit) I've ruined her day, she's a regular customer but she's never coming back, where's my manager, typical Karen stuff. Manager eventually came out and just grabbed a sundae cup and filled it with a couple pumps of caramel, and Karen gave me a smug look and flipped me off.
deanna woods 5 years ago
People should never be rewarded for bad behavior and at some point we have to stop giving in just because they are having a meltdown.
Deborah Orr 5 years ago
Bad move on the managers part... he can be assured that the witch and her mother will be back often to get extra stuff ….
Aimee Simmons 5 years ago
I really hate it when an entitled a*****e gets their way. I grew up the baby of the family with a smug older brother. Ever since then, I HATE smug. I have to pray really hard, and lean heavily on God's grace just to be polite to smug people.
M Kate McCulloch 5 years ago
If I were your manager, hone, I would've escorted her to the door while telling her that if she speaks One. More. Word. she will be arrested for disturbing the peace and harassment.
#48
When I worked in a retail outlet store, I was asked to size order the shoes when Karen used me as her personal shop assistant to grab shoes for her out the back in multiple sizes. She got mad that we didn't sell half sizes so she threw the shoes at me and stormed out of the shop.
Greta Toločkaitė 5 years ago
I go with stilettos upside down, crocs only hurt to look at, not to wear..
Load More Replies...
Randy Klefbeck 5 years ago
When I worked in footwear, I refused to bring out multiple sizes at a time. That is how mis- matches happen, which leads to another blaming session.
#49
We were about to board a plane and all the passengers were organised into two queues. The employees slowly allowed the queue my family and I were in first. This random woman in the other queue noticed she wasn’t going anywhere and was obviously impatient, so she tried to pretty much pick a fight with my mum, complaining to her why she gets to go first and that apparently she has priority and a bunch of other nonsense that couldn’t be further from my mum’s fault.
Deborah Orr 5 years ago
Tell your Mom I'm sorry... fortunately 99% of the world aren't as bat c**p crazy as that lady.....
Barbara Taylor-Colbert 5 years ago
The establishment I work for has a resident that feels, because she pays a lot, she in entitled to get what she wants when she wants it. She threatens peoples job, has gone so far as to say she would call the police on this place. Why? Because she couldnt have the toilet paper she was already hoarding.
Isabella Vasquez 4 years ago
omg that sounds bad and i feel bad for your mom...lol that lady must be crazy or her mind jumped out her brain.
David McKendrick 5 years ago
I've noticed a lot of people want to board first but regardless of where you are in the boarding queue you still get the same assigned seat. Then they are desperate to get off first and you see them still waiting for their checked luggage at the carousel when you stroll through.
What do you think ?
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
Let's just solve that misunderstanding that Karen is a name. It's not. It's an abbreviation. Known Abhorrent Rabid Evil Nutcase.
natie marie 5 years ago
I am more and more repulsed by the term "Karen" to mean a narrow minded racist woman. Karen is someones name, and most of them are not "Karens". Just tell it like it is. A Racist woman didn't want a black contractor.
deanna woods 5 years ago
Those were infuriating to read because it is a shame that people behave like this. Too many think that if they throw a tantrum that they will get their way and it's time for society to stop letting them believe this.
Carrie de Luka 5 years ago
That does seem to be more of a US thing - the letting people get away with it I mean. There isn't the same belief that the 'customer is always right' outside the US. You do still get customers with a dreadful attitude, of course, but there isn't the expectation that staff put up with it. As customers are generally well aware of that there are far fewer people trying it on. I ran an office with staff that took calls from the public and I made it very clear that they didn't have to tolerate any rudeness - tell the customer that if they continue to be rude they'll hang up and then absolutely follow through if need be.
Load More Replies...
kalastaja774 5 years ago
I think we should drop this Karen-thing. I mean it was fun while it lasted but it's getting out of hand. Obviously if people act like a******s, by all means do tell, but please call them something non-Kareny.
Isa 5 years ago
I have been very lucky because I never got a Karen on my way...Maybe it's an American thing? I have been living in the Netherlands for almost 20 years and not even once...and In Portugal I used to work in retail and...I can't remember to get any kind of this Karens...Or maybe I am to distracted for my own good....
Light Fairy 5 years ago
Good for you...It could be an American thing, the customer over there is spoiled unlike in Europe, where most customers are intimidated, too scared to complain, even when they are treated badly.
Load More Replies...
Foxxy (The Original) 5 years ago
I used to work in a $2 shop where everything was $2 or under. Anyway this women comes through the checkout and the item she wanted to purchase scanned at 50c, well when I told her she blew a fuse. She had a go at me saying “everything is supposed to be $2 not 50c yaddi yadda” I told her that she is getting it cheaper so what is the problem. She demanded I call my manager so I did, she started going on about how we are supposed to be selling things for $2 and that it is false advertising and shouldn’t be allowed. He tries explaining that the item was on special and that he didn’t name the shop etc. In the end he just changed the cost of the item from 50c to $2, we both looked at each other and did the biggest eye roll.
H Edwards 5 years ago
The most 'Karen' thing that happened to me was actually from a man. I was working in a busy cafe with table service. A guy had ordered a cappuccino, and another server had taken it to his table. We were all rushed off our feet because it was lunch time. As I was going to the kitchen to pick up a food order, he stopped me and demanded that I take his cappuccino back and remove the foam from the top. I mean, why even order a cappuccino? And if the foam bothers you that much, take it off yourself with the spoon. I even asked to confirm that we hadn't given him the wrong drink, but no. He just wanted his cappuccino with no foam.
Gage Franke 5 years ago
A karen who is a man? I think you call them "Ken"
Load More Replies...
Craig Silberman 5 years ago
This goes waaaaaaaay back to my second job in high school, working at a pharmacy. A woman called in and wanted to buy a Timex watch from our counter display. Not sure how they knew which one she wanted. When she arrived to pick it up, she took one look and put it back on the counter, angrily telling my coworkers: "It's not set. Call me when it's set."
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
Let's just solve that misunderstanding that Karen is a name. It's not. It's an abbreviation. Known Abhorrent Rabid Evil Nutcase.
natie marie 5 years ago
I am more and more repulsed by the term "Karen" to mean a narrow minded racist woman. Karen is someones name, and most of them are not "Karens". Just tell it like it is. A Racist woman didn't want a black contractor.
deanna woods 5 years ago
Those were infuriating to read because it is a shame that people behave like this. Too many think that if they throw a tantrum that they will get their way and it's time for society to stop letting them believe this.
Carrie de Luka 5 years ago
That does seem to be more of a US thing - the letting people get away with it I mean. There isn't the same belief that the 'customer is always right' outside the US. You do still get customers with a dreadful attitude, of course, but there isn't the expectation that staff put up with it. As customers are generally well aware of that there are far fewer people trying it on. I ran an office with staff that took calls from the public and I made it very clear that they didn't have to tolerate any rudeness - tell the customer that if they continue to be rude they'll hang up and then absolutely follow through if need be.
Load More Replies... kalastaja774 5 years ago
I think we should drop this Karen-thing. I mean it was fun while it lasted but it's getting out of hand. Obviously if people act like a******s, by all means do tell, but please call them something non-Kareny.
Isa 5 years ago
I have been very lucky because I never got a Karen on my way...Maybe it's an American thing? I have been living in the Netherlands for almost 20 years and not even once...and In Portugal I used to work in retail and...I can't remember to get any kind of this Karens...Or maybe I am to distracted for my own good....
Light Fairy 5 years ago
Good for you...It could be an American thing, the customer over there is spoiled unlike in Europe, where most customers are intimidated, too scared to complain, even when they are treated badly.
Load More Replies... Foxxy (The Original) 5 years ago
I used to work in a $2 shop where everything was $2 or under. Anyway this women comes through the checkout and the item she wanted to purchase scanned at 50c, well when I told her she blew a fuse. She had a go at me saying “everything is supposed to be $2 not 50c yaddi yadda” I told her that she is getting it cheaper so what is the problem. She demanded I call my manager so I did, she started going on about how we are supposed to be selling things for $2 and that it is false advertising and shouldn’t be allowed. He tries explaining that the item was on special and that he didn’t name the shop etc. In the end he just changed the cost of the item from 50c to $2, we both looked at each other and did the biggest eye roll.
H Edwards 5 years ago
The most 'Karen' thing that happened to me was actually from a man. I was working in a busy cafe with table service. A guy had ordered a cappuccino, and another server had taken it to his table. We were all rushed off our feet because it was lunch time. As I was going to the kitchen to pick up a food order, he stopped me and demanded that I take his cappuccino back and remove the foam from the top. I mean, why even order a cappuccino? And if the foam bothers you that much, take it off yourself with the spoon. I even asked to confirm that we hadn't given him the wrong drink, but no. He just wanted his cappuccino with no foam.
Gage Franke 5 years ago
A karen who is a man? I think you call them "Ken"
Load More Replies... Craig Silberman 5 years ago
This goes waaaaaaaay back to my second job in high school, working at a pharmacy. A woman called in and wanted to buy a Timex watch from our counter display. Not sure how they knew which one she wanted. When she arrived to pick it up, she took one look and put it back on the counter, angrily telling my coworkers: "It's not set. Call me when it's set."
You May Like 46 People Who Had The Misfortune Of Crossing Paths With Entitled Karens Woman Refuses To Apologize After Getting Guy’s Car Towed Without Warning, He Gets Ice-Cold Revenge
Indrė Lukošiūtė
Monika Pašukonytė
Related on Bored Panda
