Karens seem to always know exactly when to strike. Once we experience Karens, we tend to want to block the entire experience from our memories just to keep some sort of peace of mind. For this Reddit user, recent events triggered their memories, flooding the Karen experience from their darkest part of the mind to the front. And this Karen really figures out a way to lose it all.
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Some of us are fortunate enough to block out the bad memories of working in restaurants. Others forget about them until recent events trigger some flashbacks. Regardless, working in a restaurant or in retail at all is a nightmare itself. For our OP, a public freak out they recently witnessed reminded them instantly of something that happened when they were a hostess in their early 20s at a steak house.
Hostessing may not mean you’re serving the worst customer all night, but that doesn’t mean you have to deal with them any less. At OP’s steak house, a family of 4 came in and once OP sat them, the Mom became a total Karen almost instantly. She wanted to move to an area where absolutely no tables were open. Even though, there were plenty of open tables in another section. OP could tell she was in for a long night already.
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“I told her she could wait back up front and we’d seat her when one of the tables opened.” OP recalls, “but she insisted on standing right by the bus station so she had a view of the people sitting in her desired area. She wanted first pick.”
The four of them were completely in the way of both guests and servers but Karen did not even care, she was too busy staring daggers at people eating. Not only was this a hazard for the kitchen staff, but the family was blocking the pathway for customers. What if there was an emergency? They’d all have to trample through Karen and her family. Which honestly? Could have been quite the sight to see. Anyway, Karen was making everyone uncomfortable with her “Karen Staring”. OP saw the discomfort of everyone in the restaurant and went to the manager, who tried to move her but to no avail. Finally, they decided to just let them stay put because they noticed a couple in a booth packaging up their food.
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“I checked in a few minutes later to see if that table had left yet and was dismayed to see they had ordered dessert and coffee.” OP cringed. “Karen was still standing there, watching them. The kids were bored and running up and down the wheelchair ramp.”
After that, OP asked Karen again to move back down to the waiting area as she was blocking servers. OP told Karen her kids were an accident waiting to happen. Karen loudly asked when her table would be ready and pointed right at the couple sipping their coffee. Knowing that Karen and our OP were talking about them, the couple looked at them and smiled. Suddenly it all made sense.
“It hit me then that they were not leaving on purpose.” OP facepalmed. “Karen realized it as well because she got very angry. She yelled that they were holding her booth hostage and we should kick them out.”
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OP told her the restaurant would not ask anyone to leave until they were ready. Then the brave OP watched in horror as the woman approached the couple. It went a little something like this:
Karen: ‘You’re done here, this is my table now. Pay the bill and go.’
Couple (smiling sweetly): ‘We just got our coffee and dessert.’
Karen: ‘THEN TAKE IT TO GO!! WE ARE HUNGRY AND YOU’RE IN OUR BOOTH!’
Couple: ‘This is our booth. It’s not yours until we leave.’
Karen then raged insults at them until the manager came rushing up to help. He tried to intervene but could not be heard over her screaming about her starving children. Meanwhile, the couple kept their cool the whole time, nibbling their dessert and stirring their coffee at a sloths speed. Karen, on the other hand completely lost her cool. The manager had enough and told Karen to get out.
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“She was utterly FLOORED that we were asking her to go and not the couple!” OP stated. But what Karen did next really shocked everyone.
In a fit of pure Kareness, she picked up an empty dessert plate from their table and chucked it across the room where it hit a wall and smashed into pieces. The plate shattering shocked everyone. Truly, this Karen had become completely unhinged. There was nothing the staff could do to stop her at this point. The manager screamed for someone to call 911.
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“I remember trying to hide my smile from the surrounding people,” OP recalls. “What adult acts like this? This woman was in her 40s! There were a ton of open booths too, just not in the area she wanted.” It would be something to see a 40-year-old woman completely lose her temper in a family restaurant so much so that she throws a dessert plate across the room and breaks it. That’s a hard smile to hide, OP!
Karen’s husband miraculously appeared, grabbed her by the sleeve, and started pulling. She let him lead her towards the front door as she continued to yell insults at the staff. She called the manager a loser and mocked his career choice. She told our OP she was “a plain nothing going nowhere” and “absolutely worthless” and when they’d gone, OP went into the back for a while to hide and get away from people. When she returned, the server of the couple ran up to her.
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The server mentioned that the couple left but they wanted to talk to the OP. The couple felt so bad about how that woman acted. They saw her watching them and knew she was being so rude, so they decided to take their time to mess with her. They didn’t think she’d do any of that! The couple had waited a few minutes to talk to the OP but they thought she went home and asked their server to give her something as an apology.
Then he handed our OP a $100 bill.
What a great way to end a crazy night! Surely OP had no idea what she was in for when she started her shift. Does anyone in retail, though? You never truly know what kind of people will be walking through the door of your store or restaurant and what kind of demands they will be making. Our OP handled this situation the best way possible and it ended with her getting an incredible tip from the couple who may have also contributed to her long night. That’s one way to make a disastrous night much better. Way to go, dessert couple, way to go. Hopefully, no one encounters this Karen, straight from the depths of our retail nightmares, ever again. After our OP posted, commenters mentioned that they could not believe people like this Karen and her family exist. They were quick to stand up for the couple and the OP.
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“Let’s be clear: this is not the fault of the couple. This is KAREN’S fault, 100%.” A fellow Reddit commenter chimed in, “the best course of action with Karen is to NEVER give her what she wants despite her satanic whining because to give in to Karen is to only encourage the horrible behavior. You’re doing society a favor when you deny Karen what she wants. The couple are heroes and should be given medals!”
“If I were one of the couples, I would do exactly what they did,” another mentioned. “You want to be a total Karen about the table I am currently using? Let’s have another look at the menu.”
But this commenter had their own plan of attack in mind:
“I’d be taking turns going out to the car and smoking to get the munchies going. Then I’d be hungry again AND moving at the speed of a sloth. Within me lies the capacity to become Anti-Karen–a power mainly used against Karens– and there’s a good chance I would’ve had regular Karen fleeing in tears. The server would be saved from an obnoxious table. The tip given to the server from me would more than makeup for the inconvenience and misery regular Karen spreads everywhere she goes.
I’ve not had to use this power often and save it for special occasions when regular Karen’s jack their power up a notch, as this one did. Someone needs to put them in their place, yet so few are willing (or able) to be that someone. I have no cares to give and have been/will be the champion defender for Karen victims. You’re welcome. However, I don’t do it solely for selfless reasons; it’s funny as heck to get them flipping out over stupid stuff, knowing there will be no serious repercussions for doing so. What’s Karen going to do? Beat me up? Good luck to her and I’ll send her flowers in the hospital. It’s too bad more people don’t stand up to these types of people, especially to rescue victims who can’t out of fear of losing their jobs. I bet the Karen panic would die down if more people made them miserable instead of caving to their demands.”