I opened a restaurant, then I opened another one. I had never worked in the restaurant business or in a retail setting; I had never been exposed to customer service and the public at large prior to jumping into the deep end with a business built around exactly that. I found that most people are just fine, but 1 in 1000 are entitled irredeemable assholes. Still, those are pretty good odds.
These are not hard statistics I’ve pulled from a research paper, but my opinion based on anecdotal evidence gathered while serving tens of thousands, and I believe it to be a good estimate. Most people, the majority of people, when required to interact with other humans do so without much trouble, even when there are disagreements, misunderstandings, or mistakes, people generally manage to navigate those social waters without resorting to shouting, name calling, or childish rants. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, and I’d say those exceptions run about 0.1% of the population.
When you own a restaurant you get to talk to each one of that 0.1%. Most customers leave happy with a full belly, some leave unhappy but appeased with an apology or a free meal, but there are some people that just want to watch the world burn and those people definitely want to talk to the manager.
The term “Karen” as a derogatory label for entitled white women is new, it wasn’t around when I owned restaurants, but I love it’s sudden popularity because you know exactly what I’m talking about, the 1 in 1000 people, those people are “Karens”. To be clear, in my experience entitled assholes come in a rainbow variety, it is a demographic than spans sex, age, and race. So I am referencing a behaviour and attitude towards others, and not any narrowly defined socio-economic racial or sexual bracket, although I acknowledge that white ladies are well represented in the group. (The internet can’t seem to agree if a “male Karen” is a Ken, Kyle, or Chad, but white dudes are definitely pulling their weight here too)
As an interlude, a shout-out to the many wonderful people actually named Karen, of which I know a few lovely examples, I’m sorry the internet turned your name into a meme. Boogie Nights came out when I was in College, so I feel your pain. My advise is to lean into it, take part in the joke. I have a special shirt that says, "I am Dirk Diggler!"
Talking to all those awful people, the 1 in 1000, it gave me a distorted view of what people are like. I began to think every other person had a black heart and was willing to go to war over cold French fries. It was slowly sucking the life out of me and it’s why I started to look at the numbers. I knew my viewpoint was being distorted and so I retreated to my science background and looked at the data. I compared how many people we served to our complaints. After eliminating genuine complaints, the sort that are a routine part of a restaurant’s operation, things that can be fixed, re-heated, re-made, apologized for, or discounted, you’re left with the folks that were determined to use the nuclear option. It’s this look at the data that makes me confident in saying that 99.9% of people are cool, and it made me feel better.
It also allowed me to have a better attitude when dealing with irrationally aggressive people. I picture myself as a primate behavioural scientist. These interactions now have narration in my head, like David Attenborough’s voice over a wilderness documentary, “It appears as if one of the apes has escaped its enclosure. Let’s wait and see how it reacts. Oh how unfortunate, it appears to be throwing its poo at passersby. Common aggressive behaviour when they are confused or upset.”
The internet emboldens people. It’s easier to be irrational, rude, and demanding when you don’t have to look anyone in the eye. The internet also magnifies their existence, technology makes those 1 in a 1000 people seem like they are everywhere. Viral videos rarely feature rational people calmly discussing their differences, it’s mostly morons yelling at each other. You see spite and small mindedness wrapped up like it’s virtue and righteousness. You see delusion and magical thinking masquerading as facts and thoughtful opinion. You see a lack of empathy and disregard for others being sold as an honourable fight for freedom.
Perhaps you’ve seen some “news” about people in your town behaving in shocking ways. What is going on in your life that you are yelling at a minimum wage employee that makes coffee!? How trashy and disrespectful and disgusting do you have to be to purposely cough on a stranger!? How deluded and entitled to berate an “essential worker” for asking you to submit to a minor inconvenience and comply with a government mandate based on universally accepted medical advise designed to save other people’s lives! You’ve seen the videos, you know what I’m talking about.
These things can leave you feeling despondent and depressed about people, at least it does to me. If you feel that way, I want you to know that I’ve done the math and 99.9% of people are cool. I’ve got charts and stuff to prove it, trust me. I bring this up to remind myself, and maybe you, that our view is being distorted. We are locked in our homes experiencing other people through viral videos and personalized feeds programmed to monetize our desire for drama. Those people in the videos don’t represent people, they represent themselves and a small impotent army of jerks. Most people, the vast majority, are pretty great, and we would all do well to remember that.
Karens (combative attention seeking egocentric jerks) feed on the destruction they sow. I found that polite nodding is a good technique. If you ignore them they throw a tantrum and shout themselves out, like a toddler, and then you can move on with your day. We give them far too much press and space in our collective consciousness. Try the internal narration by David Attenborough, I highly recommend it.
Finally, please be nice to your Server. It’s a challenging job under normal circumstances and this is far from normal. A Server’s job is to be polite, helpful, and bring you food and drink. I want to assure you that if you manage to turn that into an unpleasant adversarial experience, that it is definitely your problem, you are absolutely the asshole in that situation. Be kind, be polite, enjoy your experience outside the house, and tip generously. Be one of the cool people.
Dec 14