We have home-brewed Karens here

Thulaganyo Jankey | Tuesday December 19, 2023 07:41

She's entitled, she's ignorant, and she's often a racist, too. Locally we do have our own black Karens with asymmetrical bobs (and sometimes without) who always want to speak to the manager. Well, racist is pushing it of course. Karen though is not always female and not always white.

The quintessential Karen has the following traits

• Sense of entitlement

• A willingness to complain

• Self-centred Due to a default poor customer service standard here the country has somewhat turned into a Karen factory of sorts. If you have worked as a customer service person you might have encountered several Karens or you might have produced a few instant Karens through botching an order and just plain customer service ineptitude.

When a Karen wants to bring out her heaviest artillery she would say ‘I want to speak to the manager’. This is supposed to have some menace that would get the customer service person giving Karen more concessions or at best just agreeing to what Karen says.

I one day also went full Karen (obviously without the bob cut as the whole world knows my head is bald) on one unfortunate cashier. I had a little side hustle where people paid me in coins. So since I wanted to buy stuff that would probably cost more than a P100 I looked around to convert the coins into notes but I failed.

So I trudged to the shop and as she rang the cash register I pulled out my little bag of coins. With a queue longer than the ATM line at FNB at month-end she came up with a reasonable ‘cashier’ suggestion to have an assistant help me count the coins so she can help more customers in the meantime. I switched on all the Karen plugs and demanded to see the manager. The manager just happened to be out of the store and in my Karen-trance I asked they call him. The bewildered cashier did as the other customers watched this drama unfold.

The manager did not answer the phone and that took the wind out of my sails. I threw down the Karen hat I was wearing and stormed out. Later on I could see some of the audience stopped short of saying ‘Hi Karen’ whenever they met me. Thirty years later I still haven’t healed from the rubbish I put the cashier through and she still thinks I am a nasty person. I believe I am the reason she furthered her education and quit being a cashier. I too was at the end of a Karen when I briefly worked as a customer service person during vacation when I was at varsity.

Talk about karma knowing everyone’s address! I once served a lady who turned out to be a Karen with more Karens attached to her anatomy who signed off by saying something like I have a severe appearance deficit. My English then was not so well developed like now (Yay! I am now writing columns for newspapers) and it took a few years to realize she meant I was ugly. I never went to work in a shop again. It is the end of the year and this is the time and many Motshelo clubs will be paying ‘dividends’ to their members in the form of groceries and whatever else the Motshelo was formed for. If your Motshelo treasurer did not have the misfortune of being robbed with your savings or nasty rats chowing the Motshelo records she will morph into a Karen.

As she is in charge of buying for club members she develops some haughtiness and sense of importance like a person going to negotiate a diamond deal. Shops know this and treat them as royalty so you hardly ever hear ‘I want to speak to the manager’. But you can tell from their surly facial expressions that they are itching for a fight.

(For comments, feedback and insults email inkspills1969@gmail.com) Thulaganyo Jankey is a Rapporteur and training consultant who runs his own training consultancy that provides training in BQA- accredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email ultimaxtraining@gmail.com.