The 'Karen' Syndrome

America's latest Karen -

 

Saw a very rude Karen today in the shopping precinct.

 

How sad that such people are so miserable with their lives that they have to spread it on others....

 

True I try to avoid them.

 

I've decided to rid myself of negative people that I can avoid. Well, more negative than I am anyway...

 

I did that years ago.

 

Karen really wanted those donuts. Maybe she had the munchies.
Um, now that I think of it, no, unless the weed had crack in it.
I hope the workers put plenty of Ex Lax in her next PSL.

 

So...wanting attention, playing the victim when called out on their assholery...isn't there a word for that?

 

Oh lord I hope I don’t get sucked into politics on here too lol…I’ve been locked out of Twitter and Facebook for weeks at a time for spouting off at the mouth at racists, bigots, transphobes and sexists.

 

I would be hard put to say there has ever been a meaningful left movement in the US. I grew up in rural Wisconsin on the 50s and 60s and my graduation class of 537 students and we had 0.0% black students and less than .1% Hispanic…no diversity. And this was the State the elected Robert Lafolette. And more recently Mc Carthy and Scott Walker! In much of American any progressive policy is off the table. The good news is that unions are coming out of decline and counteract the blizzard of shit from the right.

 

The left would be much more apparent and effective if the electoral college could be done away with. I have been in several unions and sure as hell know the difference in employees are treated in union shops and non union shops.

 

I remember the time when the unions intervened after I told my staff that I expected them to do a fair days work and help each other where they were capable, regardless of the job, even if it just involved making someone a cup of tea.

A few months later, the company started making redundancies, due to people sitting around and watching others work.
The staff soon shut up when no one lost their jobs, because they were busy all the time. They also admitted that they enjoyed the varied work and it certainly beat watching how slowly clocks go around.
I remember the day when one guy did not even notice that his shift had ended half an hour ago, he told me that he would go home when he had finished what he was doing.

I am not against unions ensuring that people are treated fairly, but all too often they end up having to support lazy and incompetent employees. The car manufacturing disputes that ended up with everyone loosing their jobs was a typical example.
I also believe that productivity bonuses lead to nothing except shoddy and rushed work. Why should anyone get paid less for doing their job properly.?

 

My favorite Karen story was the time when an extrovert gay guy was shopping at Gap.
He was complaining about the pin that had been left in the tight jeans that he had just tried on.
Then along came Karen (the duty manager) and to the amusement of everyone in the shop, announced to the customer in her loud shrieking voice, "I am sure that it is not the first time that you have had a prick up the ass".
The tribunal rejected her claim for unfair dismissal.

 

(I don’t think you’re bashing unions or all unions.) When I was younger, 90’s to early 2000’s I used to think that some unions were evil and just wanted to intentionally work against businesses. I believed the theory pushed by conservatives that if we got rid of at least those unions the businesses would then reward its workers and treat employees better because they would be able to make them more money.
After my entire adult life in the workforce (I’m 45 today) I can tell you that theory is dead wrong. Your employer will do everything in their power to get everything they can from you no matter what because the only thing that matters to them at all is money.
My father worked for the UAW as a welder for 30 years doing a hyper repetitive task in a miserable environment but they made sure he was paid well, treated well and he retired with a pension that will last his entire life. He has carpal tunnel and arthritis and a few other health issues from his job and is taken care of without that union he would be dead and the billionaires he worked for wouldn’t care one bit and would likely toast the occasion on their yachts.

GM, conservatives and others blame the union for GM troubles in the early 2000’s that all the money they spend on compensation for the assembly line workers. Golden parachutes they called them. The real problem is that GM executives have pushed a third rate product for the last 20 years they hadn’t cared about their product or it’s quality. The workers cared the execs didn’t. My father among others said if an employee pulled in the parking lot in a non gm vehicle it wouldn’t drive back out. The employees were so loyal they would vandalize that car to include smashing the windows cutting the tires pour sugar in the gas and even confront the driver.
The execs that didn’t put really any thought or heart into the vehicle were all rewarded. The CEO that was fired during the bailout walked away with 300 million dollars as severance for doing a bad job. Many were rewarded and they blame the lazy employees. My father said every couple years they’d find an employee dead because they loved the company so much they’d work 20 hours days at a time and sleep for a few hours in a crate or something and get accidentally locked in.
We need to get back to unions because that stuff would happen more often and people would be as poorly compensated as possible. Even if it makes us err on the side of being less productive. Americans are too productive, we’ve allowed ourselves to become exploited and it needs to take a hard swing back the other way. Would it be so bad if the worker was held in a higher regard than the capitalist?
I, and many others will never have it like my father does but every hard working human being deserves it.

The golden age of the middle class is what we should aim back towards.

 

Remember the ugly story of the Vega plant in the early 70’s?

 

Afraid that was a little ahead of my time and I couldn’t find anything in a very quick search because I’m going in to work

 

Unfortunately their is no simple answer to unfairness and you are correct in thinking that I am not against the necessity of unions when people are being exploited.
Your example of the boss who could replace his yacht with his settlement made me laugh. I imagine that his wealth was inherited and he would probably blow everything that his family had worked hard for, long before he retired.

From your reply, I am assuming that you are in the US. With the exception of miners and train drivers, unions thinking that they rule the country is far less of a problem here in the UK. Most of the time, they work to avoid discrimination, but people often try to exploit a minor incident and waste their time.
Since I don't recall chatting in the past, you may not have realised that my comments were based on highly skilled engineers working in the theater and film industry, in situations such as our royal film performance. Having also worked in cardio thoracic surgery over the years, they include working in the medical field.

Back in my college days, I wrote an essay on how I saw life at the time or my retirement.
Seeing the introduction of computerization and automation, I gave the example of my mothers department being computerised, reducing the staffing from 3,000 to 17. I predicted from this that by now we would be working a 16 hour week.

It all went wrong, when the percentage of money a family spent on food dropped from 80 th 20 and people who had the jobs bought their houses, increasing house prices in London by 2,000%. When my mother bought our house it represented one years salary, that house is currently valued at two million. Who earns that in a year. It is a 2 bedroom terraced house in Fulham, a similar house in Westminster costs twelve million.

It all saddens me for future generations, I knew the answers in 1960, but people just laughed
Everything is going the same way. At the start of 2020, everyone was wondering whether they were going to make it to 2021.
No one is now publishing the fact that our 2020 mortality rate was 1.7% up on 2019 (the lowest rate in recorded history) and LOWER than 2017.

PS,
During this recording, my thought was that I would exchange my life for that of Valentina Lisitsa any day.
Even if I was offered a few million to kick a ball around a field.

 

Before I got into the trade I followed for 45--50 years , I worked for an auto plant in Milpitas,California spot welding dashboards on the line like a trained monkey. Management would sneak up and speed the line up secretly breaking the contract rules. They were always trying to add additional tasks to jobs trying to eliminate other jobs. (We had our ways of getting back at them. ) Worked in the oil fields ( for a huge well known company)and one example of their concern for employees--a long time employee screwed his hand up pretty bad in some machinery and they made him somehow come to work and just pass his time sitting in the gang truck while the other workers did the work. He was hurting pretty bad, but they didn't want to "ruin " their bullshit safety record.

But, it really has pissed me off when union leaders go crooked and betray the trust of the work force.