Working a service job sucks mostly because of the customers who turn on their Karen mode and think that you're not only incompetent, but also a bad person in general. To add to that, managers aren’t that nice either and will team up with the Karen, making a regular employee look bad and feel unappreciated for sticking to the company’s or business’ policies.
Redditor Kcx- was caught up in such a situation and handled it very cleverly by maliciously complying and causing chaos at the same time, which led to the manager being fired for giving stupid orders.
More info: Reddit
An employee, annoyed with their manager, obeyed his stupid order and ended up facing the consequences himself
Image credits: Susanne Nilsson (not the actual image)
The Original Poster (OP) is a Canadian who had a job at a popular cafe in the center of a big city. Bored Panda reached out to the Reddit user and we found out her name is Isabelle and she is 16 years old. She used to work at the cafe 3 years ago and she remembers that they would have an influx of customers during rush hour, seeing that it was a convenient place to come for those spending time in the city. But when a lot of people come, it is mathematically probable that a Karen will appear as well.
When this story took place, the OP was finishing her training, which usually takes up to 3 months in Canada, so she was fairly new at the job.
The OP used to work in a cafe in the middle of the city, so it would get quite busy
Image credits: u/Kcx-
But she were very familiar with the manager Steve and his way of working, which was changing his mind when the employees were halfway through the task; in general, he didn’t have a very lovable personality.
Unfortunately, he had to become a manager because the cafe was short on staff and we can only assume that Steve, with his experience, was the closest person to having the competence to execute manager duties.
One time, a Karen came in asking for limited-edition muffins and when she didn't get them, she asked for a manager
Image credits: u/Kcx-
One day, Kcx- was working on the morning shift and not long after they opened, a Karen mom came in with her children wanting some muffins. The OP described her the ones they had, but it seemed that the Karen already knew what she wanted before she came in, and that was the limited edition ones.
The problem was that because they were limited edition, the cafe didn’t make them anymore. Isabelle told us "The flavor was actually a special one that we tried for the first time that year and since we never got any other afterwards I actually forgot what it was made of. It was a Christmas themed muffin and the Karen asked for one in March, thus explaining why we didn’t have any left in stock."
It seems that the Karen was convinced they still had more put away somewhere since December and was not taking ‘no’ for an answer. Surely enough, she asked for the manager, screaming with all her lung capacity.
The manager, Steve, came and ordered the OP to find the muffins even though they had just told him there were no more left
Image credits: u/Kcx-
But as expected, Steve was of no help at all and asked the OP to find the muffins even though she had just said they were limited edition, which, by definition, means that when they run out, there are none left and they are not produced further.
Steve also raised his voice and, wanting to seem very helpful to the Karen, ordered the OP to find the muffins and not come back without them even if it meant making the whole staff search for them.
Image credits: yisris (not the actual image)
Steve even suggested asking for help from other workers, but the OP wasn't allowed to resume work until the customer had her limited edition muffins
Image credits: u/Kcx-
While the OP was being yelled at, she realized how absurd the request was, but decided to maliciously comply with it. Knowing that she wouldn't find anything, she started ‘searching’ for them, making the whole team join in, which they willingly did as none of them liked their manager. Isabelle told us that everyone knew there were no more of those muffins in stock but joined the teenager anyway.
According to the OP, this for 3 hours at most. Isabelle told us that the Karen left after some time and that was when she sent out the complaints. Also, during this time, no other clients were served and the OP shared how that looked like, "The clients saw us walking around everywhere so I assume they bought we were busy. I don’t exactly know if some of my colleagues told them something or not but most of them just wanted a coffee so they left and went to the other cafe right across the street when they saw we couldn’t serve them at the moment."
A few hours passed by and the staff were still 'searching' for muffins, so other customers were unhappy
Image credits: u/Kcx-
Eventually, one of the clients asked what was going on and Kcx- didn’t hide anything. It seems that the people really liked the coffee or the cakes at the cafe as they went straight to the manager themselves to demand that he allow the servers to continue with their normal duties.
Steve had no idea what was happening while he was closed off in his office, but when he finally realized that this whole time, all of the staff had been searching for the nonexistent muffins and not serving clients, he was furious, especially when the OP asked him to search with them as they had failed to find any of the limited edition muffins.
When the OP explained to one of them what was happening, the customers started to bang on Steve's door and demand that he fix things
Image credits: u/Kcx-
It seems that Steve wasn't expecting the OP to take his words literally as he didn't understand what was happening
Image credits: u/Kcx-
As mentioned, it is unclear how long the Karen waited for the muffins as we can only guess she left at some point, but she sent multiple complaints about the manager to the owner. At least the owner had some sense as they came into the cafe to personally announce that Steve was fired.
His place was taken by another one of OP's coworkers and after this incident, the cafe never had limited edition seasonal muffins.
When he found out that the workers had been doing basically nothing for the past few hours, the manager was furious
Image credits: u/Kcx-
In the end, he was fired because of the Karen's complaints and the store never had limited edition muffins again after that
Image credits: u/Kcx-
Image credits: Banalities (not the actual image)
People who read the story loved it and felt that this malicious compliance was very satisfying, even though they had doubts about some parts of the story. They also were happy that the manager got fired as most often, this is not the case, and people at the lowest spot in the hierarchy are blamed for any failures.
We would like to know what your reactions were after reading the story. Do you think Steve got what he deserved? Do you think the Redditor could have handled the situation better? Let us know in the comments!
Redditors unanimously agreed that Steve deserved to be fired and loved the malicious compliance
