When this OP boarded the plane in crutches, they were really hoping that'd be the most difficult part of the journey. However, this Karen made sure it wasn't. Luckily, a flight attendant steps in to save the day.
Flight Attendant Stands Up for a Flyer Who Can’t
“Just over twenty years ago, I sprained my ankle at work, so I had to have it immobilized for a couple of weeks in a cast.
It happened on the first days of December, so it was by the 22nd when the cast went off, and I had an airplane ticket on the 23rd, to come to my parents’ home for Christmas.
Got to the airline counter in crutches and immediately they get me a wheelchair and an agent to take me all the way to the airplane; Mexico City’s airport has very long corridors.
While I was at the counter, there was a big, loud woman over there, chatting with the employees and saying, at last, she was able to go on vacation and using her company passes to fly, so she was arranging her boarding passes and making sure she gets a seat. Guess she was an off-duty flight attendant. My Father worked for several years as one, so I was familiar with the situation.
Long story short, we get to the plane and because I was in a wheelchair, I get to board first. The kind flight attendants on the flight decided I would be more comfortable if seated on a bulkhead seat instead of row 15 that was my assigned seat, as the wheelchair does not fit on the airplane aisle. So I made my way on crutches to seat 1A, with plenty of leg space in front of me, a beverage on my hand, and my crutches are taken away from me and stowed elsewhere.
Along comes the big woman I saw earlier on the counter, laughing and joking with everybody as she makes her way, carry on bags and all, on to my plane. My flight attendant got distracted with something and the big woman comes aboard, looks at me, and with fire in her voice and eyes, orders me to get out of her seat.
I start to explain that it was the senior flight attendant that assigned me that seat, she cuts me mid-phrase and says ‘I don’t care if your mama gave you that seat. That is my seat and you should get out. I work for this airline and I know this is my seat!’
She demands to see my boarding pass.
So, I try to get up, trying not to step on my sprained and tender ankle and ring the attendant call button.
She shouts ‘What do you need an attendant for? Move out!’
All I say is, ‘I need her to get my crutches, she has them.’
By this time, the senior flight attendant is already aware of the situation and is coming over, recognizing the off duty attendant and saying ‘Ah, you’re flying with your discount, so the seat is unassigned, so we gave it to this kind paying customer who needs it for comfort for his injured leg.’
She said this in a kind, almost tender way, reciting it as a sentence one teacher would give a student in order for the student to understand every word. She gestured me to sit down again and ushered away from the non-rev who was still eyeing me as the cause of all evil on earth.
She was seated three rows behind on an empty row and sometime during the flight, I saw the senior attendant go sit with her and have a talk. She went out the plane as soon as the door opened at our destination not even looking at me.
Guess the first day of her vacation was ruined by a young man in crutches.”
A Karen In The Making
“Quite a few years ago I was working at a pizza chain and I had someone call in and ask an employee if we would honor a coupon that was over a week expired. My employee told her that we couldn’t honor it but he would ask me. Before he got the chance to ask me she decided to make a big fuss/was fairly disrespectful to my employee and wanted to speak to me about it directly. She complained saying it was only expired by ‘a few days.’ I backed what my employee had told her, we wouldn’t be honoring it.
About 20 minutes later we got a call from her again and this time I had answered. She didn’t make it the whole way through asking if we would honor before I told her the answer was still no. We had caller ID so I knew it was her again.
About an hour after the second call the employee who took the first call comes back to me saying there is a woman at the front of the store who wanted to speak to me about him not honoring a coupon. It was the same expired coupon. She told me that she would be going elsewhere for pizza from that point on because our service was terrible, specifically that not honoring an expired coupon for a loyal customer (I had never seen her before and we had no records of orders from her) was ‘bad business.’ I told her she was welcome to go elsewhere.
The ultimate kicker is that the coupon was for 50 cents off any order. It wasn’t a big deal and I would have absolutely honored it had she not treated my employee like trash on the phone.”
Choking Hazards
A short and funny story about a genuinely stupid Karen.
“At one of the restaurants I used to manage, we had this really expensive lobster dish. We coated it in corn starch, quartered it up, and fried it. The effect was really cool and tasty.
One night, the kitchen accidentally left the rubber bands on the claws…sucks, but no biggie, no actual harm.
I was called over to the table, Karen asked about the bands, and I apologized. I offered to make a new one, she declined, I mentioned no harm to her, they are food safe, all is well. Not two or three minutes later do I get called over to her table again, this time she’s freaking out.
She tried to eat the rubber bands!
She freaked out on me. Her family told her to calm down, and they just looked at her like she was the biggest idiot in the world.”
Pissed Off Karen Gets Put In Her Place In The Heat At Death Valley National Park
Everyone has dealt with a Karen, or read a Karen story at some point. There are always going to be those people that you just can’t please. This story is another one of those, but what happens to this Karen, is truly the best outcome. She definitely had it coming to her!
“Years ago I worked at Stovepipe Wells in the Death Valley National Park, an awesome place to visit by the way. Anyway, it’s a lot more built up now than when I worked there. Back then it was only a little restaurant and some employee housing. I can’t remember if there was even a hotel there or not.
I was flipping burgers at the little restaurant and at times I would help with the register. I was back in the kitchen cooking and this lady comes up to the counter and nobody was there to take her order. I yelled to her that I’d be up to help her in a few minutes. As soon as I round the corner I knew that this was going to be an interesting encounter.
It is really hot in Death Valley, and this lady was feeling it. She was red faced, wet clothes sticking to her everywhere and she was not at all happy with the situation.
When I said this was a small restaurant, I really meant it, we didn’t have any inside seating. I think there were a couple picnic benches outside but unfortunately not much shade to be found.
I come out with a smile and ask what I can do for her. Now she’s irritated that there wasn’t someone there at the counter to greet her, and made sure I knew it. I tell her the other guy that works there is probably taking out the garbage or something and I would be happy to help her even though I wasn’t thrilled at the way things were going so far. She orders a burger and a large cola. Think about the old super size McDonald’s cups. I get her drink, make her food and deliver it to the counter. Instead of handing me the money, she throws it on the counter, turns around and as she’s leaving says “y’all are slow as f**k!” By that time, the other guy working shows up who is also my boss. He caught the tail end of it so I told him what happened and he uttered his favorite saying, “can’t please em all!”
So I go back to the kitchen and this lady comes in again demanding to speak to the guy that helped her before. My boss calls me out and I see this woman again, no smile this time. I ask if anything is wrong with her food and that’s when she goes off!!
‘I ordered a MF Pepsi and I don’t know what this is but it ain’t that!’ I calmly tell her that we only have Coke products and if there is something else she wants I’ll be happy to replace it. So now she wants a root beer. While I’m getting it, she goes on to rant about how this place is sh*t and how we should have air conditioning and some place to sit down. I lost track of what else she said but it amounted to a temper tantrum from child.
I put the drink on the counter and tell her I hope she has a better day. As I turn to go she rips the lid off her old drink and chucks it on me. Being as hot as it was in that little place it actually felt good, however I was pissed. I turned back to have her yelling at me about how piss poor our customer service is, how I should be fired from this job and she was going to the ranger station to get me fired. Mind you, we didn’t work for the park. I did notice that she hadn’t picked up her new drink so I snatched it off the counter, ripped off the lid and threw the root beer in her face. That stopped her tantrum in its tracks, at least for a few seconds. So me, my boss and this lady are standing there just looking at each other and my boss starts laughing.
I didn’t say anything, she looks at me and says ” I. Want. To. See. Your. Manager. RIGHT NOW! I silently point to my boss who now has big fat tears rolling down his face and I give a little chuckle. My boss tried three times to ask her what the problem was, finally getting it out. She first demands that I be fired on the spot, then demands another drink because its f*ing hot outside. My boss calms down enough to tell her he’s absolutely not going to fire me and adds, “I’m sorry, we don’t give free refills. But if you want I can give you a small water cup.” Thats when I lost it. His tone was so condescending. She stormed out like a child stomping off to her room.
I never heard if she came back and didn’t hear anything from upper management. I hope she learned that if you are going to be rude to people you’d better expect at some point to get a little payback.”
All This Over A Glass of Water?!
Sometimes people become unhinged while cooped up in the hospital but there is no excuse for the erratic behavior this poor nurse endured from a crazy mom.
“Obligatory not a doctor but I worked in a pediatric ED for a bit. Once, at the start of my shift, a mother asked me if I could get a cup of water for her child. Since some patients are supposed to be NPO, I told her I would check with the doctor. Before I could say anything else, the mother screamed ‘You useless ginger floozy!’ And threw her purse at me. She had a terrible aim and her purse split open all over the floor at my feet. I just walked away when she told me to pick it up. She screamed at me one more time, and by now the rest of the unit was just silently staring at her.
Security was called, and she eventually had to be led out of the building with her kid because she was refusing to leave without her child receiving antibiotics. He was there for a cold, was told to go home and rest. I felt so bad for the kid. She spent the entire day refusing to leave and asking for different substances for her kid, ranging from penicillin to Percocet, and becoming more and more irate when she was told no. So asking for water and not being told ‘yes’ straight away set her off.
But I was known as the Ginger Floozy by my coworkers for the rest of the time I worked there so. Got a funny nickname I guess.”