Work

17 managers share their worst experience with an entitled 'Karen' customer.

The name &quot;Karen&quot; has become synonymous with a certain kind of entitled restaurant/retail customer. Naturally, nobody is more familiar with &quot;Karens&quot; than people who work in the service industry, especially if they&#39;re the manager. So someone asked managers of Reddit: &quot;What is a Karen experience like ? What was your worst experience?&quot;These 17 managers and service industry workers share stories of their worst encounters with entitled customers-from-Hell:1.) From netrunui: I loved Karens when I was managing. Being able to say &quot;I am the manager&quot; followed soon by &quot;Sorry, that&#39;s company policy&quot; always results in a flustered Karen leaving in a huff and a much relieved crew. 2.) From woahhhmom8: Happened before I became a manager, but once while I was serving at Steak &#39;n Shake, customer had a coupon for a burger, fries and a shake for $x.xx, can&#39;t remember the price anymore. Anyway, on the coupon it specifically stated that cheese on the burger was $0.39 up charge, although it did have a picture of a burger with cheese on it. Lady THREW A FIT in the dining room that I was treating her unfairly, it was false advertising, etc. etc.  I told her I agree it&#39;s false advertising with the picture, but the text specifically states the up charge and unfortunately I can&#39;t do anything about it. The lady at the next table over heard everything and literally got up and put $0.50 on the table to cover it and said something to the effect of &quot;I&#39;ll pay for your damn cheese if you just shut up.&quot; This pissed the cheese lady off even more. My manager obviously sensed the issue and came out. Took the cheese up charge of the bill. Like WTF Karen. This next &quot;Karen&quot; may be a b*tch. But so is karma.3.) From wrrrdgrrrl: I was the only person on shift, which made me the de facto manager. Five minutes before closing, a woman comes in and is sooo angry that we don&#39;t have any decaf. She demands to speak to the manager. I tell her that&#39;s me because I&#39;m the only one here, and the coffee pots are cleaned for the night because it&#39;s five minutes to close. No, I&#39;m sorry, I can&#39;t make another pot just for her. There&#39;s another place around the corner.  She screams at me, tells me she&#39;s going to &quot;find a real manager and get my slut ass fired,&quot; throws half a cup of cappuccino machine sludge at me, and starts to look like she&#39;s gonna jump the counter. I&#39;m holding a hammer under the counter thinking &quot;don&#39;t do it, don&#39;t do it.&quot;  I pick up the phone like I&#39;m going to call the cops. She leaves. I lock the door. She COMES BACK AND RUNS FACEFIRST INTO THE GLASS DOOR. LIKE A BIRD. 4.) From garycarroll: Bestest of the best interactions I ever had. Karen griped about not wanting to pay the price for the services performed on her computer, which was exactly the price quoted when she dropped it off and which she had signed for. She demanded to speak to the service manager. I called him from the back.  Service manager listened to her spiel as to how she should get a lower price because [irrelevant, pea-brained reason]. Service manager made eye contact with me over her shoulder; I did not react, he said no, price quoted was the price that would be charged. She said that was unacceptable, and she would be complaining to the owner, who was a good friend.  Service manager observed that he was evidently not that good a friend, since that he (me) was the person she was originally speaking with when she asked for the service manager. Her face was glorious, and made the whole thing worthwhile! Of course, #notallkarens are entitled brats with mullet haircuts. But whether they&#39;re named Karen, or Sharon, or Suzie, or Greg, what these people have in common is a very strong desire to speak to the manager to air out their petty grievances, and to throw a tantrum when they don&#39;t get what they want.5.) From PmMeFemdomHentai: I was working at a public pool in my town, and the rules are that you can&#39;t bring outside food or drinks into the pool. This rule didn&#39;t please Karen, who was very eager to let me know that she had just spent 12 DOLLARS on this coffee from STARBUCKS. She argues with me by saying that the public pool in the next town over allows it. I keep saying the same rehearsed response, that its our policy that outside food and drinks can&#39;t come in the pool. Anyways she dumped the coffee onto our computer and I called the police. 6.) From myacheivement: Work at a vacuum repair shop. People don&#39;t pay attention to their vacuum cleaners as much as you&#39;d think lol I cant tell you how many times someone comes to pick up their vacuum and says &quot;oh this one isn&#39;t mine&quot; or &quot;mine didnt have scratches down the side&quot;  I can tell you it is, and it came in with all those scratches on the side. After the first 2 times it happened to me we started taking pictures of the unit with serial numbers and customer info, send them home with the serial number and require them to bring it back for pick up. Despite the evidence, I&#39;ve had a lady close to tears because we didn&#39;t have her vacuum. Even with the pictures we had of it at drop off, her information, the matching serial numbers.  Sure it&#39;s a big conspiracy we just love taking in vacuums and switching all the information around because its fun. People need to pay more attention. 7.) From availablepoet: I was the assistant manager at a large women&#39;s clothing store and we had a woman come in with some items and a gift receipt. Store policy is that item returns with a gift receipt are not given back cash, they are given gift cards. Madness ensues. Karen gets so upset that she is forced to leave and on her way out she slams the glass door and it shatters. Since we had her information because she left her receipt, she was sent a bill for the door. 8.) From midnight_rebirth: Not a manager, but I used to work in a call center and had plenty of Karens who wanted to talk to someone above me because they thought the world existed to cater to them. I always went back into their account to review the notes to see what was done. 9 out of 10 times they were given whatever they wanted even if it wasn&#39;t justified. Which is so f**king stupid&mdash;enabling these people&#39;s behavior is what&#39;s got them feeling so entitled in the first place.  I once told a woman if she didn&#39;t pay for her services, after 60 days they&#39;d be interrupted. She responded with &quot;Excuse me? I&#39;m a valued customer and that is not how I will be treated.&quot; or something to that effect. F**king ridiculous. 9.) From AnxiousMom4: I love the ones who seem to think extra food is free. Your not going to go anywhere and get extra meat/queso/ guacamole etc for free. I had a couple come in got a salad. They asked for extra meat, then queso then even more queso. I told them they would be charged for each scoop. She flipped out, she started cussing at me about how it&rsquo;s wrong she shouldn&rsquo;t have to pay for more then one, why must we be so expensive the other location does not do this.  I gave her a big smile and let her know I am the general manager of that said store and help here when needed. So no you do not get that treatment there sorry extra food is not free. She then started screaming for corporate number and the store owner. I told her I couldn&rsquo;t give out people&rsquo;s private numbers and told her to leave and she is now banned from both stores. She did put in a compliant and guess who sees them and makes return calls? Me, she hung up on me when I called. 10.) From gutterpeach: This was 30 years ago and there was literally no way I could help this woman. She left while yelling that she hoped my dog died. 11.) From [deleted]: I used to work as a manager at a sandwich shop. Our policy for any pick up orders was to not cook their fries until the customer came in so that they have fresh fries. This is always told to the customer on the phone. I had this one bitch call in her order and ask me if I could cook the fries immediately so that she didn&rsquo;t have to wait them. I told her I couldn&rsquo;t do that because if she doesn&rsquo;t come in to pick her order up within about 5 min, those fries will be soggy and cold. She seemed to understand this.  She ends up showing up about 45 min after she placed the order and proceeded to yell at me because her fries weren&rsquo;t ready. I explained to her that if I had cooked her fries when she placed the order that they would be very cold and soggy because she took 45 min to come pick her order up. She didn&rsquo;t care. She continued to yell at me about how she&rsquo;s a nurse and has no time to wait for the fries. I told her oh well, you either need to wait for them to cook (which takes literally 2 mins to cook) or leave. She waited. What a bitch. 12.) From MetaGigaZ: Not a manager, but a kitchen chef in a pizzeria. We occasionally get this lady that orders a pizza then tries to complain about it in order to get it for free. We always deny her and she always with threatens to give us a bad review of Yelp or bitches to whoever is unfortunate enough to be on the phone with her. One time, she ordered a pizza with gluten free crust and complained that the crust was &ldquo;too doughy&rdquo;, so she demanded it to be free.  Gluten free crusts are as crispy as a cracker when they come out of the oven and are almost the same while we make it. Even if someone didn&rsquo;t bake it in the oven beforehand for whatever reason, it&rsquo;s virtually impossible for it to be doughy. For about a week, all of us would tell each other, &ldquo;Make sure that it isn&rsquo;t too doughy&rdquo; as a joke when we had to make gluten free pizzas. 13.) From Chozlit: One of my managers had to explain to a Karen, during a lunch rush, why she couldn&#39;t take the onion out of the French onion soup. 14.) From [deleted]: I&#39;m not in retail anymore, but I was managing a popular mid range handbag store. Think &quot;typical Karen bag&quot;, about $200-400. Anyway, most customers were fantastic. This one woman was this Shrek-looking large redheaded lady who stomped in and demanded that we repair her 20 year old bag for FREE... and if we couldn&#39;t do that, she demanded that we exchange this old ratty smelly 20 year old bag for a brand new one for her.  Recently policy changes had resulted in new prices for this service, but free repairs had about a 1 year warranty on a new bag... not a 20 year old one. I tell her as such. I was pretty young to have had the role I did so she, dissatisfied with my answer, asked to speak to a manager. I told her I&#39;m the manager and she began turning as red as her hair.  She screamed and yelled about how she&#39;ll call corporate and never shop here again!! Well, that sounds like a real loss, losing a customer that is too cheap to repair a 20 year old bag and hasn&#39;t bought new from us in just as long. I give her my best sh*t eating grin and say &quot;im so sorry, thats just the policy.&quot; She demands corporate&#39;s number. I give her the customer service line that you can find on Google, unbeknownst to her.  She huffs away, forgetting her keys on the counter. She&#39;s halfway out and she remembers, turns around, red as a beet, huffs in my smiling face and snatches the keys off the counter. It was hilarious. 15.) From Zoomwafflez: Wasn&#39;t the manager but worked at an REI for a while. One incident comes to mind though, involving an ex marine who worked at our store fixing bikes. He had to run to the back to grab a part and as he was going back to the bike shop on the other side of the store a customer who was already being pretty loud and aggressive with everyone decided to grab my coworker by the arm very aggressively and try spin him around to face him.  Marine training kicked in and the next thing I know angry customer man is laying in the remains of a display about 8 feet away. Of course he jumps up screaming and yelling that he&#39;s going sue us and get my coworker fired, and we&#39;re all going to jail yada yada yada.  Manager comes out, heard the story, looks at the security footage, and tells the customer he is never allowed to grab employees like that, he&#39;s welcome to call the cops if he would like because she&#39;s willing to press charges against him for assault, and he was banned from our store. No one at the store was upset about losing that customer, he was kind of notorious for being a jerk and constantly trying to abuse our return policy. 16.) From AnxiousMom4: I love the ones who seem to think extra food is free. Your not going to go anywhere and get extra meat/queso/ guacamole etc for free. I had a couple come in got a salad. They asked for extra meat, then queso then even more queso. I told them they would be charged for each scoop. She flipped out, she started cussing at me about how it&rsquo;s wrong she shouldn&rsquo;t have to pay for more then one, why must we be so expensive the other location does not do this.  I gave her a big smile and let her know I am the general manager of that said store and help here when needed. So no you do not get that treatment there sorry extra food is not free. She then started screaming for corporate number and the store owner. I told her I couldn&rsquo;t give out people&rsquo;s private numbers and told her to leave and she is now banned from both stores. She did put in a compliant and guess who sees them and makes return calls? Me, she hung up on me when I called. Karens also love to call the police. So it&#39;s karmic justice when they get the police called on them!17.) From Lily_Loud_Cat: The staff did not know it at the time, but our ketchup dispenser was empty. A boy, aged 10&#39;ish, was just smashing down on the handle trying to get ketchup, but none was being dispensed. A staff member noticed the kid smashing the ketchup dispenser, so I went out to see what was going on. &quot;Oh, the ketchup is empty. I&#39;ll get a new bag from the kitchen. Give me two minutes and I&#39;ll be right back with some new ketchup.&quot;  I remove the empty container, take it back to the kitchen, clean the dispenser and place in a new bag. Take it out to the condiment stand and get met by a Karen. K: &quot;WHY DID YOU TAKE THE KETCHUP AWAY FROM MY SON?! Me: &quot;The ketchup was empty, so I replaced the bag.&quot;  K: &quot;WHY DID YOU TAKE THE KETCHUP AWAY?! GO GET YOUR MANAGER!&quot; Me: &quot;uhhh, okay. One minute.&quot; I walk about two meters, turn around, and introduce myself as the manager.  K: &quot;WHY DID YOU TAKE THE KETCHUP AWAY FROM MY SON?! Me: &quot;Ma&#39;am, please lower your voice. The ketchup was empty. I explained to your son that I needed to take it back to the kitchen to refill it.&quot; K: &quot;NO YOU DIDN&#39;T! I WAS STANDING HERE THE WHOLE TIME. YOU TOOK THE KETCHUP AWAY FROM MY SON!&quot;  Me: &quot;Ma&#39;am, please lower your voice. You were not with your son. He was here alone, trying to get ketchup, which was empty.&quot; K: &quot;DON&#39;T YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO! DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU&#39;RE DEALING WITH?!&quot; Me: &quot;Nope. Ma&#39;am, please get your belongings and leave this establishment.&quot;  K: &quot;I WILL NOT LEAVE THIS ESTABLISHMENT! I AM GOING TO BURN THIS PLACE DOWN!&quot; *Police are called* Karen gives a statement. Police question me; I give a statement. Karen told the police that I struck her son, pushed him out of the way, and moved the ketchup to an area in which her son couldn&#39;t get access to the ketchup.  I disputed the claim and offered to provide video evidence (with sound) of what actually happened. Police watch the video once, thank me, and walk out to the eating area. Officer: &quot;Ma&#39;am, does your son has someone who can look after him?&quot; K: &quot;HIS FATHER IS AT WORK RIGHT NOW!&quot;  Officer: &quot;Okay. You&#39;re being placed under arrest for making threats and a false police report.&quot; *More yelling, threats, and now tears* In the end, she was charged with making the false police report (but not the threats), and received a lifetime ban from not just our restaurant, but the entire mall our restaurant was located in. I felt kinda bad. Not for the Karen, but for her son. He has to live with that... Thoughts and prayers for that boy, and all children of &quot;Karens,&quot; and anyone who works in food or customer service. 32 of the funniest posts about entitlement and self-righteousness. 

The name &quot;Karen&quot; has become synonymous with a certain kind of entitled restaurant/retail customer. Naturally, nobody is more familiar with &quot;Karens&quot; than people who work in the service industry, especially if they&#39;re...