First, what is a "Karen"?
Basically, it's the type of person who demands to speak to the manager, after you politely tell them "no, ma'am" to a flagrantly unreasonable demand. It's a person who appears/comes across as excessively entitled, or excessively demanding, who approaches interactions with others from a self-centered view. For example, my "Karen" could plainly see that I was actively involved with helping another customer, yet demanded in the middle of all this, interrupting, that I account to her why she had to wait so long. My response was clear, and spoken in a tone I remember as neutral, apologizing to her for being understaffed and promised her she was next. At this point, she started with her Karen act, accusing me of all sorts of wicked characteristics. While I was helping another customer! As her rant continued, it became difficult to talk with my good customer, who thankfully did not lose her patience as I tried to stem off this encounter with the overly-demanding, entitled customer. Nothing worked to calm her down, and I clearly remember the self-satisfied smirk on her face when I tried to diplomatically tell her it wasn't fair to the customer I was helping at the time. When I realized she was talking over me, ignoring everything, I had to make a decision-how to best serve the customer in front of me, the "good" one-so I tried calling security (which we do not have, per se. My employer does not hire security guards). Karen's infantile rant was affecting the other customer in front of me, effectively making it impossible to communicate with her. This is a crisis of service: you are trying to serve as best you can to serve the person in front of you, but the obnoxious entitled customer is making this nearly impossible. Even the good customer had to stop what she was doing with me, and asked the Karen to please be patient. What did I do? Did I handle the situation professionally, or was I not? She started to pick apart the things I told her, always from a "me, me, me" perspective. I set my mind to focus, ignoring her as best as I could, and managed to help my customer and send her away happy-and all the while, Karen was filming me and my customer on her phone-with that same smug look on her face, loudly demanding the manager (immediately!). As I've said, the real customers were served well and eventually management showed up and attempted to mollify the Karen (still filming, warning of dire social media consequences for telling her no), and the incident-about fifteen minutes-ended and the day went on. My good customer and some of my co-workers actually expressed their support for how I handled it.
Why do I remember this so clearly and even vividly? One simple reason is situations like this force my employer to ask themselves if I am suitable to be employed there. No one wants a waiter who is rude to customers, no one wants a cashier who is abrupt and dismissive of customers, etc. Understandable, but in this case, I was not approached by management afterwards. So I feared for my job a bit, because that's what happens when you lose your composure on a customer, and I admit, I almost did, and probably gave out body language and tone to this effect. Thankfully, I became aware of my rising internal temperature right away, and handled it the best I could. Final outcome: 1. The good customer was sent away happy; 2. the Karen was not; 3. I am sick to my soul with a horrible pity and sorrow for these people, these entitled, malignantly narcissistic individuals who act precisely like infants and small children.
What happened to them that their personal growth was halted in early childhood? I have experienced what it looks like when a young child does not get his way: if you try to explain why you are saying "no", they will put their hands over their ears, or try to not hear you by screaming or making loud noises over and over again. This is what you looked like to me, Karen, and to everyone else present at the time. Are your children ashamed of you? Don't you find your alienation from others distressful? Listen, I know who you are, because I've been just like you, believing that I am the legendary center of the Universe and that I have rights to the unearned. Nothing mattered but me but me (and I had an ideology to back it up), and as it happened, that didn't work out very well.
Karen, I am required to forgive you for this, and so I will do it. But if the canon of my service philosophy is to help everyone, regardless of anything at all, except one: those who are deliberately evil, those whose sense of superiority and entitlement negatively affects others, I will not serve you. In fact, I'd send you out the door on your ear, never to return. No, on second thought, because that's like putting problems you can't solve on other people. Instead, I will learn how to help you. You need it, although you don't know it yet.
