Karens, are they to be pitied, scolded, ridiculed , or ignored?

[Shuggie_Murray7]

1 hour ago, Arch Stanton said:

So what name can be used to describe a male Karen?

I propose Brian.

I believe they're called Kens.

[Boo Khaki]

3 hours ago, Arch Stanton said:

So what name can be used to describe a male Karen?

I propose Brian.

Male "Karen" behaviour is invariably perpetrated by wee, fat, often baldy, puce-faced men with a massively over-inflated sense of self-importance. So whichever name is most synonymous with that picture.

[Bairnardo]

28 minutes ago, Boo Khaki said:

Male "Karen" behaviour is invariably perpetrated by wee, fat, often baldy, puce-faced men with a massively over-inflated sense of self-importance. So whichever name is most synonymous with that picture.

Its a different dynamic in men. Of course there are a number of just straight up bams out there but that doesn't define a "Karen" in females for me. Its otherwise sensible folk who unveil a nasty streak of entitlement every so often. In men theres generally another consideration when behaving like this.... Will i get myself jabbed in the mouth here.... This consideration, alongside general decency, keeps my behaviour in check like most people. But there seems to be a sizable section of the male population who have never been jabbed in the mouth and as such, will enter into any discourse thinking they can speak to people just however they like. I find it very very weird to see. 

By no means am I advocating violence in response to any provocation, I don't see violence as acceptable except (almost always) in self defence, but not everyone is me. 

I've mentioned on here before a wee guy who correctly pulled me up for turning in a junction which was in fact one way, so I was ok going in but I shouldn't have came back out. The way he did it though.... He was aggressive and clearly thought that because I was wrong, he could act the big man. Went right on the front foot and kept going on and on. At the start I was like yeah ok mate, never knew thanks for telling me... At the end I was like mate you want to get back in your fucking car now. The guy was precisely as you described. To the letter. I have no idea why he felt it was appropriate to talk to me the way he did, nor why he thought there wasn't a good possibility someone would take proper exception to it. 

[Boo Khaki]

@Bairnardo

The reason I'm familiar with Male Karen is that I worked in retail many, many moons ago when I was a skint student and needed to make ends meet. The utter shite that you took from these arseholes, while being paid around £3 per hour...

Different story once I started managing the place, because being a small private business I had the full support of the owner to deal with these types as I saw fit, so the door getting flung open and a stream of invective directed at wholly innocent and pleasant counter staff never achieved whatever the goal of arsepiece was until I'd seen to it that they'd apologised.

The sense of sheer joy when pulling them up resulted in an even more incendiary tirade, a demand to see my superior, and the inability to grasp that insofar as Customer Relations went, there wasn't one...

Usual convo went along the lines of 

I would like to help you resolve whatever your complaint is, honestly I would, but I can't stand here and watch my staff be abused when they have done absolutely nothing wrong. Now, If you'd please calm down and explain to me what the issue is, preferably without shouting and swearing, I'll see what I can do to put it right so you can leave satisfied. Is that reasonable?

The bulk of them simmer right down, realise they've been acting like a c**t, and they walk away happy. The ones that don't simply got told to leave and not come back as their custom was not wanted or welcome, which always rendered the "I'll no come back/Customer is always right" ranting that invariably followed highly amusing.

It's usually some relatively minor mishap of their own doing, but being good natured in general, I'd go over and above to put whatever it was they weren't happy about right, but not while they were effing and b'ing at staff that had done nothing wrong, and not before they'd apologised for doing so. I'd give them a reminder that they were talking to a human being, and that although they only visit my outlet once a week or so, the staff have to deal with hundreds or thousands of customers in that time and really don't deserve to be spoken to that way. Again, most of them realise right away how unreasonable their behaviour is, but, they were invariably wee, fat, baldy, puce-faced men driving a huge company car that they evidently believe grants them the right to treat everyone else they consider beneath them like absolute shite. Nope pal, not on my watch.

[Bairnardo]

2 minutes ago, Boo Khaki said:

@Bairnardo

The reason I'm familiar with Male Karen is that I worked in retail many, many moons ago when I was a skint student and needed to make ends meet. The utter shite that you took from these arseholes, while being paid around £3 per hour...

Different story once I started managing the place, because being a small private business I had the full support of the owner to deal with these types as I saw fit, so the door getting flung open and a stream of invective directed at wholly innocent and pleasant counter staff never achieved whatever the goal of arsepiece was until I'd seen to it that they'd apologised.

The sense of sheer joy when pulling them up resulted in an even more incendiary tirade, a demand to see my superior, and the inability to grasp that insofar as Customer Relations went, there wasn't one...

Usual convo went along the lines of 

I would like to help you resolve whatever your complaint is, honestly I would, but I can't stand here and watch my staff be abused when they have done absolutely nothing wrong. Now, If you'd please calm down and explain to me what the issue is, preferably without shouting and swearing, I'll see what I can do to put it right so you can leave satisfied. Is that reasonable?

The bulk of them simmer right down, realise they've been acting like a c**t, and they walk away happy. The ones that don't simply got told to leave and not come back as their custom was not wanted or welcome, which always rendered the "I'll no come back/Customer is always right" ranting that invariably followed highly amusing.

It's usually some relatively minor mishap of their own doing, but being good natured in general, I'd go over and above to put whatever it was they weren't happy about right, but not while they were effing and b'ing at staff that had done nothing wrong, and not before they'd apologised for doing so. I'd give them a reminder that they were talking to a human being, and that although they only visit my outlet once a week or so, the staff have to deal with hundreds or thousands of customers in that time and really don't deserve to be spoken to that way. Again, most of them realise right away how unreasonable their behaviour is, but, they were invariably wee, fat, baldy, puce-faced men driving a huge company car that they evidently believe grants them the right to treat everyone else they consider beneath them like absolute shite. Nope pal, not on my watch.

"AH'LL TAKE YE TAE TRADING STANDURDS!!!!!"

[Boo Khaki]

5 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

"AH'LL TAKE YE TAE TRADING STANDURDS!!!!!"

Yip.

Funny thing about power dynamics.

Shortly before this I'd been a shift manager at a really busy pub. You get taught in that trade that you have to realise that you are the one in the position of power, the authority figure, and even if you are totally bluffing, never be shy in playing on that.

I totally understand why so many young retail staff melted in the face of these arseholes, but once they'd seen them back down when confronted by a member of staff who wasn't intimidated in the slightest by them, they tended to discover their own spines fairly quickly afterwards. Super important to be confident that you know management will back you up of course, and from what I understand about retail nowadays through working with people in that industry that simply does not happen any more, but nonetheless, people in general defer to anyone who they subconsciously regard as an authority figure, and by demanding to "see a manager", they are implicitly requesting to speak to someone they respect even if they don't realise that. It's a bit armchair psychology, but it was working in the pub and diffusing situations just through sheer brass neck, confidence, and bravado that taught me that even when folk are raging angry, they tend to come around pretty quickly when they get "telt" by a perceived authority figure.

I still see it now with the amount of absolute shite that folk will take from doctors, psychiatrists and so on, and I think its a big part of the reason why so many doctors get away with being absolutely hopeless for so long. People simply wont challenge them because of the perceived power imbalance.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Boo Khaki

[HeWhoWalksBehindTheRows]

5 hours ago, Boo Khaki said:

Male "Karen" behaviour is invariably perpetrated by wee, fat, often baldy, puce-faced men with a massively over-inflated sense of self-importance. So whichever name is most synonymous with that

Chaps, may I propose the Alan?

[diegomarahenry]

 

Edited November 9, 2023 by diegomarahenry

[HeWhoWalksBehindTheRows]

9 hours ago, diegomarahenry said:

 

Top one is clearly a fake

[hk blues]

15 hours ago, Boo Khaki said:

Male "Karen" behaviour is invariably perpetrated by wee, fat, often baldy, puce-faced men with a massively over-inflated sense of self-importance. So whichever name is most synonymous with that picture.

George it is -

[The Moonster]

17 hours ago, Bairnardo said:

"AH'LL TAKE YE TAE TRADING STANDURDS!!!!!"

My sister in law sells art, she's been getting messages from a women who is claiming that she is "stealing her art" and selling it herself. My SIL does sort of sea scape type painting and this women has once painted the ocean in a similar way and seems to think she now has copyright on any ocean painting. This woman has never sold any of her paintings but has now threatened my SIL with going to The Sun and to Trading Standards. I'm still trying to figure out what she thinks Trading Standards are going to do.

[accies1874]

20 hours ago, Bairnardo said:

Its a different dynamic in men. Of course there are a number of just straight up bams out there but that doesn't define a "Karen" in females for me. Its otherwise sensible folk who unveil a nasty streak of entitlement every so often. In men theres generally another consideration when behaving like this.... Will i get myself jabbed in the mouth here.... This consideration, alongside general decency, keeps my behaviour in check like most people. But there seems to be a sizable section of the male population who have never been jabbed in the mouth and as such, will enter into any discourse thinking they can speak to people just however they like. I find it very very weird to see. 

By no means am I advocating violence in response to any provocation, I don't see violence as acceptable except (almost always) in self defence, but not everyone is me. 

I've mentioned on here before a wee guy who correctly pulled me up for turning in a junction which was in fact one way, so I was ok going in but I shouldn't have came back out. The way he did it though.... He was aggressive and clearly thought that because I was wrong, he could act the big man. Went right on the front foot and kept going on and on. At the start I was like yeah ok mate, never knew thanks for telling me... At the end I was like mate you want to get back in your fucking car now. The guy was precisely as you described. To the letter. I have no idea why he felt it was appropriate to talk to me the way he did, nor why he thought there wasn't a good possibility someone would take proper exception to it. 

It's a thirst to see other people being punished or held accountable even if it makes absolutely no difference to the situation at hand. Strange behaviour but very prevalent.

[Bairnardo]

34 minutes ago, accies1874 said:

It's a thirst to see other people being punished or held accountable even if it makes absolutely no difference to the situation at hand. Strange behaviour but very prevalent.

I have it in my head that "as long as someone else's life is shitter..." is a fairly British/torycunt desire but there's a lot of talk of Yanks on this thread, so is it a human thing or a Western thing? 

[2426255]

No doubt male Karens are out there, but I've probably seen more personally where the husband is present, not really that arsed - but slightly embarrased because the wife is going off on one. My girlfriend told me yesterday how she told a dog walker he was strangling his dog the way he was using the lead and I immediately thought of this thread.

I think there is an emotional element to the Karen phenomenon.

Edited November 10, 2023 by 2426255

[ICTChris]

My wife is a teacher and you get a lot of parents who completely oppose any negative report or imposition of discipline on their children, a form of Karen-ing IMO.  Sometimes children will get a note to parents or a punishment and it will be returned with the parents saying that they've spoken to their child who has told them the teacher was picking on them or hates them so they don't have to complete the punishment.  There's at least one kid in my wife's school who openly says to teachers "if you punish me or send me out, I'll tell my mum and she'll complain about you".  

When I think back to my days in school, in the 80s and 90s, I don't recall anyone behaving like that.  Even parents who, looking back, were clearly not doing their  best for their kids (hitting them, being drunk around them etc) still gave their kids into trouble if they got a letter home.  I have a friend who grew up in a mining village in Fife and fondly remembered that if any adult in the village saw the kids doing something bad, they'd give them a whack and then tell their parents, who would also give them a belting when they got home.  We need to return to those halycon days of adults inflicting extreme violence on children, IMO.

[2426255]

19 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

My wife is a teacher and you get a lot of parents who completely oppose any negative report or imposition of discipline on their children, a form of Karen-ing IMO.  Sometimes children will get a note to parents or a punishment and it will be returned with the parents saying that they've spoken to their child who has told them the teacher was picking on them or hates them so they don't have to complete the punishment.  There's at least one kid in my wife's school who openly says to teachers "if you punish me or send me out, I'll tell my mum and she'll complain about you".  

When I think back to my days in school, in the 80s and 90s, I don't recall anyone behaving like that.  Even parents who, looking back, were clearly not doing their  best for their kids (hitting them, being drunk around them etc) still gave their kids into trouble if they got a letter home.  I have a friend who grew up in a mining village in Fife and fondly remembered that if any adult in the village saw the kids doing something bad, they'd give them a whack and then tell their parents, who would also give them a belting when they got home.  We need to return to those halycon days of adults inflicting extreme violence on children, IMO.

I think maybe also if you've grown up in a more say working class area you'll probably see less Karen's. My mum's a schoolteacher in Westerton and says the parents are utter shite. I'm guessing areas such as Giffnock or Bearsden produce more than their fair share of this phenomenon. 

[TxRover]

5 hours ago, The Moonster said:

My sister in law sells art, she's been getting messages from a women who is claiming that she is "stealing her art" and selling it herself. My SIL does sort of sea scape type painting and this women has once painted the ocean in a similar way and seems to think she now has copyright on any ocean painting. This woman has never sold any of her paintings but has now threatened my SIL with going to The Sun and to Trading Standards. I'm still trying to figure out what she thinks Trading Standards are going to do.

Sounds like a great chance to advertise her art…complain away, lassie!