As any retail worker will tell you, customer service is a tough business. It doesn’t matter if you’re a barista, a bartender or a fast food employee, it can be strenuous, dealing with humans — especially entitled ones. In modern slang, an uptight, officious know-it-all — specifically, a woman — is known as a “Karen.” We’ve all met one, even if we’d prefer not to have.
Karens are like cockroaches; you hope never to see them, but when you do, it’s an unpleasant experience for everyone involved. Although it’s common knowledge that customer service representatives encounter the most Karens, you can find yourself in a screaming match with one at your local Stop & Shop, if you’re not careful. They’re everywhere.
Julie, a TikTok content creator and salon owner, acted out her own encounter with a Karen on the video-sharing platform. Intuition tells us that the below video isn’t a real-time event, but rather a reenactment of a past encounter. That’s not to say that the TikTok couldn’t be a playback of a real interaction, but it does appear scripted to a degree.
In the video, we see Julie giving a manicure to a customer that we’ll fittingly call “Karen.” After asking whether Karen liked the chosen color, the customer informed the manicurist that she’d prefer a different one, so the latter accommodated the request with a different shade.
Halfway through the manicure, the nail artist asks again if Karen likes the color. This time, Karen informs her that she does, so Julie finishes off the new color. Afterwards, Karen starts a confrontation about how she doesn’t like the nails, even going as far as to call them “sh*t.”
“She literally asked if she liked it and she said yeah some people man,” one user commented.
“I’d charge double and never make another appointment for her again,” another wrote.
Julie sets her boundaries, calmly refusing Karen a refund and also refusing to re-do the nails.
And that, folks, is how you run a business. Karen 101.