‘Karen’ is just a name to many people, but on the Internet, the name stands for much more. A popular meme has Karen as a middle-aged white woman with an asymmetrical bob who always wants to speak to the manager. She’s entitled, ignorant, and even racist.
The meme has become more popular, but its meaning has become confused. Hopefully these stories help.
A redditor called ghostofgenerayburn asked people to share the most ‘Karen’ things they’ve experienced. The post received over 1,500 comments.
Here come the men in black
“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”
Cuffing Karen
“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.’
What a cold response
“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.”
Expired attitude
“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.”
Doctor Karen no more
“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.”
Entitled much
“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.”
Make the car faster
“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”
Arigato go-away
“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.”
Karen got un-Karened
“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.”
Hope it gave her diarrhea
“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.”
Karen felt corny
“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.”
Half a brain too
“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.”
Lift heavier
“That I needed to leave the gym because I made her son feel like only fat people go to the gym.”
Building strong women unlike Karen
“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.”
Give her more onions
“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.”
Blood can wait apparently
“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.”
She needs a chill pill
“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…”
Nice to be assaulted according to her
“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.”
Horrible lady
“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.”
Hope her car got stuck
“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.”
Hope it upset her stomach
“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.”
More holes make it more edible
“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.”
How to eliminate Karen
“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.”
McFurious over nothing
“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.”
Karen had one too many shots
“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.”
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