Working a food service job is by no means easy. The hours tend to be long, the work is usually quite demanding, and, on top of all that, there are some entitled customers who act as if they’re deliberately trying to make the lives of these workers more difficult.
For example, one Redditor recently shared how, when she was working at an ice cream shop and sold a portion to a young girl, the girl's mother soon raised hell and called for a manager, angrily explaining that she had no right to do that. Scroll down to read the full story!
More info: Reddit
Working in a food service job is stressful as is, but unfortunately, some customers feel the need to make it a little bit more so
Image credits: Kamaji Ogino (not the actual photo)
A woman was working at an ice cream shop when a roughly 11-year-old girl came over alone and bought a dessert
Image credits: ROMAN ODINTSOV (not the actual photo)
Soon after, the girl's mother rushed over and demanded a refund, saying that she shouldn't have sold ice cream to a child without a parent
Image credits: iscream247
To the poster's surprise, when the manager came over to solve the issue, he took the mother's side, leaving the woman to take all of the blame
The story took place a couple of years ago. The OP, then an 18-year-old woman, was working at her first food service job selling ice cream. One day, when she was working alone, a roughly 11-year-old girl came over and asked for ice cream.
Since the child had her own money, the poster saw no reason not to serve her. But 5 minutes later, a Karen of a mother marched over angrily and started saying that the woman had no right to sell her daughter the ice cream without a parent present.
It turns out that the girl slipped out of the restaurant nearby and went to get ice cream without her mother’s permission, who was now demanding a refund and a chat with the manager. When the manager came, to most people’s surprise, he took the mother’s side, and even though the OP was sure she wasn’t wrong, this did raise some doubts in her mind.
The commenters collectively agreed that the only jerks in the story were the mother and the manager. Most of them found the story quite ridiculous, saying that the only other way to comply with this would be to ask children for IDs before selling them ice cream, which would make the situation all the more absurd and cause more similar situations.
Image credits: Lukas (not the actual photo)
By now, it’s safe to say that most people have heard of the name-turned-term Karen. According to Les Roberts of Bionic, it is usually used for someone who is obnoxious and feels entitled. They often use their privileges, such as being the client, to get their own way despite the fact that, usually, they’re not right, and even if they are, everything can be solved in a way less dramatic way.
Les Roberts wrote that the number one ‘weapon’ that Karens around the world tend to use is 1-star online reviews, which, according to Trustpilot data, mostly hit online shopping, finance, and gambling services but also strongly affect travel companies, hotels, supermarkets, and plenty of other providers.
But even though they’re annoying, the real problem with Karens is that they often don’t realize the damage they do, especially to small businesses. As Xaña Winans wrote in her LinkedIn post, many of their uncalled-for online comments cause people to question and mistrust businesses, causing them to suffer losses.
While it may not hurt the big chains that much, the loss of clients due to poor reviews costs businesses a lot, which, in turn, makes them unable to keep their employees, followed by the building up of unpaid loan repayments and other issues that all culminate in unemployment, loss of insurance, and large debts for people who were only trying to make a living.
Image credits: Jean Balzan (not the actual photo)
In another LinkedIn post, Bobby Marhamat added that, especially for food service providers, many of the bad reviews have nothing to do with their actual business. Unfortunately, they hurt these businesses all the same.
As the pandemic hit, most of these shops and restaurants were forced to use third-party delivery providers like Uber Eats and DoorDash. So, in between food being prepared and actually being delivered to the client’s doorstep, there was a good part of the process over which the original service provider had no power. Yet, a survey of 104 restaurants in the US revealed that 38% of these providers received highly negative reviews for something that wasn’t their fault.
This whole situation led people to launch websites like Karen’s Killer Reviews and initiate petitions that would raise awareness of pages like Yelp and Tripadvisor, as well as the Karens themselves, and hopefully, change the situation for the better by drawing attention to these fictitious and enraged reviews.
Ultimately, in recent years, stories like these have become quite common and a pretty relevant problem that, at least in some way, affects most of us. There are many different situations, and sometimes, complaining is understandable. But if the issue is about your child buying ice cream without your permission, perhaps you should think twice before lashing out at a service provider. And if you’re a manager of such a place, well, maybe you should stand your ground instead of shifting the blame.
What did you think of this story? How would you have acted in the OP’s situation? Share your thoughts below!
The commenters agreed that the only jerks in the story were the mother and the manager
