This Karen was actually the manager until the employee she fired got her booted too. That's what you get when you were the one who messed up and everyone saw it. No matter how powerful you think you are, if you've gained enough enemies, it will bite you in the butt, which is exactly what happened to Carol. Carol was the assistant manager of a restaurant that employed a high school student who wound up working approximately 60 hours each week (when did he find time to do his homework is the real…

It's no surprise that someone who isn't qualified for their management position might not be very good at doing it—what's surprising is the vigor that these people display when doing petty and cruel things to their subordinates, wielding and abusing every last shred of stupid power they have with enthusiasm. At least in functional organizations, there are checks and balances to the abuse of power in the form of HR departments and upper managers who at least have an interest in reducing the orga…

There's nothing like a table full of Karens to make your first shift as a waiter the worst shift ever.

Work in any customer-facing role, and at some point, you're bound to encounter someone demanding special treatment because they're friends with the owners or some upper manager. Nine times out of ten, these people are absolutely full of it, and mentioning their name to the owner or manager at a later date will be met with an eye roll, facepalm, or “Who?” No, this person isn't their friend; in some cases, they might be a mutual acquaintance, but what kind of friend would go into their friend's b…

The story of a man who cried ‘tooth’.

“Everything that happens and goes wrong, is my responsibility,” this facility manager wrote about their encounter with an irritating client. Key cards are pretty great inventions. Although, if you recall, the first round of major hotels to use keycards were kind of a disaster. In the mid 2000s at some point, hotels began switching from manual keys to key cards . The walk from the pool back to the room was brutal, especially when key cards were in their infancy. While on vacation as a young kid,…

It's time to pay our respects to those who are living the server life.

Don't underestimate the pettiness of these fed-up workers . You'd be acting petty too if customers treated you the same way . Cashiers work so hard for so little recognition. If I was running things, all cashiers would be allowed to sit down, they'd be allowed to talk back to rude customers, and they'd all be paid at least $1 million per year. In reality, though, cashiers have to deal with the grouchiest customers one after another for minimum wage (and no sitting down either). You can only han…

It always feels like the people who are the most annoying about following the rules are actually the worst rule followers.

Sharin' is carin', Karen!

A guest at a hotel couldn't believe the way the front desk clerk was talking to her. She thought it was rude — so she tried to get the employee fired. There's that old saying that goes, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” meaning you should be nice to people in order to get what you want. It's that simple, and it works a lot of the time! People who work in customer service are far more familiar with the kinds of customers who are quick to anger, and this hotel guest is a great examp…

The brilliance of the manager putting the sport coat on before returning to the conversation as “the owner” is something that I wish I had been able to witness with my own eyes.

The phrase “over my dead body” is typically reserved for extreme instances where you want to express desperate and dramatic opposition to a measure of change someone is trying to bring about. Such as a suggestion at a local forum in which Agatha from down the street proposes filling the local skate park bowl with water every summer in order to repurpose it temporarily as a community poo. You, an avid skater, may stand up and declare, “Over my dead body!” Now, of course, you don't really mean th…

This boss thought she knew how to run weekend shifts , but she was mistaken. In most lines of work, weekends are the busiest days of the week. School is out and many office workers have weekends off , leading customers to stream into business places. At this OP's place of work, they had a boss who clearly didn't think through her plans. As u/Oncewasaworker writes, their boss Karen was hired through some vague relationship to someone in the company. Despite her role as a manager, she seemed to l…

A Karen calls an arts and crafts store and demands a pizza… No, this isn't a punchline for a joke—but everyone who has worked in restaurants or retail wishes that it was. These workers have seen their fair share of wild demands and demanding wild persons—and it only takes one screaming customer meltdown in the lobby of your establishment to make you reconsider your entire line of work. But at least in person, most people have the good graces to behave politely, but phone conversations and email…

Who knew that asking for access to your own driveway would cause such drama?