If you’ve had access to the internet, then I’ll make the educated guess that you’ve heard of “Karens” before. If not, let me describe them to you: think of the most whiney, annoying, bossy, unforgiving, impatient person you have ever met with one of the most whiney, annoying, unforgiving, impatient voices you have ever heard, and then think of a person that’s ten times worse.
That’s the typical Karen for you.
Usually, they’re portrayed as older women, but I believe that anyone can fill this trope. Just find any snobby customer yelling at a minimum wage worker over something that is not their fault or a neighbor who thinks they own the entire neighborhood harassing workers that are just doing their job and you can slap the label “Karen” right on their foreheads. But I’m not about to spend an entire article mansplaining how horrible Karens are. I want to talk about their victims instead: the workers. No, not your successful corporate businessman or the owner of a multi-million restaurant business. I’m talking about minimum-wage workers. The cashiers at TJ Maxx. The servers at McDonald’s. The people who mow your lawn. None of these jobs make anyone less human, yet Karens see them as the perfect people to berate and dehumanize. And I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of it.
I’ll admit it, I’ve never worked a minimum-wage job before, so I don’t know everything about the full experience. But my sisters and my closest friends have, so they fill me in on what the whole experience is like. To summarize in as little words as possible, it sucks. I’m sure most of you who have worked these kinds of jobs already know this. But to those of you who don’t, do you really think spending hours cleaning up after people, forcing a smile when you’re on the brink of tears, and getting yelled at by some stranger is fun? You don’t have to be Einstein to know it isn’t. But regardless of everything they have to deal with already, a Karen comes by and decides to cause even more problems. Although there are some instances where workers are irresponsible and deserve a harsh lecture, most of the time they were just doing their jobs. Do they really deserve to be verbally and sometimes physically abused because a Karen isn’t happy? No! They don’t! So let’s get to the real meat of this essay.
Be kind to the minimum-wage workers. If you’re having a bad day, they’re probably having a bad day too. So don’t make it worse by taking your anger out on them. Uplift them instead. Ask them how they’re doing. Compliment their hair. Tell them to have a wonderful day. Tip them if you can. It’s also okay to correct them if they made a mistake on your order, but be polite about it. Most workers are so overwhelmed by their jobs that they easily miss small details. So when you’re given a chocolate shake instead of a vanilla one, I better hear “excuse me”, “please”, and “it’s okay” when you go back up to the counter (never forget to forgive as well. I know it can be annoying, but making genuine mistakes is just a part of being human, and no one should be punished for that).
I think that Gen Z has more experience with minimum-wage jobs, so it’s easier for us to show respect to other workers and defend them when we need to. But not all of us are perfect, and there are still many more Karens out there who continue to mistreat people. So I’m sorry to sound like a broken record, but I really mean it: treat others with respect. You don’t know what others go through, so choose to be a light in their stormy days, not another tornado. And by showing kindness to someone who needs it, they’ll show it to more people and create a chain of it. Hopefully that chain will be long enough to connect the entire world one day.