49 Stories From People Who Met A Real Life 'Karen'

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.

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.

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 [butt] 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.

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.

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 [private parts]. She returned about 20 minutes later, quietly apologized, and took her pillows with her, we never heard from her again.

Once I told a Karen I didn't know where something was because I didn't work there and she said "Well, you're just useless"

My sister in law is the biggest Karen I've ever met, complains in almost every restaurant we have gone to, but this one time they were moving house and my bro asked me to help, I was staying at their place for the delivery truck that was to arrive early in the morning, we were having drinks and my bed / mattress was on the living room floor, at around 1:15 I said I think I'm going to go to bed. She replied are you kicking me out of my own living room, not realising she is crazy I joke I guess I am. She said no one does that and even though she had finished her last drink made herself two cups of tea. She didn’t go to bed till after two thirty she told me the next morning she stayed up to show no one tells her what to do

I was working at my job as a cashier at my local supermarket. We were swamped with people I had at least 7 people waiting in my line. One of my good friends from high school was in my line and I talked to him as I was ringing up his stuff. After he left I welcomed the next lady in line and asked the usual stuff “did you find everything okay?” “How are you doing?” Etc. Before I could get a word out she asked to speak to my manager. Apparently I was rude to her for not including her in my conversation with my high school friend. She didn’t even chime in or anything and I never seen her in my life [friggin] karen man

Worked at a grocery store and a coworker put a 99¢ sticker on my shirt. We were 2 of maybe 5 employees so we were all good friends and everything is funny when you gotta pass time on a shift so I just left it there. Some woman came through my line and asked me why I had a sticker on my shirt and I just kinda laughed it off. She asked if I thought it was funny and I was like "not really but sorta". she asked if my coworker put it there to which I responded yes. She told me she was going to speak to the store owner cos it was "disrespectful" to behave that way at work. She told me to call my manager and I did but he was a super cool guy and knew this lady was a [friggin] idiot. She talked to the store owner and my manager about firing me to no avail. She accomplished nothing and was a c*nt, the end.

I used to own a photography store (sold cameras and did pictures for passports etc), we opened at 1pm on Mondays, but I happend to be at the store on Monday morning because I needed to get something, was planning on just grabbing what I needed and go home when Karen tried to get in through the locked door. Door had a sign on it that said we were closed, and a sign with our opening hours. I didn't turn on any of the lights so it was also very dark inside. Karen started banging on the door, I was just about to leave so I went outside to tell her we were closed. Karen didn't take it well and immediately demanded to speak to the manager. I said that I'm the owner, she then proceeded to shout, and curse, so much so that the manager of the supermarket across the street came out to help me. She then tried to make the supermarket manager force me to open my store almost 4 hours earlier. Didn't work. Never seen the woman again.

Asked for my manager’s personal cell phone number to complain that I (seven months pregnant at the time) would not carry a refrigerator (that she had not paid for in the cost of her room) up to her second story room (we did not have an elevator), rather than just accept an upgrade for free because she didn’t want to unpack her stuff. She refused to believe we had rooms without fridges and I was just being fat and lazy. When I refused to give her the cell phone number, she asked for corporate’s number. I wrote it down on a sticky note with a smiley face. She came down later and asked to move rooms. I made her pay the difference.

Had a Karen threaten to report me to my manager for talking with other customers I was serving.

I worked at a coffee shop where a woman came up to me to complain that her lattes weren't filled to the top(I had seen her husband sneak sips on the walk over but I wasnt gonna say that). So I gladly offered to remake both drinks but she said "I dont want you to fix this, I just want you to know Im dissappointed in you"

This random lady that lived in my neighborhood said I couldn’t bike in front of her house without wearing a helmet because she was afraid of getting sued by my parents if I were to fall off my bike in front of her house or something along those lines. I was like eight. Told her the street wasn’t her property and rode away. Didn’t really look back for a reaction.

I was standing on a crowded train and a pregnant Karen started screaming at ME because she had nowhere to sit. Me, the person who was standing because there were no seats. She started screaming like it was my fault that there were no seats.

I just had a Karen start yelling at me because I parked my car too close to her house. Not on the driveway, literally on the public streets.

I used to manage a restaurant. I had a lady complain about an issue with a previous order and she wanted something replaced. She didn't have what she wanted to return. She had a receipt dated October of last year. She came in to complain about it in January of this year. She went on to say the manager was a tall white guy that told her that she can replace it. I was the only manager at that time. I'm black. So she threw a tantrum, saying how she was never coming back and was talking about complaining on Yelp. I'm glad I don't have to see her again.

I was working at a place that is kind of like Subway but with pizza. Anyway, a family of four came in. Husband, wife, two kids. The wife is immediately mean spirited and insulting. I put the company recommended amount of sausage (about half a handful) on her pizza. Instead of saying, "Oh, can I please get some more sausage?" like a normal adult, she says, "What are you, dumb? That's barely anything! Put more!" I do it with as genuine a smile I can and pretend she didn't just talk to me in that way. She then acts like a b**ch to every single person on the line. The manager saw her the entire time and overheard what she said. Her husband and kids don't say anything (probably scared to say anything to her). She gets to the register and then complains about me and the other two people on the line. Manager defends us and asks her to leave the store and not come back. That, of course, wasn't the end of it. She calls corporate to complain about being banned from the store. The district and regional managers are sent in. The situation is explained. They say we're all clear. That lady was insane. I felt most bad for her kids. Do they think that's normal behavior? Also the husband didn't say a word or make eye contact with us, but I got the vibe from him that he was embarrassed. Poor guy.

Preparing to return a rental car at Gatwick Airport. It's the type you have to queue to check in and there's no drop off. I'd been standing in the exact same spot for about half an hour. A lady came in, said out loud, "I'm not standing in line," and then sat on a couch off to the side. Fine. My turn was up next, and the lady said, "Excuse me, I was ahead of you. I came in first." I told her she didn't, and I'd literally been standing in the same spot for 45 minutes, including half an hour before she came in. I suspect that because I'm sort of brown (half-Filipino) she thought my English would be subpar, because she seemed surprised when I started speaking in my fluent American English. She said that I wasn't there when she came in. So I told the people in front of me, who I made polite conversation with when I first arrived, "I'm sorry, but I've got a funny question: I was here right after you, wasn't I?" They confirmed it. She sat down with an harumph, saying, "I don't think that's very funny." Then she got up 5 minutes later and literally tried to skip over the entire line to get her car, but the man at the desk wasn't having it, saying, "let me help this gentleman first," while pointing at me.

I worked at a home improvement store for a while in college. I was a cashier in the garden section. This woman pulls up on the curb in a no parking zone. Grabs her fertilizer and soil. After I check out she goes [friggin] ballistic that I didn’t help load her car and she was going to report me to managers. (Due to company policy, I wasn’t allowed to. Other employees were though). Her face mole was shaking and everything. Over a bag of soil that weighed under ten pounds and a handle of fertilizer.