Would you fire an employee for calling a customer a Karen?

[Doctor Amadeus]

Karen is a pejorative term for a woman seeming to be entitled or demanding beyond the scope of what is normal. The term also refers to memes depicting white women who use their privilege to demand their own way.[1][2] Depictions also may include demanding to "speak to the manager", being racist or sporting a particular bob cut hairstyle.[3] The term has been criticised for being sexist, ageist, misogynistic, or seeking to control female behavior.[3] As of 2020, the term was increasingly being used in media and on social media as a general-purpose term for middle-aged white women, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests.[1] The term has also been applied to male behavior.[3][4] The Guardian called 2020 "the year of Karen".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_(pejorative)

Would you fire an employee for calling a customer a Karen?

My answer is Yes especially if I owned the business, context certainly always matters but over all I think this Karen shit has like most things gone way too far. It's one thing when customer service and people in service push back against abuse, it's another when the vehicle for that push back becomes abuse it self even to the point that people start forgetting who the most important person is an a professional relationship.

Keep in mind I understand and agree with the definition and push back, and the customer is NOT always right, but yeah if I ran across the kind of blatant disrespect for a customer simply because one might have an issue that needs to be addressed unacceptable.

Blaming Karen's is slowly turning into an excuse for shitty customer service.

What's been your experience?

[Lynarii]

No employee should have to just put up with abuse by customers. The customer is not always right, too many people (men and women alike) are not worth having as customers in the first place.

That being said, sometimes it IS appropriate to demand to speak with a manager. And it is kinda shit that standing up for yourself as a customer is automatically a bad thing if you're female. I don't like the fact that Karen has become a go-to insult for any woman with a spine. It also kinda sucks for women who are actually NAMED Karen who are really nice people.

So to answer your question, I generally would be unhappy with an employee who uses the term, but it would depend on the specific circumstances. If they legitimately just got done being verbally abused by an entitled POS, then I'd give them a bit more leeway to vent y'know?

[ranzino]

lot of cases were said Karen is hinted "the door is this way" by the manager.

nope, nothing wrong with Karens called out

[Rustedsaint]

Assuming they don’t call the customer Karen to their face, but to me/other employees privately then no I wouldn’t fire erm.
In public it would really depend on the customer, If they being abusive to my staff then they deserve to be kicked out of my store anyway. If they just mildly annoying and not straight screaming at my staff I would have alittle sit down with my staff to cover what you do not do to deescalate the situation .
Customers are the worst thing about retail work. I know many workers are glad that ppl are choosing to relay on curb side pick up rather then to enter the store.

[beanman12345]

I watched a women bitching about having to wear a mask, this waitress just doing her job asking her to put it on crying at her and the manager not even letting the manager talk, but the stress so much not worth it and the waitress just quit on the spot and walked out. Fuck these selfish bitches. paid like shit to be abused? fuck that.

[daytonbrown]

A public facing employee needs to be professional at all times, regardless of how the customer is acting. If the customer is being unreasonable or unruly, simply refuse to help them and/or call your manager.
If the employee feels they have to resort to name calling, the employee shouldn't be dealing with the public.

[Sorensen]

Karen's deserve all the disrespect they receive and more.

[StayTuned]

Depends on the customer.

If it's a store and we're talking about an abusive Karen that bullies my employee? Probably not.

If it's a big customer who brings me lots of money? Bye dude, they can be Karens as much as they want

[Shadowferal]

Depends on the circumstance. I remember one business owner specifically instructing his employees that if there was a customer being a problem to inform him and he would handle the customer personally. "I reserve the right to fire a customer if I don't believe his/her business is worth it."

[Endus]

It really would depend on the circumstances. Pushing back against an abusive customer? It's not great, but I'm not gonna fire anyone for it. Insulting a customer before any such abuse, because the customer's demanding or picky? Yeah, that's a bad employee.

[The Butt Witch]

Nope. It would have to be something actually serious to fire them.

[Gaidax]

A warning would be suitable.

You don't toss derogatory terms at customers no matter what. If a customer makes trouble there are other ways to deal with that or even expel/ban one - throwing insults is definitely NOT the way though and it for sure won't help the situation.

If you can't handle your shit in face of inconvenient customers without resorting to insults, maybe don't work at front line service positions.

[Fencers]

Depends. But generally, you can't and don't fire people willy-nilly. Note to file, warnings and suspensions exist for a reason. If the circumstances were particularly egregious or heated I would opt to take a harsher route with the employee depending on the situation.

But it comes down to value; is that employee valued in a way that I can not replace versus this customer?

[Gaidax]

For the record, I voted no, but this by no means means that I support such behavior. It's just that you're not firing an employee over one mistake like that, it's not North Korea and employees are not robots. It is, still, in my eyes something you'd warn an employee over and if that continues, then by all means - probably not the correct place to work for that person.

[Nurasu]

The entire concept of a Karen is deeply sexist and shouldn't be tolerated in a professional workplace.

[RobertoCarlos]

Nah we need to normalize that treating staff like shit just because you are a paying customer actually isnt ok.

Just because someone is in a uniform doesnt mean you get to abuse them because they represent a company.

[NED funded]

If its privately sure, if its on the clienta face then sorry but u r out

[Combatbutler]

Firing an employee over something this trivial is ridiculous.

[DarkAmbient]

I wouldn't keep an employee who couldn't deal with difficult customers without insulting them, no.

And the plural of Karen is Karens, no apostrophe necessary.

[Nnyco]

"Karens" are usually abusive piece of shits, so no.