Don’t be a Karen… be kind
When I was born, the name Karen peaked in the top three names given to newborn girls. I (Bob) doubt many parents are naming their daughters “Karen” these days.
The word has come to epitomize those who are quick to complain, quick to say “get me the manager”, and especially middle to upper-class white women complaining about people of color.
The term highlights a loss of civil discourse, tolerance, classism, and racism. I feel for all of those women, born in my generation who now share the name that represents negativity, no matter how positive they are in their normal lives.
As a business owner and an event planner, I have to deal with people when things go wrong. We have processes and procedures in place to handle customer service issues like cancellations, people checked into the wrong room category, and all sorts of unexpected issues that come up at our events.
While our events are not like most other “conventions”, the interactions are the same, whether checking people into one of our Naughty Events or taking an order at a fast food restaurant, cashing a check at a bank, interacting with airlines when traveling, and so on. Customer service issues are similar no matter what business you are in because two things are always constant:
1. People are humans and they will have feelings and emotions (both positive and negative).
2. Things can go wrong.
What I have seen over the years, especially over the past 10 years, is an ever-increasing sense of intolerance towards customer service and a greater sense of entitlement.
In the past, asking for a supervisor was a reasonable approach, after spending time with lower-level customer service representatives to solve an issue. Often approval for some remedies simply was not possible at lower levels so going “up the chain” was needed to get approval for refunds or credits or solutions not possible at the lowest levels.
When dealing with internet or phone troubles, I often was kicked up to higher levels by people with more technical abilities and options to remedy whatever issues I had. This was the standard workflow built into customer service solutions worldwide.
Now, that reasonable workflow has been replaced with people insisting to jump all of the steps to go right to the top or at least until someone gets their way. Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube are all full of videos of people acting like this “Karen” stereotype.
“The squeaky wheel gets the grease” is a metaphor representing the tactic that if you keep being heard, you will get your remedy. Initially, it meant perseverance to me. Don’t give up.
But now it has become to mean that the loudest person will get what they want, whether they deserve it or not. And loud is a term I cannot emphasize enough. We have gotten into a cycle that rewards bad behavior and teaches people that the louder and more unreasonable they get, the faster they will get their way because the customer service person just wants to get rid of them.
Recently, Southwest had what was called a “meltdown” but the reaction from many customers was the real meltdown. Customers were screaming at gate agents, pilots, and flight attendants. They were mad that their flights were canceled and they were not going to stand for it. But there was nothing that could be done, no matter how high they jumped up and down, no matter how loud they got, their flights were not going to happen. So why make a scene?
It's not just yelling at customer service, people are losing all sense of civility and escalating from simply shouting to actual violence. Below are examples of when people got out of control and couldn’t handle the situation in a respectful manner.
After more and more fights within its theme parks, Disney posted the following notices at their entrances:
"We ask all who come to this happy place to treat others with respect, kindness, and compassion. To help guests have a safe and enjoyable experience, we regularly update our Disneyland resort rules."
This loss of discourse didn’t happen overnight, it is a long downward spiral of intolerance fed by social media, Reddit, and the declining values in politics.
At Naughty Events, we try our best to handle every situation as professionally and compassionately as possible. Some things are just outside our ability to fix and we ask everyone to bring tolerance along with your condoms and costumes when arriving for one of our events.
The people at the desk checking you in are volunteers, working for free. They love checking people in, having a chance to meet more people, and even flirting with people from time to time. Screaming at volunteers will not only fail to solve your issue, but it will also let these attendees know who not to hang out with over the weekend.
We treat every issue equally, no matter how loud someone gets, but patience and politeness will be appreciated and awarded with our very best efforts. If you become unreasonable, we may ask for a timeout or a break until you calm down.
Sometimes it takes time, we need to get the right person to address the situation, and often those people are tied up, working on other issues, or are away from their desk/office the moment an issue comes up.
Rest assured that our goal is to efficiently and correctly serve all of our attendees, with respect and professionalism. So if you don’t like your room, you are checked into the wrong room category or they can’t find your name, don’t worry, we have people that can get it all worked out. While it may take a couple of minutes, Tess, Nicki, and our team of supervisors are happy to help you resolve any situations and start off your Naughty adventure on the right foot.
So remember when you pack your suitcase to bring plenty of lube, sexy outfits, and fun toys, but also bring a sense of adventure and a carry-on full of tolerance and patience.
See you soon at a Naughty Event or cruise.