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Okay, so I do agree that there are certain political reasons why Western young people are having a harder time getting well-paying jobs. Sending work overseas, too much immigration, union-busting, etc.
But one of them ABSOLUTELY is poor social skills. I've noticed this for years, now. Younger generations have worse manners and are off-putting in ways that aren't exactly criminal, but definitely cost them big. They get passed over for promotion and are less likely to be hired in the first place because they're rude.
And if you try telling them that, you'll get an exhausting, tedious, boring confrontation about how you're wrong. They insist there's no connection between social charm and doing a good job, even when social charm effectively is the job.
There's nothing at Starbucks that you can't make at home for much cheaper. It's not about preparing the coffee. It's about the convenience and pleasant experience.
This. Basic, bare-minimum politeness and courtesy to other people is now “emotional labour” that they “don’t have the spoons for”.
Oh god, yes. Like, dude- I do not have to know what your exact mood is at every second. You CAN mask it.
It's 100 percent about the experience, yes -
Sometimes, it's, "I'm going to go ahead and get up early. Get dressed. Go out. Get a coffee", and the coffee is the least of it. It's really all about getting your act together and going out somewhere. Use to be, you would buy coffee and a newspaper, but I mean, maybe a big part of that is if you walked to get there and so there's also a early morning walk.
Sometimes it's about meeting people somewhere other than your house, so no one has to tidy up their house.
But getting coffee like that is 100 percent about the experience more than the coffee itself. You're paying for a spot to sit, or you're paying for an excuse to leave the house, and the coffee itself is the least of it.
God I would be so tempted to pretend to get teary-eyed and say something random like "my niece was an 11-year-old indigenous trans girl named Karen and she died of cancer, thanks for reminding me"
Ermmm, how does she know it was a fake name? She works at Starbucks for crying out loud there's no way she hasn't heard the ridiculous names TIPs and "nonbinaries" pick for themselves like Sock or Cattail. I know plenty of them name themselves after fictional characters, too. She definitely singled you out; I doubt she'd have done the same if you were 19 years old with a spicy haircut.
She just didn't want a 40-something woman to be able to select her own coffee name. Or be able to make any choices or decisions whatsoever. This is the kind of person who feels entitled to our money and entitled to our time and does not think we're actual people at all.
It could absolutely be a last name. I had a regular where I worked whose last name was Batman. It gave me a chuckle every time I ran his card. He did not, in fact, enjoy questions about it.
Kevin Lucia Batman is a deranged multiple personality-faking TIP who used to work for Google and was allowed to write up guidance for Google employees on dealing with him when he's pretending to be, like, a dragon today (saved a copy because WOW). And funnily enough, 'Batman' is his real last name, not one of his batshit chosen ones.
I remember the fruit farms thread on him. Was he the same one who thought he had an alter ego that was a grand, expansive building, or am I mixing that up with another Google employee?
Ha, I don't remember if that was one of his, think that might have been someone else (maybe Liz Fong-Jones, the dude who harassed people into booting the farms off the normal internet? He helped write that guidance).
Melbourne was briefly called Batmania after John Batman. He massacred Aboriginal people so it’s for the best it didn’t end up named after him. Definitely a surname though.
Yeah.
Perhaps OP should have thrown a tantrum and accused the employee of "deadnaming". 🤣
So "Sock" took me out. Lol
How rude -
Starbucks' coffee sucks anyway. I would not go back there if I were you. Pretty much any place else is way better anyway.
ETA: The employee even KNOWS she was in the wrong here, by changing it to "Erin". She knows full well that Karen is a pretty bad slur at the moment. She had the gall to use it on you, right to your face. Had she written "Karen" on the cup, you probably could have taken a photo of that and made some kind of a stink out of it somehow. She even KNOWS she was being an ass. She KNOWS it, and will totally continue that kind of behavior again and again.
Oh yeah, she was definitely worried after the fact.
What gets me is that she was just so quick to pull that out. Like either she was itching for a chance to call some woman Karen or the kids are just using it left and right these days.
I don't care which one it was. Either way, I have a really low opinion of anyone who uses that slur.
This would be sort of like . . . . . . if you had an encounter with a customer service professional and they stuck their finger down their throat and made themself throw up all over you, then I would have a really low opinion of that person and would also know that they have zero skills in customer service.
But if a linebacker with a toddler bow in his hair said his name was "Bellatrix" shed be like "HOLY SHIT OMG YES RUGHT AWAY QUEEN WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR STUNNING BRAVE WOMAN-BALLS GARGLED WHILE YOU WAIT?"
I don't usually go to Starbucks or any place where I'd have to give my name to be written on the cup. But I think the best would be play dumb.
"name?"
"batman"
"you're not supposed to give a fake name"
"what do you mean?"
Are you asking me to deadname myself? Did you just question my identity? What’s next MY GENDER?
Next time tell her “JK Rowling”
Hah. In the unlikely event of this exact set of circumstances happening to me again, I will definitely do that.
Thats crazy that she had some personal stick up her butt about you calling yourself batman because im 100% sure plenty of Starbucks places would say it.
Shes definitely the Karen here
I did wonder while reading if that was an actual Starbucks policy. I would assume giving a funny name is something many people do. And I can't say Starbucks would probably ever want a confronation about "real names" to come up just out of fear.
I am not sure if that employee is weird or if Starbucks is just insane.
You'd assume they write names on the cups to differentiate between customers. In which case, as long as there aren't several Batmans, all is well!
But her saying that they're not "supposed to" ... hm.
I think if I worked at Starbucks, I'd just write whatever the customer says, and if the manager complains, just play dumb. "What? I thought that was her real name"
My sense is the employee is weird. All Starbucks (as a company) cares about is selling coffee. They don't give a fuck if they're selling that caramel macchiato to Mary Poppins or Jeffrey Epstein. I don't think the customer's name is going on any internal records (and if it was internally recorded, Starbucks doesn't take last names/the employee could've easily made up an alias for OP that couldn't be further investigated due to no surname) - just on the cup. Sorry you had a bad experience OP. I think your Batman joke is funny!
Side note: I hate all of the "Karen" this "Karen" that shit. TikTok and most social media in general was a mistake.
fucking hell. I hate that shit. As a feminist, you'd go out of your way to make her life better and she has to treat you as shit. It's women-hating and agism and a rotten streak of just smug behavior. She'll be our age soon enough so I hope she learns some decency toward her fellow women.
I just don't happen to think that every single person has potential -
Somebody slinging around the slur "Karen" like that seems lacking in potential to me. This is somebody who might one day get older, if she lives a bit longer, and if she lives a long enough life to get older, then she is just going to be baffled and confused and angry and blindsided when some people treat her badly.
She missed out on the opportunity to write Robin lol
Well. She didn't want to miss out on an opportunity to use a misogynistic slur on a fellow woman.
I have a lovely friend named Karen and hate that her name has become a nasty thing to say about women. Especially when it's coming from other women.
Rude!
One time an asshole at a taco place did not like my female self thinking she could be the bat. So he called out Robin when my food was ready. I was not impressed.
I give a fake name all the time because my name is hard for people to get right sometimes, so I use something bland, because it doesn't matter, I order and then watch for my drink anyway. It never occurred to me to use "Batman" but I like it.
I have been doing it for years and people usually love it.
I used to go to this one restaurant for lunch almost every single day. They always knew my name without asking and I could tell they got a kick out of calling it out, especially when I was heavily pregnant. I randomly went to another restaurant from the same chain one time and I heard one of the employees say "omg, THAT'S Batman" when they saw my order, like I was an urban legend or something. It was pretty funny.
This gives me the crazy idea that we all should start to give Batman as our name, so when it gets called it's like a bat-signal for having GC views.
As fun as it sounds, making coffee is about all TRAs can do when they’re offline and I don’t want my coffee spit in lol
Give the most difficult to spell/ pronounce name you can think of.
"My name? Sure. It's xysmpcellousephong. The p is silent
Sometimes I like going by Voldemort. If the cashiers know what's up, they write some version of "he who shall not be named" on my cup 😁
It's nice when you can be goofy like that and have someone play along, maybe your barista was a Marvel fan and that's why she was such a killjoy.
“Batman” is adorable, I’ve actually given the name “Fyodor Dostoevsky” before at Zoup so you were being so effing nice lol.
I’m sorry she was such a humorless grump. Starbucks is stupid-woke, you could complain and say that she wasn’t respecting your identity and I would 100% support it.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious was a popular name the year you were born, right?
Well if you want to be petty she misgendered you by picking a name you didn't ask for xD
If we don't want "Karen" to be the meme it is, how would treating it as if it's a slur that holds water be the effective move? Complaining to the manager that the employee used this proper name as an example just further perpetuates that Karen is, and will remain, a slur.
IMO it's smarter to not be offended and treat it as a proper name, and do this en masse until the trend is quashed.
This is exactly what OP did, and not one single person on this board advised otherwise.
There is no "not being offended" by something like this, though, not when it's been used to ruin lives. That's like saying, "Why are you offended that someone pointed a gun at you? Why don't you just ignore it?"
That's like saying, "Why are you offended that someone pointed a gun at you? Why don't you just ignore it?"
Except hearing a word is not at all analogous to being threatened with violence. We criticize how TRAs say words are violence when they are not, and I'm not seeing us apply the same standards to ourselves here. Whatever power language has, it has for all parties.
Basically the discussions I've seen on this topic confuse me in inconsistencies like these.
It's possible for someone to use their words to threaten you. It is definitely possible for someone to use their words plus their camera to threaten you.
I used the gun as an analogy here. If someone is calling a woman "a Karen", then she needs to interpret that as hostility and a possible material threat. This is not a thing where it's just one's own hurt feelings involved - there have been material consequences to women who were called "a Karen". This is not a thing where if "CityBike Karen" or "Central Park Karen" would only just ignore it, then everything would have been fine. This isn't anything like if someone were to call you "ugly". This is something where it's demonstrably a threat and can lead to things like a media outlet telling everyone where you live and then an angry mob knows that.
There's no rule saying you can't go by Batman. As long as it's not inappropriate they shouldn't gaf. Pity her for not having a sense of humor. Maybe their store got a bunch of people giving the name "Trump" or something and this is a reaction to that. Anyway idgaf what others say, I'd be tempted to email the mgr. And I used to be a barista. It's bad for the store if she's pushing people away with her attitude.
I agree. If it were offensive or anything like that sure, and don’t do that to your barista. But Batman is innocuous and OP was with her kids. Just go with it. It’s like a 6 dollar coffee, part of that is the person serving it to you being nice.
IF I were to email the manager, I would do it all in a way that's asking questions. "Is it your store policy that fake names can't be used for coffee? Is it also your store policy that it's OK for the barista's to flat-out call a customer "a Karen" to her face?" Just do it in a way that's asking questions.
Because, it's possible that the management is perfectly fine with and encourages this behavior. It's also possible they don't know this is going on. But it's possible the management at this store would get an email like that and would make every effort to ruin a customer's life.
Really, I would most likely never set foot in that store again though. Does not seem like a very fun or nice environment for the customer. Seems like a total liability to be anywhere near there.
Well, hell. I suppose we all start using our favorite superheroes?
Since she wrote “Erin”, perhaps she actually said Erin instead of Karen?
When I say “like Erin” and “like Karen” out loud they sound indistinguishable, to me.
I don't think so. I saw her face, I saw her body language when she said it. And she didn't look surprised or confused when I said it was obnoxious; she looked embarrassed. I think she wrote Erin for the plausible deniability. Because yes, they're very similar. But they're not indistinguishable. I'm pretty certain she said Karen.
Yeah, she just chickened out in the end. They're all passive-aggressiveness IRL, aggressive-agressiveness on line.
Do you think she was trying to insult you on the sly?
I mean, I don't think she thought it through before she said it. She probably regretted it immediately.
And the thing is, I wasn't nice to her. And by that, I mean that I didn't ask the question apologetically or dripping with sugar. I just didn't pretend to be in the wrong. I pointed out the absurdity of what was happening in a tone that conveyed that I know exactly what the answer to the question should be. Like a school teacher who does not believe the dog ate your homework. Not angry. Not mean. But not having any of this nonsense, either.
And that's all it takes to be a Karen. Existing as a woman and not immediately complying with every demand, no matter how ridiculous. It's so easy to be a Karen, she didn't even stop to think before blurting it out. I find that so crazy and sad.
You're giving her a lot of grace here. I wouldn't give her anywhere near that much grace.
Calling a woman "Karen" like that can take on a whole life of its own and can inflict a lot of harm, and this is something she meant for you. She might have regretted being open about it and blurting it out, or she might have regretted that this is probably something she herself could maybe get in trouble for.
But the fact is, she still meant it. She still means it now and if you go back there, you'd be getting coffee from a barista who means you harm.
Insane, I don't get coffee from coffee stands often, but because it snowed here today I grabbed my mom's favorite drink from Starbucks today for her, and no name was asked.
They have to follow the "process". Attempting to use their brain 🧠 independently could cause the whole system to fail.
I don't like it either; we are def in the Upside Down. Still, the first thing I thought is this is about how angry these young people are, how the first thing they think is vicious. For the whole 'be kind' generation, they are they least friendly, least happy, most aggressive and quick to judge generation I have seen. What the hell hath the internet and the destruction of education wrought?
Right? The "be kind" generation is the cruelest generation I've ever seen, and they're getting worse by the decade.
"Be kind" is now code for "submit". Convince me otherwise.
Agreed, although I tend to like phrasing it as 'be kind' is the new 'keep sweet and obey.'
Its literally just the secular version of "keep sweet"
every person who makes being kind their whole personality is more often than not a terrible person, theyre fake hippies with terrible music and less drugs/more alcohol (coming from the experience of being part of said generation lol)
There's this quote they pass around about how some people say respect to mean treating everyone fairly, and some say it to mean treating someone as an authority. Hence why really entitled baby boomers think you're 'disrespecting' them by like, having green hair in a church or something.
I think the thing is we just reinvent that all the time without self awareness. Like people say every generation thinks the young people are rude and out of control...but does not every blossoming generation think they've somehow cracked the code like no one else has on morals/society/economics/politics?
The ideology of blindness to our own biased but dogpiling on made up ideological, semantically differences is really the same. It's the same fit over made up generational rules and etiquette.
You're right. I think each generation as a whole (can't point to every individual) has a different and ever-evolving sense of how to behave as culture changes/as they shape culture. That being said, I do think there is something to the idea that younger generations (as a collective) are more focused on the self (how the self is perceived, how the self feels in any given moment, how the self ought to be prioritized, etc...) than previous generations. This isn't to say that prior generations haven't been/aren't selfish, but I do think social media strongly incentivizes and encourages this behavior (and imparts a more inward focus on users).
I think more than anything, the young woman in the story was probably having a not-so pleasant morning and wasn't exactly amused by OP's joke. She probably made the Karen comment without fully thinking through the repercussions. In all, it sounds like she's young and trying to get her footing in the world. While I disagree with how the cashier handled this situation, I think we can all give more grace in our interpretation of what she said. Perhaps she even thought she was being funny/joking with OP, though I don't actually buy this line of thought. It's just a bit jarring to me, as an old fogy (to your point about generations having different social norms and etiquette), to read about. I also think there is something to be said for certain social norms and etiquette transcending generations (and defending the continuation of their practice). I happen to think "service with professionalism (rather than a smile)" is something worth preserving.
Tbt, I have never heard "be kind" until I got on ovarit. Not once, not ever, and I live in the Bay Area. It is a very specific language, I think, reserved mostly for the internet. I never heard it when I was teaching at the university either.
It’s all over the kids clothes at Target, and now it’s on adult clothes too
I have a toddler daughter. I get gifted so many shirts that say some variation of "be kind". I fucking hate it
It’s the American left’s version of “keep sweet.”
Girls’ clothes, right? I’ve never ever seen this in the boys’ section
No, boys clothes, too, actually; my son had one (it was a hand me down but it came from target originally), too.
I haven't looked into how the phrase became associated with the TQ crowd, but I actually think it was millennials that started it, not gen Z. It evokes vague memories of brush-script "inspirational" quotes on Pinterest boards (i think the full quote is smth like "in a world where you can be anything, be kind") and I've occasionally seen signs in peoples windows with "be kind" (I live in an east coast city)
I am so happy I aged out of this nonsense. "Be Kind" are words that should never be uttered by a feminist or activist.
I did some quick searching to find where it originated, and I'm seeing it associated with a few anti-bullying campaigns in schools. Which, at least makes some sense in that context, since kids are just cruel to anyone that's a little different. Unsure how or when it got appropriated by the TQ crowd, but it's unsurprising they had to steal another movement.
well and the association with children. they love that. they want to be treated like children--indulged, spoiled (not that children are, just that that is the fantasy). They do not want to be adults.
The first time I heard "be kind" was as the catchphrase for Ellen Degeneres' talk show
It's more of a thing in woke social media in my experience— that is, "be kind" as a way to scold people (women) into compliance.
I've seen "be kind" as a generic inspirational saying on posters, stationery, Facebook inspirational pictures, cross stitch patterns, etc. from at least 10 years ago. That was from when it was just meant to express genuine positivity and goodwill. Somewhere on the last 5-10 years, it changed into a way to berate women and tell them to shut up and submit. Since I've seen it used that way most often on woke Twitter by far, that's where I think this change in usage occurred.
Come north to Oregon, especially the cities. Here is an example of just one yard sign I've seen.
where is the vomit emoji? And, AHEM, isn't this the very state in which everyone turned a BLIND EYE ON VIOLENCE against WOMEN????!!!
Oh, they only mean the women. Be a nice little servant, smile, and suffer in silence. Don't you dare talk about the violence or worse have an opinion(!), because that will just make everyone upset.
It’s on yard signs in my area, probably an attempt to cancel out the Trump flags.
They’re only taught how to be kind behind a screen when someone else is telling them what to say and liking their post so they know if they should edit/delete it to be the right version of “kind”
I am part of a dog group, a young woman commented about acquiring a puppy (reaching out to breeders) she’d qualified her statement by first apologising if she hadn’t got the terminology right (“I’m learning from the community”) and then saying she’d prefer an lgbtqia+Bipoc breeder - baring in mind there’s about 6 of these rare dogs in the whole country 🤣
I’d be angry as hell too if I was living like this, constantly terrified of offending people, and thinking everything I did had to somehow lift up a marginalised group
Sure. Get a badly bred, abused little monster that will eat your neighbor's child. What could go wrong?
This is what I hate about everything DEI. With dogs, you absolutely want a breeder who is good at breeding. You should give a fuck about all else that doesn't affect the outcome of the dog. I'm not kidding. If I were committed to getting a certain breed of dog, I'd put everything else aside for a top breeder.
Do you breed silken windhounds and windsprites that have fascinated me lately? Are you the best breeder in the country? Do you hate white women who have mixed kids? That's okay, I don't have to tell you that info about me, just take my money and give me the cutest in the litter.
Are you a peace loving hippie who loves fairies? But your dogs are aggressive, riddled with health problems and vomit every day? Fuck off.
I'd be wary of anyone who said "I'm a dog breeder AND I have a Gender Identity!" What, like that's some sort of plus for me? That helps me get a better dog in what way, exactly?
That’s so weird, it was a post about silken windhounds 🤯 did you see it too?!
......no? COSMIC!
So what you're telling me is: you have a silken windhound and I don't? Well, that's my evening shot to hell.
I don’t actually! But I have located a breeder who lives 20 minutes from me 🤯 I’ve chatted to another breeder who put me in touch with her (they’re a close knit community) and I’m going to visit her and meet her dogs. I’m just meeting them for future stuff though because I have an 11 year old dog who won’t let me have a puppy 😆 I petted a dog yesterday and she got very upset with me, she’s a jealous little thing. It is my plan though, aren’t they magical 😭
Well, when your dog meet her higher reward, I hope you get your windhound!
Thank you 😊 Maybe one day!
But seriously, Gen Z and Millennials, and plenty of Gen X- don't understand representation in certain fields. It makes sense to have women as OB/GYNs. It makes sense to have black teachers in schools with high drop out rates in largely black schools, because they're very in touch with the community and can probably do more to convince students to keep going and graduate.
None of these have to be hard, set in stone rules, but they are helpful. Maybe the teacher who convinced a kid to stick with his studies happened to be a white teacher. Nonetheless, it might be helpful to that student to see black adults with degrees living happy, productive, middle class lives.
With dog breeding that makes no freaking sense, though. Dog breeding is not about working with people. It's about breeding a quality dog.
"Yeah, but I want to uplift the LGBTQIAABLERGH community, though!"
Uh, no. Donate to a charity, then. You are investing a lot of money into getting a dog. If it goes wrong, it can cause a lot of heartache. For you, AND for the dog. This is one of those situations where you should be 100% self-interested.
Agree 100%
They really are. They are humorless too. It wasn’t like she was making them write something offensive, she had kids with her who probably like it. Just play along. “It costs you nothing to be kind!!”
They are constantly in a struggle against their own biology and logic, actively looking for ways to get offended, no clear time to think for themselves, and Social media doomscroll telling them they are inadequate in every conceivable way
They only run their mouth like that when they think they can get away with it. I guarantee she wouldn't have been such a little smart ass outside of her 'safe' space.