It’s true, asking for a refund doesn’t necessarily make you a “Karen“. There’s a vast difference between “having a problem and politely but firmly expecting that they provide what’s been paid for” and “abusing some underpaid customer-facing employee who is neither at fault for the situation or able to fix it”. Here’s a thread about it:
(via: Vellum and Vinyl)
Spot on! Asking for a refund — politely — for missing or incorrect stuff does not make someone a Karen. Taking your frustrations out on the poor cashier, deliverer, or other customer serice worker that happens to be the one handling your request does. Some good guidelines are:
– be polite when asking for a problem to be fixed
– start from the assumption the mistake was just that: an accident, and not someone deliberately trying to screw you over
– assume you and the worker you’re dealing with are on the same side, and both working to fix the problem you have encountered
– if you absolutely have to ask for a manager, make it clear that you don’t want to complain about the initial worker, just that you need someone with the authority to make the situation right
These aren’t guaranteed to work 100% of the time, of course, but if you start out nice you can always escalate later in the rare event that it’s really justified. If you start the interaction mean and unkind, you’ve got nowhere else to go from there.